Many people made valuable contributions to this novel. First among
them, in terms  of overall impact,  was our editor,  Lou Aronica.  His
early comments  shaped  the  structure  of the  whole  novel  and  his
insightful final editing  significantly strengthened the  flow of  the
book.
    Our good  friend and  polymath Gerry  Snyder was  again  extremely
helpful, generously tackling any  technical problem, whether large  or
small. If the  medical passages  in the  story are  accurate and  have
verisimilitude, then credit should go to Dr. Jim Willerson. Any errors
in the same passages are strictly the responsibility of the authors.
    During the early writing, Jihei Akita went out of his way to  help
us find the proper locations for the Japanese scenes. He also was more
than willing to discuss at length both the customs and history of  his
nation. In Thailand, Ms. Watcharee Monviboon was an excellent guide to
the marvels of that country.
    The novel deals in considerable detail with women, especially  the
way they feel and think. Both  Bebe Barden and Stacey Lee were  always
available for conversations about the nature of the female. Ms. Barden
was also especially helpful with the ideas for the life and poetry  of
Benita Garcia.
    Stacey Kiddoo Lee made many direct contributions to
    vr ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    The Garden of Rama, but it was her unselfish support of the entire
effort that was absolutely critical.  During the writing of the  novel
Stacey also  gave birth  to her  fourth son,  Travis Clarke  Lee.  For
everything, Stacey, thank you very much.
    NICOLE'S JOURNAL
    r
    29 December 2200 "Two nights ago, at 10:44
    I Greenwich time on the
    Earth, Simone Tiasso  Wakefield greeted  the universe.  It was  an
incredible experience. I thought I had felt powerful emotions  before,
but nothing in  my life-not the  death of my  mother, not the  Olympic
gold medal in Los Angeles, not my thirty-six hours with Prince  Henry,
and not even  the birth  of Genevieve under  the watchful  eyes of  my
father at the hospital  in Tours-was as intense  as my joy and  relief
when I finally heard Simone's first cry.
    Michae! had predicted that the baby would arrive on Christmas Day.
In his usual lovable way, he told us that he believed God was going to
"give us  a sign"  by having  our spacechild  born on  Jesus'  assumed
birthday. Richard scoffed,  as my husband  always does when  Michael's
religious fervor gets carried away. But after I felt the first  strong
contractions on Christmas Eve, even Richard almost became a believer.
    I slept  fitfully  the  night  before  Christmas.  Just  before  I
awakened, I had a deep, vivid dream. I was walking beside our pond  at
Beauvois, playing with my pet duck Du-
    4 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LCE
    nois and his wild mallard companions, when I heard a voice calling
me. I could not  identify the voice,  but I definitely  knew it was  a
woman speaking. She told me that  the birth was going to be  extremely
difficult and that I would need every  bit of my strength to bring  my
second child into the light.
    On Christmas itself, after we  exchanged the simple presents  that
each of us had clandestinely ordered from the Ramans, I began to train
Michael and Richard for a range of possible emergencies. I mink Simone
would indeed have been born on Christmas Day if my conscious mind  had
not been  so aware  that neither  of  the two  men was  even  remotely
prepared to help me in case of a major problem. My will alone probably
delayed the baby's birth those final two days.
    One of the contingency procedures we discussed on Christmas was  a
breech baby. A couple  of months ago, when  my unborn baby girl  still
had some freedom of movement inside my womb, I was fairly certain that
she was upside down.  But I thought she  had turned around during  the
last week  before she  dropped into  the birth  position. I  was  only
partially correct. She  did manage  to come headfirst  down the  birth
canal; however, her face was upward, toward my stomach, and after  the
first serious set of contractions, the  top of her little head  became
awkwardly wedged against my pelvis.
    In a hospital on Earth the physician would probably have performed
a cesarean section. Certainly  a doctor would have  been on guard  for
fetal stress  and  at  work  early with  all  the  robot  instruments,
striving to turn Si-mone's head around before she wedged into such  an
uncomfortable position.
    Toward the end the  pain was excruciating.  In between the  strong
contractions driving her against my unyielding bones, I tried to  yell
out orders  to Michael  and Richard.  Richard was  almost useless.  He
could not deal with my  pain (or "the mess,"  as he later called  it),
much less  either assist  with  the episiotomy  or use  the  makeshift
forceps we had  obtained from  the Ramans. Michael,  bjess his  heart,
sweat pouring off  his forehead  despite the cool  temperature in  the
room, struggled gallantly to follow my sometimes
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA 5
    incoherent instructions. He used the  scalpel from my kit to  open
me up wider and then, after only a moment's hesitation due to all  the
blood, he found Simone's head with the forceps. Somehow he managed, on
his third attempt, both to force  her backward in the birth canal  and
to turn her over so she could be born.
    Both men screamed  when she  crowned. I kept  concentrating on  my
breathing pattern, worried  that I might  not maintain  consciousness.
Despite the  intense  pain,  I  too bellowed  when  my  next  powerful
contraction shot Simone forward into Michael's hands. As the father it
was Richard's  job  to  cut  the  umbilical  cord.  When  Richard  had
finished, Michael lifted Simone  up for me to  see. "It's a girl,"  he
said with tears in his  eyes. He laid her softly  on my stomach and  I
rose up slightly  to look  at her. My  first impression  was that  she
looked exactly like my mother.
    I forced myself to stay alert until the placenta was removed and I
had finished stitching,  with Michael's  assistance, the  cuts he  had
made with the scalpel. Then I collapsed. I don't remember many details
from the next  twenty-four hours. I  was so tired  from the labor  and
delivery (my contractions were down to five minutes apart eleven hours
before Simone was actually bora) that I slept at every opportunity. My
new daughter nursed readily, without any urging, and Michael  .insists
that she even nursed once or  twice while I was only partially  awake.
My milk now surges into my breasts immediately after Simone begins  to
suckle. She seems quite satisfied  when she's finished. I'm  delighted
that my milk is adequate for her-I  was worried that I might have  the
same problem that I had with Genevieve.
    One of the two men  is beside me every  time I wake up.  Richard's
smiles  always  seem  a  little  forced,  but  they  are   appreciated
nevertheless. Michael is  quick to place  Simone in my  arms or at  my
breasts when I am  awake. He holds her  comfortably, even when she  is
crying, and keeps mumbling, "She's beautiful."
    At the  moment  Simone  is  sleeping  beside  me  wrapped  in  the
quasi-blanket manufactured by the Ramans (it is extremely difficult to
define fabrics, particularly quality  words like soft,  in any of  the
quantitative terms that our
    6 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    hosts can understand). She  does indeed look  like my mother.  Her
skin is quite  dark, maybe even  darker than mine,  and the thatch  of
hair on her head  is jet black.  Her eyes are a  rich brown. With  her
head still coned  and misshapen from  the difficult birth,  it is  not
easy to call Simone beautiful. But of course Michael is right. She  is
gorgeous. My  eyes can  readily  see the  beauty beyond  the  fragile,
reddish creature breathing with such frantic rapidity. Welcome to  the
world, Simone Wakefield.
    2
    6January2201 I have been depressed now
    I for two days. And tired,
    oh, so tired. Even though  I am well aware  that I have a  typical
case of postpartum syndrome, I have been unable to relieve my feelings
of depression.
    This morning was the worst. I woke before Richard and lay  quietly
on my portion of the  mat. I looked over  at Simone, who was  sleeping
peacefully in the Raman cradle  against the wall. Despite my  feelings
of love for her,  I could not manage  any positive thoughts about  her
future. The glow of ecstasy that  had surrounded her birth and  lasted
for seventy-two hours  had completely vanished.  An endless stream  of
hopeless observations and unanswerable questions kept running  through
my mind. What kind of  life will you have,  my little Simone? How  can
we, your parents, possibly provide for your happiness?
    My darling daughter,  you live  with your parents  and their  good
friend Michael O'Toole  in an  underground lair  onboard a  gargantuan
spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin. The  three adults in your  life
are all cosmonauts  from the  planet Earth, part  of the  crew of  the
Newton expedition
    8 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    sent to investigate  a cylindrical worldlet  called Rama almost  a
year ago. Your mother, father, and General O'Toole were the only human
beings still onboard this alien  craft when Rama abruptly changed  its
trajectory to avoid  being annihilated by  a nuclear phalanx  launched
from a paranoid Earth.
    Above our lair is an island city of mysterious skyscrapers,  which
we call New  York. It is  surrounded by a  frozen sea that  completely
circles this huge  spacecraft and  cuts it  in half.  At this  moment,
according to your father's calculations, we are just inside the  orbit
of Jupiter (although the great gasball itself is way over on the other
side  of  the  Sun),  following  a  hyperbolic  trajectory  that  will
eventually leave the solar system altogether. We do not know where  we
are going. We do not know who  built this spaceship or why they  built
it. We know  there are other  occupants onboard, but  we have no  idea
where they came from and, in addition, have reason to suspect that  at
least some of them may be hostile.
    Over and over my thoughts the last two days have continued in this
same pattern. Each time I come  to the same depressing conclusion:  It
is inexcusable that we, as supposedly mature adults, would bring  such
a helpless  and innocent  being  into an  environment about  which  we
understand so little and over which we have absolutely no control.
    Early this  morning, as  soon  as I  realized  that today  was  my
thirty-seventh birthday, I began to cry. At first the tears were  soft
and soundless, but as  the memories of all  my past birthdays  flooded
into my mind,  deep sobs  replaced the soft  tears. I  was feeling  an
acute, aching sorrow, not just for Simone, but also for myself. And as
I remembered the magnificent blue planet  of our origin and could  not
imagine it in Simone's future, I kept asking myself the same question.
Why have I given birth to a child in the middle of this mess?
    There's that word again. It's  one of Richard's favorites. In  his
vocabulary, mess has virtually  unlimited applications. Anything  that
is chaotic and/or out of control, whether it is a technical problem or
a domestic crisis (like
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA 9
    a wife sobbing in the grips of a fierce postpartum depression), is
referred to as a mess.
    The men  were not  much help  earlier this  morning. Their  futile
attempts to make me  feel better only added  to my gloom. A  question:
Why is it that almost every man, when confronted by an unhappy  woman,
immediately assumes that  her unhappiness is  somehow related to  him?
Actually I'm not  being fair. Michael  has had three  children in  his
life and knows something about  the feelings I'm experiencing.  Mostly
he just asked me what he could do to help. But Richard was  absolutely
devastated by my tears.  He was frightened when  he woke up and  could
hear my weeping. At first he  thought that I was having some  terrible
physical pain. He was only minimally reassured when I explained to him
that I was simply depressed.
    After first establishing  that he was  not to blame  for my  mood,
Richard listened silently while I expressed my concerns about Simone's
future. I admit that I was slightly overwrought, but he didn't seem to
grasp anything I was  saying. He kept  repeating the same  phrase-that
Simone's future  was no  more uncertain  than our  own-believing  that
since there was no logical reason for me to be so upset, my depression
should  immediately  vanish.  Eventually,   after  over  an  hour   of
miscommunication, Richard correctly concluded that he was not  helping
and decided to leave me alone.
    •(Six hours later.) I'm feeling better now. There are still  three
more hours before my birthday is over. We had a small party tonight. I
just finished nursing Simone and she is again lying beside me. Michael
left us about fifteen  minutes ago to  go to his  room down the  hall.
Richard fell asleep  within five  minutes after  his head  was on  the
pillow. He had spent all day  working on my request for some  improved
diapers.
    Richard enjoys spending  his time supervising  and cataloging  our
interactions with  the Ramans,  or  whoever it  is that  operates  the
computers we. activate  by using  the keyboard  in our  room. We  have
never seen anyone or  anything in the  dark tunnel immediately  behind
the black
    10
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    screen. So we don't know for certain if there really are creatures
back there responding to our requests and ordering their factories  to
manufacture our odd items, but it is convenient to refer to our  hosts
and benefactors as the Ramans.
    Our communication  process  with  them  is  both  complicated  and
straightforward. It  is  complicated because  we  talk to  them  using
pictures on the black screen and precise quantitative formulas in  the
language of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. It is straightforward
because the actual sentences we input using the keyboard are amazingly
simple in syntax. Our most often  used sentence is "We would like"  or
"We want" (of course, we could not possibly know the exact translation
of our requests  and are  just assuming  that we  are being  polite-it
could be the instructions we activate are in the form of rude commands
beginning with "Give me"), followed by a detailed description of  what
we would like provided to us.
    The hardest part  is the chemistry.  Simple everyday objects  like
soap, paper,  and  glass are  very  complex chemically  and  extremely
difficult to specify  exactly in  terms of  their number  and kind  of
chemical compounds. Sometimes, as Richard discovered early in bis work
with  the  keyboard  and  black   screen,  we  must  also  outline   a
manufacturing process, including thermal  regimes, or what we  receive
does not bear any resemblance to what we ordered. The request  process
involves a lot  of trial and  error. In  the beginning it  was a  very
inefficient and frustrating interaction. All three of us kept  wishing
that we  remembered  more  of  our college  chemistry.  In  fact,  our
inability to make  satisfactory progress in  equipping ourselves  with
everyday essentials was one of the catalysts for the Great  Excursion,
as Richard likes to call it, that occurred four months ago.
    By then the ambient temperature, topside in New York as well as in
the rest of Rama, was already five degrees below freezing and  Richard
had confirmed that  the Cylindrical  Sea was  again solid  ice. I  was
growing quite concerned that we were not going to be properly prepared
for the  baby's  birth.  It  was taking  us  too  long  to  accomplish
everything. Procuring and installing a working toilet, for
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 1
    example, had  turned out  to  be a  month-long endeavor,  and  the
result was  still  only marginally  adequate.  Most of  the  time  our
primary problem was that  we kept providing incomplete  specifications
to our  hosts.  However,  sometimes  the  difficulty  was  the  Ramans
themselves. Several times they informed us, using our mutual  language
of mathematical and chemical symbols, that they could not complete the
manufacture of a specific item within our allocated time period.
    Anyway, Richard announced one morning  that he was going to  leave
our lair and  try to  reach the  still-docked military  ship from  our
Newton expedition.  His  expressed purpose  was  to retrieve  the  key
components of the scientific data base stored on the ship's  computers
(this would  help us  immensely  in formulating  our requests  to  the
Ramans), but he also acknowledged that he was terribly hungry for some
decent food. We had been managing  to stay healthy and alive with  the
chemical concoctions provided us by  the Ramans. However, most of  the
food had been either tasteless or terrible.
    In all fairness, our  hosts had been  responding correctly to  our
requests. Although we  knew generally  how to  describe the  essential
chemical ingredients our bodies needed, none of us had ever studied in
detail the complex biochemical process that takes place when we  taste
something. In  those  early  days  eating was  a  necessity,  never  a
pleasure. Often  the  "goo"  was  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to
swallow. More than once nausea followed a meal.
    The three of us spent most of a day debating the pros and cons  of
the Great Excursion. I  was in the "heartburn"  stage of my  pregnancy
and was feeling quite uncomfortable. Even though I did not relish  the
idea of remaining alone in our  tair while the two men trekked  across
the ice, located the rover, drove  across the Central Plain, and  then
rode or climbed  the many  kilometers to  the Alpha  relay station,  I
recognized that there  were many ways  in which they  could help  each
other. I also agreed with them that a solo trip would be foolhardy.
    Richard was quite certain the rover would still be operational but
was less optimistic about  the chairlift. We  discussed at length  the
damage that might have been done to
    12
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    the Newton military ship, exposed as it was on the outside of Rama
to the nuclear  blasts that  had occurred beyond  the protective  mesh
shield. Richard conjectured that since there was no visible structural
damage (using our access  to the output of  the Raman sensors, we  had
looked at  images of  the Newton  military ship  on the  black  screen
several times during  the intervening  months), it  was possible  that
Rama itself might have  inadvertently protected the  ship from all  of
the nuclear  explosions and,  as  a result,  there  might not  be  any
radiation damage inside either.
    I was more  sanguine about the  prospects. I had  worked with  the
environmental engineers on the designs for me spacecraft shielding and
was aware of the radiation susceptibility of each of the subsystems of
the Newton. Although  I did  think there  was a  high probability  the
scientific data base would be intact  (both its processor and all  its
memories were  made from  radiation-hardened parts),  I was  virtually
certain the food  supply would  be contaminated. We  had always  known
that our packaged food was in a relatively unprotected location. Prior
to launch,  in  fact,  there  had  even  been  some  concern  that  an
unexpected solar flare might produce enough radiation to make die food
unsafe to eat.
    I was not afraid of staying alone for the few days or week that it
might take for the men to make the round trip to the military ship.  I
was more worried about the possibility that one or both of them  might
not return. It wasn't just a question of the octospiders, or any other
aliens that might be cohabiting this immense spaceship with us.  There
were environmental uncertainties  to be  considered as  well. What  if
Rama suddenly started to maneuver? What if some other equally untoward
event occurred and they couldn't make it back to New York?
    Richard and Michael assured  me that they  would take no  chances,
that they would  not do anything  except go to  the military ship  and
return. They departed  just after  dawn on  a twenty-eight-hour  Raman
day. It was the first  time I had been  alone since my long,  solitary
sojourn in New York that started when I fell into the pit. Of  course,
I wasn't truly alone. I could  feel Simone kicking inside me. It's  an
amazing feeling, carrying a baby. There's some-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 3
    thing indescribably wonderful about knowing there's another living
soul inside you. Especially since  the child is formed in  significant
part from  your own  genes. It's  a shame  that men  are not  able  to
experience being pregnant. If they could, maybe they would  understand
why we women are so concerned about the future.
    By the third Earth day after the  men left, I had developed a  bad
case of cabin fever.  I decided to  climb out of our  lair and take  a
hike around New York.  It was dark  in Rama, but I  was so restless  I
started to walk  anyway. The  air was quite  cold. I  zipped my  heavy
flight jacket around my bulging stomach. I had only been walking for a
few minutes when I heard a sound in the distance. A chill ran down  my
spine and I stopped immediately. The adrenaline apparently surged into
Simone as well,  for she kicked  vigorously while I  listened for  the
noise. In  about a  minute I  heard  it again,  the sound  of  brushes
dragging across a metallic surface and accompanied by a high-frequency
whine. The  sound  was  unmistakable;  an  octospider  was  definitely
wandering around in  New York.  I quickly went  back to  the lair  and
waited for dawn to come to Rama.
    When it was  light I  returned to  New York  and wandered  around.
While I was in the vicinity of that curious barn where I fell into the
pit, I began having my doubts about our conclusion that the octos only
come out at night. Richard has  insisted from the beginning that  they
are nocturnal creatures. During the  first two months after we  passed
the  Earth,  before  we  built  our  protective  grill  that  prevents
unwelcome visitors from descending into  our lair, Richard deployed  a
series of crude  receivers (he had  not yet perfected  his ability  to
specify electronic parts  to the  Ramans) around  the octospider  lair
covering and confirmed, at  least to his  satisfaction, mat they  only
come topside  at  night.  Eventually  the  octos  discovered  all  his
monitors and  destroyed  them, but  not  before Richard  had  what  he
believed to be conclusive data supporting his hypothesis.
    Nevertheless, Richard's conclusion  was no  comfort to  me when  I
suddenly heard a  loud and  totally unfamiliar sound  coming from  the
direction of our  lair. At the  time I was  standing inside the  barn,
staring into the pit where I had almost died nine months ago. My pulse
immediately
    14
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    jumped up and my skin tingled. What disturbed me the most was that
the noise  was  between me  and  my Raman  home.  I crept  up  on  the
intermittent sound  cautiously,  peering around  buildings  each  time
before committing myself.  At length  I discovered the  source of  the
noise. Richard was cutting pieces of a lattice using a miniature chain
saw that he had brought back from the Newton.
    Actually he and Michael were having an argument when I  discovered
them. A relatively small lattice, about five hundred nodes  altogether
with square dimensions maybe  three meters on a  side, was affixed  to
one of those low, nondescript sheds about a hundred meters to the east
of our lair opening. Michael  was questioning the wisdom of  attacking
the lattice with a chain saw. At  the moment they saw me, Richard  was
justifying his action by extolling the virtues of the elastic  lattice
material.
    The three of  us hugged and  kissed for several  minutes and  then
they reported on the  Great Excursion. It had  been an easy trip.  The
rover  and  the  chairlift   had  worked  without  difficulty.   Their
instruments had shown that  there was still quite  a bit of  radiation
throughout the  military ship,  so they  didn't stay  long and  didn't
bring back any  of the food.  The scientific data  base, however,  had
been in fine shape. Richard had used his data compression  subroutines
to strip much of the data base onto cubes compatible with our portable
computers. They had also brought back a large backpack full of  tools,
like the chain saw, that they thought would be useful in finishing our
living accommodations.
    Richard and Michael worked incessantly  from then until the  birth
of Simone. Using the extra chemical information contained in the  data
base, it became easier to order what we needed from the Ramans. I even
experimented with sprinkling harmless esters and other simple organics
on the  food, resulting  in  some improvement  in the  taste.  Michael
completed his room down the corridor, Simone's cradle was constructed,
and  our  bathrooms   immeasurably  improved.   Considering  all   the
constraints, our  living conditions  are now  quite acceptable.  Maybe
soon . . . Hark. I hear a  soft cry from beside me. It's time to  feed
my daughter.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    15
    Before the last thirty minutes of  my birthday is history, I  want
to return to the vivid images of previous birthdays that catalyzed  my
depression this morning. For me, my birthday has always been the  most
significant event of the year.  The Christmas-New Year time period  is
special, but in  a different way,  for it is  a celebration shared  by
everyone. A birthday focuses more  directly on the individual. I  have
always used my birthdays  as a time  for reflection and  contemplation
about the direction of my life.
    If I tried, I could probably remember something about every single
one of my  birthdays since  I was five  years old.  Some memories,  of
course, are  more  poignant than  others.  This morning  many  of  the
pictures  from  my  past  celebrations  evoked  powerful  feelings  of
nostalgia and homesickness. In my depressed state I railed against  my
inability to provide order and security to Simone's life. But even  at
the bottom of  my depression,  confronted by  the immense  uncertainty
surrounding our existence here,  I would not  have really wished  that
Simone were not here to experience  life with me. No, we are  voyagers
tied together  by the  deepest  bond, parent  and child,  sharing  the
miracle of consciousness that we call life.
    I have shared a similar bond  before, not only with my mother  and
father, but also with my first daughter Gene-vieve. Hmm. It's  amazing
that all the  images of my  mother still  stand out so  sharply in  my
mind. Even though she died twenty-seven years ago, when I was only ten
years old, she  left me with  a cornucopia of  wonderful memories.  My
last birthday with her was quite  extraordinary. The three of us  went
into Paris on the  train. Father was dressed  in his new Italian  suit
and looked extremely handsome.  Mother had chosen to  wear one of  her
bright, multicolored native dresses. With  her hah- stacked in  layers
on her head, she  looked like the Senoufo  princess that she had  been
before she married Father.
    We had dinner at a  fancy restaurant just off the  Champs-Elysees.
Then we  walked to  a theater  where we  watched an  all-black  troupe
perform a set  of native dances  from the western  regions of  Africa.
After the show, we were allowed backstage, where Mother introduced  me
to one of
    t6
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    the dancers, a tall, beautiful woman of exceptional blackness. She
was one of Mother's distant cousins from the Ivory Coast.
    I listened to their conversation  in the Senoufo tribal  language,
remembering bits and  pieces from  my training before  the Poro  three
years earlier, and marveled again at  the way my mother's face  always
became more expressive when she was with her people. But fascinated as
I was  by  the evening,  I  was only  ten  years old  and  would  have
preferred a normal  birthday party  with all my  friends from  school.
Mother could tell I was disappointed while we were riding on the train
back to  our home  in the  suburb of  Chilly-Mazarin. "Don't  be  sad,
Nicole," she said, "next year you can have a party. Your father and  I
wanted to take this opportunity to remind you again of the other  half
of your heritage. You are a  French citizen and have lived your  whole
life in France, but part of you is pure Senoufo with roots deep in the
tribal customs of West Africa."
    Earlier today, as I recalled  the dances ivoiriennes performed  by
Mother's cousin and her associates,  I imagined briefly, in my  mind's
eye, walking into  a beautiful theater  with my ten-year-old  daughter
Simone beside me-but then the fantasy vanished. There are no  theaters
beyond the orbit of Jupiter. In  fact, the whole concept of a  theater
will probably never have any real  meaning for my daughter. It is  all
so bewildering.
    Some of my tears this morning were because Simone will never  know
her grandparents, and vice versa. They will be mythological characters
in the fabric  of her  life and  she will  know them  only from  their
photographs and videos.  She will  never have  the joy  of hearing  my
mother's amazing voice.  And she will  never see the  soft and  tender
love in my father's eyes.
    After Mother died, my father was  very careful to make each of  my
birthdays very special.  On piy  twelfth birthday, after  we had  just
moved into the villa at Beauvois, Father and I walked together in  the
falling snow among the manicured gardens at the Chateau de  Villandry.
That day he  promised me  that he  would always  be beside  me when  I
needed him. I tightened my grip on his hand as we
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    17
    walked along the  hedges. I wept  mat day also,  admitting to  him
(and to myself) how frightened I was  mat he too would abandon me.  He
cradled me against his  chest and kissed my  forehead. He never  broke
his promise.
    Only last year, in what seems  now to have been another  lifetime,
my birthday began on a ski train just inside the French border. I  was
still awake at midnight, reliving my noon encounter with Henry at  the
chalet on the side of the Weissfluhjoch.  I had not told him, when  he
indirectly inquired, that he was Genevieve's father. I would not  give
him mat satisfaction.
    But I remember thinking on  the train, is it  fair for me to  keep
from my daughter the fact mat her  father is the king of England?  Are
my self-respect and pride so  important that I can justify  preventing
my daughter from knowing that she  is a princess? I was mulling  these
questions over in  my mind,  staring blankly  out at  the night,  when
Genevieve, as  if  on  cue,  appeared in  my  sleeping  berth.  "Happy
Birthday, Mother," she said with a grin.  She gave me a hug. I  almost
told her then about her father. I  would have, I am certain, if I  had
known what was going to happen  to the Newton expedition. I miss  you,
Genevieve. I wish that I had been allowed a proper good-bye.
    Memories are very  peculiar. This morning,  in my depression,  the
flood of  images from  previous birthdays  heightened my  feelings  of
isolation and loss. Now,  when I'm in a  stronger mood, I savor  those
same recollections. I'm  no longer  terribly sad at  this moment  that
Simone will not be able to experience what I have known. Her birthdays
will be completely different from mine  and unique to her life. It  is
my privilege and duty to make them as memorable and loving as I can.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    19
    3
    Five hours ago a series of t
    26 May 2201
    extraordinary events began to occur  inside Rama. We were  sitting
together at  that  time,  eating  our  evening  meal  of  roast  beef,
potatoes, and salad (in an effort  to persuade ourselves that what  we
are eating is delicious, we have a code name for each of the  chemical
combinations that  we  obtain from  the  Ramans. The  code  names  are
roughly derived from  the kind of  nutrition provided-thus our  "roast
beef" is  rich in  protein,  "potatoes" are  primarily  carbohydrates,
etc.), when we  heard a pure  and distant whistle.  All of us  stopped
eating and the  two men  bundled up to  go topside.  When the  whistle
persisted, I grabbed Simone and my heavy clothes, wrapped the baby  in
numerous blankets, and followed Michael and Richard up into the cold.
    The whistle was much louder on the surface. We were fairly certain
that it was coming from  the south, but since it  was dark in Rama  we
were leery about wandering  away from our lair.  After a few  minutes,
however, we began to see splashes of light reflecting off the mirrored
surfaces of the surrounding skyscrapers, and our curiosity could not'
    be contained. We crept cautiously toward the southern shore of the
island, where no buildings would be between us and the imposing  horns
of the southern bowl of Rama.
    When we arrived at the shore of the Cylindrical Sea, a fascinating
light show was  already in  progress. The arcs  of multicolored  light
flying around and  illuminating the  gigantic spires  of the  southern
bowl continued for over  an hour. Even baby  Simone was mesmerized  by
the long  streamers of  yellow,  blue, and  red bouncing  between  the
spires and making rainbow patterns in the dark. When the show abruptly
ceased, we  switched on  our flashlights  and beaded  back toward  our
lair.
    After a  few minutes  of walking,  our animated  conversation  was
interrupted by a distant long shriek, unmistakably die sound of one of
the avian creatures that had helped Richard and me to escape from  New
York last  year.  We stopped  abruptly  and listened.  Since  we  have
neither seen nor  heard any avians  since we returned  to New York  to
warn the Ramans of the incoming  nuclear missiles, both Richard and  I
were very excited. Richard  has been over to  their lair a few  times,
but has never had any response  to his shouts down the great  vertical
corridor. Just a month ago Richard said that he thought the avians had
left New York altogether. The shriek tonight clearly indicates that at
least one of our friends is still around.
    Within seconds, before we had a  chance to discuss whether or  not
one of us would go  in the direction of  the shriek, we heard  another
sound, also  familiar,  that  was too  loud  for  any of  us  to  feel
comfortable. Fortunately the dragging brushes were not between us  and
our lair. I  put both  of my arms  around Simone  and sprinted  toward
home, nearly running into buildings at least twice in my hurry in  the
dark. Michael was the last to  arrive. By then I had finished  opening
both the cover and the grill. "There's several of them," Richard  said
breathlessly, as  the  sounds  of  the  octospiders,  growing  louder,
surrounded us. He cast his flashlight beam down the long lane  leading
east from our lair and  we all saw two  large, dark objects moving  in
our direction.
    Normally we go to  sleep within two or  three hours after  dinner,
but tonight was an exception. The light show, the
    20
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    21
    avian shriek, and  die close  encounter with  the octospiders  had
energized all three of us. We talked and talked. Richard was convinced
that something really major  was about to happen.  He reminded us  mat
the Earth impact maneuver  by Rama had also  been preceded by a  small
light show  in  the southern  bowl.  At  mat time,  he  recalled,  the
consensus  of  the  Newton  cosmonauts   had  been  that  the   entire
demonstration was intended as an announcement or possibly as some kind
of an alert. What, Richard wondered, was the significance of tonight's
dazzling display?
    For Michael, who was  not inside Rama for  any extended period  of
time before its close  passage by the Earth  and had never before  had
any  direct  contact  with  either  the  avians  or  the  octospiders,
tonight's events were of major  proportions. The fleeting glance  that
he caught of the ten-tacled creatures  coming toward us down the  lane
gave him some appreciation for the terror that Richard and I had  felt
when we were  racing up  those bizarre  spikes and  escaping from  the
octospider lair last year.
    "Are the octospiders the Ramans?" Michael asked tonight. "If  so,"
he continued, "then why should we run from them? Their technology  has
advanced so far beyond ours that they can basically do with us as they
see fit."
    "The  octospiders  are  passengers   on  this  vehicle,"   Richard
responded quickly, "just as we are. So are the avians. The octos think
we may be  the Ramans,  but they  are not  certain. The  avians are  a
puzzle. Surely they cannot be a spacefaring species. How did they  get
onboard in the first  place? Are they perhaps  a part of the  original
Raman ecosystem?"
    I  instinctively  clutched  Simone   against  my  body.  So   many
questions. So few  answers. A  memory of poor  Dr. Takagishi,  stuffed
like a huge fish or tiger and standing in the octospider museum,  shot
through my mind  and gave me  the shivers. "If  we are passengers,"  I
said quietly, "then where are we going?"
    Richard sighed. "I've been doing some computations," he said. "And
the results are  not very  encouraging. Even though  we are  traveling
very fast  with  respect  to the  Sun,  our  speed is  puny  when  the
reference system is our local group  of stars. If our trajectory  does
not change, we will
    exit the solar system in the general direction of Barnard's  star.
We will arrive in the Barnard system in several thousand years."
    Simone began to cry. It was late and she was very tired. I excused
myself and  went down  to Michael's  room to  feed her  while the  men
surveyed all the  sensor outputs on  Ihe black screen~to  see if  they
could determine what might be happening. Simone nursed fretfully at my
breasts, even hurting  me once.  Her disquiet  was extremely  unusual.
Ordinarily she is such a mellow baby. "You feel our fear, don't  you?"
I said to her.  I've read that  babies can sense  the emotions of  the
adults around them. Maybe it's true.
    I still could not rest, even after Simone was sleeping comfortably
on her blanket  on the floor.  My premonitory senses  were warning  me
that tonight's events signaled a transition into some new phase of our
life onboard Rama. I had not been encouraged by Richard's  calculation
that Rama  might  sail  through  the  interstellar  void  for  several
thousand years. I tried  to imagine living  in our current  conditions
for the rest of my  life and my mind balked.  It would certainly be  a
boring existence for Simone. I  found myself formulating a prayer,  to
God, or the Ramans, or whoever had  the power to alter the future.  My
prayer was very  simple. I  asked that the  forthcoming changes  would
somehow enrich the future life of my baby daughter.
    28 May 2201
    Again tonight there was a  long whistle followed by a  spectacular
light show in  the southern bowl  of Rama. I  didn't go to  see it.  I
stayed in the lair with Simone. Michael and Richard did not  encounter
any of the other occupants of New York. Richard said that the show was
approximately the same  length as  the first one,  but the  individual
displays were considerably  different. Michael's  impression was  that
the only major change in  the show was in  the colors. In his  opinion
the dominant color to-
    imght was blue, whereas it had been yellow two days ago.
    •: Richard is certain that the  Ramans are in love with the  three
and that, therefore, there will be another
    22
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    23
    light show when night  falls again. Since the  days and nights  on
Rama are now approximately equal  at twenty-three hours-a time  period
Richard calls the Raman equinox,  correctly predicted by my  brilliant
husband in the almanac  he issued to Michael  and me four months  ago-
the third display will begin in another two Earth days. We all  expect
dial something unusual will occur soon after this third demonstration.
Unless Simone's safety is in doubt, I will definitely watch.
    30 May 2201
    Our  massive   cylindrical  home   is  now   undergoing  a   rapid
acceleration that began  over four  hours ago. Richard  is so  excited
that he can hardly  contain himself. He  is convinced that  underneath
the elevated Southern Hemicylinder is a propulsion system operating on
physical principles beyond the wildest imaginings of human  scientists
and engineers. He  stares at  the external  sensor data  on the  black
screen,  his  beloved  portable  computer  in  his  hand,  and   makes
occasional entries based on what he sees on the monitor. From time  to
time he mumbles to himself or to us about what he thinks the  maneuver
is doing to our trajectory.
    I was unconscious at the bottom of  the pit at the time that  Rama
made the midcourse correction to achieve the Earth impact orbit, so  I
don't know  how much  the floor  shook during  that earlier  maneuver.
Richard says those  vibrations were  trivial compared to  what we  are
experiencing now. Just  walking around  at present  is difficult.  The
floor bounces up and down at a very high frequency, as if a jackhammer
were operating only a few meters away. We have been holding Simone  in
our arms ever since the acceleration  started. We cannot put her  down
on the floor or in her cradle, because the vibration frightens her.  I
am the only one who moves  around with Simone, and I am  exceptionally
cautious. Losing my balance and falling is a real concern-Richard  and
Michael have each fallen twice  already-and Simone could be  seriously
injured if I fell in the wrong position.
    At this moment Richard is sitting against the wall, hold-
    ing our sleeping daughter against his chest. Our meager  furniture
is hopping all over the room.  One of the chairs actually bounced  out
into the corridor and headed for the stairs half an hour ago. At first
we replaced the furniture in its proper position every ten minutes  or
so, but now we  just ignore it-unless it  heads out the entryway  into
the hall.
    Altogether it has been an unbelievable time period, beginning with
the third and final  light show in the  south. Richard went out  first
that night, by himself, just before  dark. He rushed back excitedly  a
few minutes later and grabbed Michael. When the two of them  returned,
Michael looked  as if  he  had seen  a ghost.  "Octospiders,"  Richard
shouted. "Dozens of them are massed along the shoreline two kilometers
to the east."
    "Now, you don't really know how many there are," Michael said. "We
only saw them for ten seconds at most before the lights went out."
    "I watched  them  for  longer  when  I  was  by  myself,"  Richard
continued. "I  could see  them very  clearly with  the binoculars.  At
first there were only a handful, but they suddenly started arriving in
droves. I  was  just  starting  to  count  them  when  they  organized
themselves  into  some  kind  of  an  array.  A  giant  octo  with   a
red-and-blue-striped head appeared  to be  by itself at  the front  of
their formation."
    *'I didn't  see the  red and  blue giant,  or any  'formation,'  "
Michael added as 1 stared  at the two of  them with disbelief. "But  I
definitely saw many of the creatures with the dark heads and the black
and gold tentacles.  In my  opinion they  were looking  to the  south,
waiting for the light show to begin."
    "We saw the avians too," Richard said to me. He turned to Michael.
"How many would you say were airborne in that flock?"
    "Twenty-five, maybe thirty," Michael replied.
    "They soared high into  the air over New  York, shrieking as  they
rose, and then flew north, across the Cylindrical Sea." Richard paused
for a moment. "I  think those birds have  been through this before.  I
think they know what is going to happen."
    24
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    25
    I started wrapping Simone in  her blankets. "What are you  doing?"
Richard asked. I explained that I wasn't about to miss the final light
show. I  also  reminded Richard  that  he had  sworn  to me  that  the
octospiders only ventured out at night. "This is a special  occasion,"
he replied con-fidendy just as the whistle began to sound.
    Tonight's show  seemed more  spectacular to  me. Maybe  it was  my
sense of anticipation. Red was definitely  the color of the night.  At
one point a  fiery red  arc inscribed  a full  and continuous  hexagon
connecting the tips of  the six smaller horns.  But as spectacular  as
the Raman lights  were, they were  not the highlight  of the  evening.
About thirty  minutes  into  the  display,  Michael  suddenly  shouted
"Look!" and pointed down the shoreline  in the direction where he  and
Richard had seen the octospiders earlier.
    Several balls of light had ignited simultaneously in the sky above
the frozen Cylindrical Sea. The  "flares" were about fifty meters  off
the ground and illuminated an area of roughly one square kilometer  on
the ice below them.  During the minute  or so that  we could see  some
detail, a large black mass moved south across the ice. Richard  handed
me his binoculars just as the light from the flares was fading away. I
could see some individual creatures in the mass. A surprisingly  large
number of the  octospiders had  colored patterns on  their heads,  but
most were dark charcoal gray, like the one that chased us in the lair.
Both the  black and  gold tentacles  and the  shapes of  their  bodies
confirmed that these creatures were the same species as the one we had
seen climbing the spikes last year. And Richard was right. There  were
dozens of them.
    When the maneuver began, we returned  quickly to our lair. It  was
dangerous  being  outside  in  Rama  during  the  extreme  vibrations.
Occasionally small parts  of the surrounding  skyscrapers would  break
free and crash  to the  ground. Simone  began to  cry as  soon as  the
shaking started.
    After a difficult  descent into our  fair, Richard began  checking
the external  sensors, mostly  looking at  star and  planet  positions
(Saturn is definitely identifiable  in some of  the Raman frames)  and
then making computations based
    on his  observational  data.  Michael  and  I  alternated  holding
Simone-eventually we  sat in  a  corner of  the  room, where  the  two
merging walls gave us  some sense of stability-  and talked about  the
amazing day.
    Almost  an  hour  later  Richard  announced  the  results  of  his
preliminary orbit determination. He  gave first the orbital  elements,
with respect  to the  Sun,  of our  hyperbolic trajectory  before  the
maneuver started. Then he  dramatically presented the new,  osculating
elements  (as  he  called  them)  of  our  instantaneous   trajectory.
Somewhere  in  the  recesses  of  my  mind  I  must  have  stored  the
information that defines  the term osculating  element, but I  luckily
didn't need to fetch it. I  was able, from the context, to  understand
that Richard was  using a  shorthand way of  telling us  how much  our
hyperbola had changed during  the first three  hours of the  maneuver.
However, the full implication of  a change in hyperbolic  eccentricity
escaped me.
    Michael remembered  more  of  his celestial  mechanics.  "Are  you
certain?" he said almost immediately.
    "The quantitative results have wide error bars," Richard  replied.
"But there  can  be no  doubt  about  the qualitative  nature  of  the
trajectory change."
    "Then our rate of  escape from the  solar system is  in-creasingT'
Michael asked.
    Richard nodded. "That's right.  Our acceleration is virtually  all
going into the direction that increases our speed with respect to  the
Sun. The maneuver has already added many kilometers per second to  our
Sun-based velocity."
    "Whew," Michael replied. "That's staggering."
    I understood  the gist  of  what Richard  was  saying. If  we  had
retained any hope that we might  be on a circuitous voyage that  would
magically  return  us  to  the  Earth,  those  hopes  were  now  being
shattered. Rama was going  to leave me solar  system much faster  than
any of us had expected. While Richard waxed lyrical about the kind  of
propulsion system that  could impart  such a velocity  change to  this
"behemoth of a  spacecraft," I  nursed Simone and  found myself  again
thinking about  her future.  So we  are definitely  leaving the  solar
system, I thought, and going some-
    26 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    where else. Will  I ever  see another  world? Will  Simone? Is  it
possible, my daughter,  that Rama  will be  your home  world for  your
entire lifetime?
    The floor  continues  to shake  vigorously,  but it  comforts  me.
Richard says our escape velocity is still increasing rapidly. Good. As
long as we are going someplace new, I want to travel there as fast  as
possible.
    4
    5June2201 I awakened in the middle of
    I last night after hearing a
    persistent  knocking  sound  coming  from  the  direction  of  the
vertical corridor in our lair. Even though the normal noise level from
the constant shaking is substantial, Richard and I could both  clearly
hear the pounding  without any difficulty.  After checking  Simone-she
was still comfortably sleeping in her cradle now mounted on  Richard's
makeshift shock absorbers-we  walked cautiously over  to the  vertical
corridor.
    The knocking grew louder as we climbed the stairs
    toward the grill mat protects us from unwanted visitors.
    At one landing Richard leaned over and whispered to me
    that it "must be MacDuff knocking at the gate" and that
    our "evil deed" would soon be discovered. I was too
    , tense to laugh. When we were still several meters below
    "/•the grill, we saw a large moving shadow projected on the
    # wall in front of us. We stopped to study it. Both Richard
    ; and I realized immediately that our outside lair cover was
    | open-there was daylight topside in Rama at the time-
    28
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AMD-GENTRY LEE
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    29
    and that the Raman creature  or biot responsible for the  knocking
was creating the bizarre shadow on the wall.
    I instinctively clutched  Richard's hand.  "What in  the world  is
it?" I wondered out loud.
    "It must be something new," Richard said very softly.
    I told him  that the  shadow resembled an  old-fashioned oil  pump
going up  and down  in the  middle of  a producing  field. He  grinned
nervously and agreed.
    After waiting for  what must  have been five  minutes and  neither
seeing nor hearing any change in the rhythmic knocking pattern of  the
visitor, Richard told me mat he was going to climb to the grill, where
he would be able  to see something more  definitive than a shadow.  Of
course that meant that whatever was outside beating on our door  would
also be able to see him, assuming  that it had eyes or an  approximate
equivalent. For some reason I remembered Dr. Takagishi at that moment,
and a wave of fear swept through me. I kissed Richard and told him not
to take any chances.
    When Richard reached  the final  landing, just above  where I  was
waiting, his body was  partially in the light  and blocked the  moving
shadow. The  knocking suddenly  stopped abruptly.  "It's a  biot,  all
right," Richard shouted. "It looks like a praying mantis with an extra
hand in the middle of its face. . . . And now it's opening the grill,"
he added a second later.
    Richard jumped off the landing and was beside me in an instant. He
grabbed my hand and we raced down several flights of stairs  together.
We didn't stop until we were back on our living level several landings
below.
    We could hear  the sound of  motion above us.  "There was  another
mantis and  at least  one  bulldozer biot  behind the  first  mantis,"
Richard said  breathlessly.  "As soon  as  they saw  me  they  started
removing the grill. . . . Apparently they were just knocking to  alert
us to their presence.''
    "But what do they want?" I asked rhetorically. The noise above  us
continued to grow. "It sounds like an army," I remarked.
    Within seconds we could hear them moving down the
    stairs. "We  must  be  prepared  to  run  for  it,"  Richard  said
frantically. "You get Simone and I'll wake Michael."
    We moved swiftly down the corridor toward our living area. Michael
had been awakened already by all the noise, and Simone was stirring as
well. We huddled  together in our  main room, sitting  on the  shaking
floor opposite the black  screen, and waited  for the alien  invaders.
Richard had prepared  a keyboard  request for the  Ramans that  would,
upon the input of two additional  commands, cause the black screen  to
lift up  just as  it did  when our  unseen benefactors  were about  to
supply us with some new product.  "If we are attacked," Richard  said,
"we'll take our chances in the tunnels behind the screen."
    Half an  hour passed.  From the  hubbub in  the direction  of  the
stairs we could tell that the intruders were already on -our level  in
the lair, but  none of  them had yet  entered the  passage toward  our
living area. After  another fifteen minutes  curiosity overpowered  my
husband. "I'll  go check  out the  situation," Richard  said,  leaving
Michael with me and Simone.
    He returned in less than  five minutes. "There are fifteen,  maybe
twenty of them,"  he told  us with  a puzzled  frown. "Three  mantises
altogether, plus two different types of bulldozer biots. They seem  to
be building some-tiling on the opposite side of.the lair."
    Simone had fallen asleep again. I  put her in the cradle and  then
followed the two men  toward the noise. When  we reached the  circular
area where  the  stairs climb  toward  the  opening to  New  York,  we
encountered a maelstrom of activity.  It was impossible to follow  all
the work being .done  on the opposite side  of the room. The  mantises
appeared to be supervising the bulldozer biots as they were widening a
horizontal corridor on the other side of the circular room.
    "Does anybody have any idea what they are doing?" Michael asked in
a whisper.
    "Not a clue," Richard replied at the time.
    It is almost twenty-four hours later now and it is still not clear
exactly what the biots are building. Richard thinks that the  corridor
expansion has been made to ac-
    30 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    commodate some kind of a new facility. He has also suggested  that
all this activity almost certainly has something to do with us, for it
is, after all, being done in our lair.
    The biots  work without  stopping for  rest, food,  or sleep.  The
floor vibrations do not bother them at all. They seem to be  following
some master plan or procedure  that has been thoroughly  communicated,
for none  of  them  ever  confer about  anything.  It  is  an  awesome
spectacle to  watch their  relentless activity.  For their  part,  the
biots have never once acknowledged that we are mere watching them.
    An hour  ago Richard,  Michael,  and I  talked briefly  about  the
frustration we  are  all  feeling  because we  do  not  know  what  is
happening around us.  At one  point Richard smiled.  "It's really  not
dramatically different from the situation on Earth," he said  vaguely.
When Michael and I pressed him to explain what he meant, Richard waved
his  hand  in  a  sweeping   gesture.  "Even  at  home,"  he   replied
abstractedly, "our knowledge is severely limited. The search for truth
is always a frustrating experience."
    8 lune 2201
    It is inconceivable to me that  the biots could have finished  the
facility so  quickly. Two  hours ago  the last  of them,  the  foreman
mantis mat had signaled to us (using  the "hand" in the middle of  its
"face") to inspect the new room early this afternoon, finally trundled
up the stairs and  disappeared. Richard says that  it had remained  in
our lair until it was satisfied that we understood everything.
    The only object in the new room is a narrow rectangular tank  that
has obviously been designed  for us. It has  shiny metal sides and  is
about three meters  high. At either  end there is  a ladder that  goes
from the floor to the  lip of the tank.  A sturdy walkway runs  around
the outside perimeter of the tank just centimeters below the lip.
    Inside the rectangular structure are four webbed hammocks  secured
against the  walls.  Each  of these  fascinating  creations  has  been
individually crafted for a specific member of our family. The hammocks
for Michael and Richard are at each end of the tank; Simone and I have
webbed
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    31
    beds in the middle, with her tiny hammock being right beside mine.
    Of course Richard has already  examined the entire arrangement  in
detail. Because there is a cover to the tank and the hammocks are  set
down into the cavity between half a meter and a meter from the top, he
has concluded (hat the tank closes and is then probably filled with  a
fluid. But why  was it  built? Are  we going  to undergo  some set  of
experiments? Richard is certain that we are about to be tested in some
way,  but  Michael  says  that  our  being  used  as  guinea  pigs  is
"inconsistent with the Raman personality" we have observed heretofore.
I had to laugh  at his comment. Michael  has now spread his  incurable
religious optimism to encompass the Ramans as well. He always assumes,
like Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss,  that we are living  in the best of  all
possible universes.
    The foreman mantis hung around,  mostly watching from (he  walkway
of the tank, until each of the  four of us had actually lain upon  his
or her hammock.  Richard pointed  out that although  the hammocks  had
been positioned at varying depths along the walls, we each will "sink"
to approximately the same  level when occupying  the webbed beds.  The
webbing is slightly  elastic, reminiscent of  the lattice material  we
have encountered before in Rama. While I was "testing" my hammock this
afternoon,  its  bounce  reminded  me   of  both  the  fear  and   the
exhilaration during  my  fantastic  lattice harness  ride  across  the
Cylindrical Sea. When I closed my eyes it was easy to see myself again
just above the  water, suspended  beneath the three  great avians  who
were carrying me to freedom.
    Along the lair wall, behind the tank from the point of view of our
living area, there is a set of thick pipes that are connected directly
to the tank. We suspect  that their purpose is  to carry some kind  of
fluid that fills up the volume of  the tank. 1 guess we will find  out
soon enough.
    So what do we do  now? All three of us  agree that we should  just
wait. Doubtless we will eventually be  expected to spend some time  in
this tank. But we have to assume that  we will be told when it is  the
proper time.
    32 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE 10 June 2201
    Richard  was  right.  He   was  certain  that  the   intermittent,
low-frequency whistle early yesterday  was announcing another  mission
phase transition. He even  suggested that maybe we  should go over  to
the new  tank and  be prepared  to take  positions on  our  individual
hammocks. Michael and I both argued with him, insisting that there was
not "nearly enough information" to jump to such a conclusion.
    We should have followed  Richard's advice. Essentially we  ignored
the whistle and went on with our normal (if that term can ever be used
for our existence inside  this spacecraft of extraterrestrial  origin)
routine. About three hours later, the foreman mantis appeared suddenly
in the doorway  of our  main room  and scared me  out of  my wits.  It
pointed down the corridor with its peculiar fingers and made it  clear
that we were to move with some dispatch.
    Simone was still asleep and not at  all happy when I woke her  up.
She was also hungry,  but the mantis  biot would not  let me take  the
time to feed  her. So  Simone was crying  fitfully as  we were  herded
across our lair to the tank.
    A second mantis was waiting on  the walkway that rings the lip  of
the tank. It was holding our transparent helmets in its strange hands.
It must also have been the inspector, for this second mantis would not
let us descend  to our hammocks  until it checked  to ensure that  the
helmets were  properly placed  over our  heads. The  plastic or  glass
compound that  forms  the  helmet  front is  remarkable;  we  can  see
perfectly  through  it.   The  bottoms   of  the   helmets  are   also
extraordinary. They are  made of  a sticky,  rubberlike compound  that
adheres to the skin very tightly and creates an impermeable seal.
    We had only been lying on  our hammocks for thirty seconds when  a
powerful surge pressed us down  against the webbed elements with  such
force that we sank halfway into the empty tank. An instant later  tiny
threads (they  seemed to  grow out  of the  hammock material)  wrapped
themselves around the trunks of our bodies, leaving only
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    33
    our arms and necks free.  I glanced over at  Simone to see if  she
was crying; she had a big smile on her face.
    The tank had already begun to  fill with a light green liquid.  In
less man a  minute we were  surrounded by the  fluid. Its density  was
very close  to our  own, for  we  half floated  on its  surface.  Soon
thereafter the top  of the  tank closed.  I became  frightened as  the
liquid continued to fill the volume. Although I considered it unlikely
that we were  in any  actual danger, 1  was relieved  when the  liquid
stopped rising,  leaving  us  a few  centimeters  of  breathing  space
beneath the lid.
    All this time the strong acceleration continued. Luckily it wasn't
completely dark  inside the  tank. There  were tiny  lights  scattered
around the  tank  cover. I  could  see Simone  next  to me,  her  body
bouncing like a buoy, and I could even see Richard in the distance.
    We were inside the tank for slightly more than two hours.  Richard
was extremely excited when  we were finished. He  told Michael and  me
that he was certain we had just completed a "test" to see how we could
withstand "excessive" forces.
    ' "They are not  satisfied with the  paltry accelerations that  we
have been experiencing heretofore,"  he exuberantly informed us.  "The
Ramans want to really increase  the velocity. To accomplish that,  the
spacecraft must be subjected to  long duration, high gee forces.  This
tank has been designed to provide  us with enough cushioning that  our
biological construction can accommodate the unusual environment."
    Richard spent  all day  doing  calculations and  a few  hours  ago
showed us his preliminary reconstruction of yesterday's  "acceleration
event." "Look at this,"  he shouted, barely  able to contain  himself.
"We made  an  equivalent velocity  change  of seventy  kilometers  per
second during that short two-hour period. That is absolutely monstrous
for a spacecraft the  size of Rama! We  were accelerating at close  to
ten gees the entire time." He then  grinned at us. "This ship has  one
hell of an overdrive mode."
    When we finished the  test in the  tank, I inserted  a new set  of
biometry probes in all of us, including Simone. I
    34 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    have not seen  any unusual  responses, at least  nothing that  has
triggered a warning, but  I admit that I  am stiil a little  concerned
about how  our bodies  will react  to the  stress. A  few minutes  ago
Richard chided me. "The Ramans  are certainly watching too," he  said,
indicating that he thought the  biometry was unnecessary. "I bet  they
are taking their own data through those threads."
    5
    19June2201 \^v  vocabulary  is  inadequate /  V  Ito  describe  my
experiences of the iast several  days. The word amazing, for  example,
falls far short of conveying the true sense of how extraordinary these
long  hours  in  the  tank  have  been.  The  only  remotely   similar
experiences in my life were both induced by the ingestion of catalytic
chemicals, first during the  Poro ceremony in the  Ivory Coast when  I
was seven years  old and  then, more recently,  after drinking  Omen's
vial while I  was at the  bottom of the  pit in Rama.  But both  those
trips or visions or whatever were isolated incidents and comparatively
short in duration.  My recent  episodes in  the tank  have lasted  for
hours.
    Before throwing myself  totally into  a description  of the  world
inside my mind, I should summarize first the "real" events of the past
week so that the hallucinatory episodes can be placed in context.  Our
daily life has now  evolved into a  repeating pattern. The  spacecraft
continues to maneuver, but in two separate modes: "regular," when  the
floor shakes  and everything  moves  but a  quasi-normal life  can  be
lived, and "overdrive," when Rama accelerates at
    36
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    a ferocious rate that Richard now estimates is in excess of eleven
gees.
    When die spacecraft is in overdrive, the four of us must be inside
the tank. The overdrive periods last for just under eight hours out of
each twenty-seven-hour, six-minute cycle in the repetitive pattern. We
are clearly intended to sleep during the overdrive segments. The  tiny
lights above our heads in the  closed tank are extinguished after  the
first twenty minutes  of each  segment and we  lie mere  in the  total
darkness until five minutes before the end of the eight-hour period.
    All this rapid velocity change, according to Richard, is  speeding
our escape from the Sun. If the current maneuver remains consistent in
both magnitude and direction, and continues for as long as a month, we
will then be traveling at half the speed of light with respect to  our
solar system.
    "Where are we going?" Michael asked yesterday.
    "It's still too early to tell," Richard responded. "All we know is
that we're blasting away at a fantastic rate."
    The temperature and  density of  the liquid inside  the tank  have
been carefully adjusted each period  until they are now exactly  equal
to ours. As a result, when I lie there in the dark, I can feel nothing
at all  except a  barely perceptible  downward force.  My mind  always
tells me that  I am inside  an acceleration tank,  surrounded by  some
kind of fluid cushioning my body  against the powerful force, but  the
absence of sensation  eventually causes me  to lose my  sense of  body
altogether. That's when  the hallucinations begin.  It's almost as  if
some normal  sensory  input to  the  brain  is necessary  to  keep  me
properly functioning. If no sounds,  no sights, no tastes, no  smells,
and no pain reach my brain, then its activity becomes unregulated.
    I tried to discuss this phenomenon with Richard two days ago,  but
he just looked at me as if I were crazy. He has had no hallucinations.
He spends his time in the "twilight zone" (his name for the period  of
no sensory input prior to deep sleep) doing mathematical calculations,
conjuring up a wide variety of maps of the Earth, or even reliving his
most outstanding sexual moments. He definitely manages his brain, even
in the absence of sensory
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    37
    input. That is why we  are so different. My  mind wants to find  a
direction of its  own when it  is not  being used for  chores such  as
processing the billions of  pieces of data coming  from all the  other
cells in my body.
    The hallucinations usually begin  with a colored  speck of red  or
green that appears  in the  total dark  surrounding me.  As the  speck
enlarges, it  is  joined by  other  colors, often  yellow,  blue,  and
purple. Each  of  the colors  rapidly  forms into  its  own  irregular
pattern and spreads across my vision screen. What I am seeing  becomes
a kaleidoscope of bright colors. The movement in the field accelerates
until hundreds of strips and splotches fuse into one raging explosion.
    In the middle of this riot of color a coherent image always forms.
At first I cannot tell exactly what  it is, for the figure or  figures
are very small,  as if  they are  far, far  away. As  the image  moves
closer, it changes colors  several times, adding  both to the  surreal
overtone of the vision and to my inner sense of dread. More than  half
the time the image that eventually resolves itself contains my mother,
or some  animal  like  a  cheetah or  a  lioness  that  I  intuitively
recognize as my mother in disguise. As long as I just watch, and  make
no volitional  attempt  to interact  with  my mother,  she  remains  a
character in the changing image. However,  if I try to contact  Mother
in  any  way,  she,  or  the  animal  representing  her,   immediately
disappears, leaving me  with an  overwhelming feeling  of having  been
abandoned.
    During one of my  recent hallucinations the  waves of color  broke
into geometric patterns and these in turn changed to human silhouettes
marching single file  across my field  of view. Omen  was leading  the
procession in a bright green robe. The two figures at the rear of  the
group were both women, the heroines of my adolescence, Joan of Arc and
Eleanor of Aquitaine. When I  first heard their voices the  procession
dissolved and the scene instantly shifted.  Suddenly I was in a  small
rowboat in the early morning fog on the small duck pond near our villa
at Beauvois. I shivered  with fear and  began to weep  uncontrollably.
Joan and Eleanor appeared in the fog and mist
    38 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    to assure me  that my father  was not going  to marry Helena,  the
English duchess with whom he had gone to Turkey on a vacation.
    Another night  the overture  of color  was followed  by a  bizarre
theatrical  performance  somewhere  in  Japan.  There  were  only  two
characters in  the  hallucinatory  play, both  of  whom  were  wearing
brilliant, expressive masks. The  man who was  dressed in the  Western
suit and tie  recited poetry  and had magnificently  clear, open  eyes
that could be  seen through his  friendly mask. The  other man  looked
like a seventeenth century samurai  warrior. His mask was a  perpetual
scowl. He began to threaten both  me and his more modern colleague.  I
screamed at the end of this  hallucination because the two men met  in
the middle of the stage and merged into a single character.
    Some of my most powerful hallucinatory images have only lasted for
a few seconds.  On the second  or third night,  a naked Prince  Henry,
engorged with desire, his body a vibrant purple in color, appeared for
two or three seconds in  the middle of another  vision in which I  was
riding on a giant green octospider.
    During yesterday's sleep  period there were  no colors for  hours.
Then, as I became aware of being incredibly hungry, a giant pink manna
melon appeared in the darkness. When  I attempted to eat the melon  in
my  vision,  it  grew  legs  and  scampered  away,  disappearing  into
unresolved colors.
    Does any of this mean anything at all? Can I learn something about
myself or  my life  from  these apparently  random outpourings  of  my
undirected mind?
    The debate  about the  significance of  dreams has  raged now  for
almost three centuries and  is still unresolved. These  hallucinations
of mine,  it seems  to me,  are even  more removed  from reality  than
normal dreams.  In  a  sense  they are  distant  cousins  of  the  two
psychedelic trips that I took earlier  in my life, and any attempt  to
interpret them logically would be  absurd. However, for some reason  I
still believe some fundamental truths are contained in these wild  and
seemingly unconnected rampagings  of my mind.  Maybe that's because  I
cannot accept that the  human brain ever operates  in a purely  random
manner.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA 22 July 2201
    39
    Yesterday the floor finally stopped shaking. Richard had predicted
it. When we didn't go back into the tank two days ago at the customary
time, Richard correctly conjectured that the maneuver was almost over.
    So we enter  still another  phase of our  incredible odys-sey.  My
husband informs us  that we are  now traveling at  a velocity of  more
than half  the  speed  of  light.  That  means  we  are  covering  the
Earth-Moon distance approximately  every two seconds.  We are  headed,
more or less, in the direction of the star Sirius, the brightest  true
star in  the night  sky  of our  home planet.  If  there are  no  more
maneuvers, we will arrive in the vicinity of Sirius in another  twelve
years.
    I am relieved that our life may  now return to some kind of  local
equilibrium. Simone seems to  have weathered the  long periods in  the
tank without any  noticeable difficulties,  but I  can't believe  that
such an  experience will  leave  an infant  totally unscathed.  It  is
important for her that we now reestablish a daily routine.
    In my  moments  alone  I  still  think  often  about  those  vivid
hallucinations during the  first ten days  in the tank.  I must  admit
that I was delighted when  I finally endured several "twilight  zones"
of total sensory  deprivation without the  wild, colored patterns  and
disjointed images flooding  my mind. By  that time J  was starting  to
worry about  my  sanity  and,  quite frankly,  was  already  way  past
"overwhelm." Even  though  the  hallucinations  abruptly  stopped,  my
recollection of the strength of those visions still made me wary  each
time the fights in  the top of the  tank were extinguished during  the
fast several weeks.
    I had only one additional vision after those first ten days-and it
may actually just have been an  extremely vivid dream during a  normal
period of sleep. Despite the fact  that this particular image was  not
as sharp as  the earlier ones,  I have nevertheless  retained all  the
details because of its similarity to one of the hallucinatory segments
while I was at the bottom of the pit last year.
    In my final dream  or vision I  was sitting with  my father at  an
outdoor concert in an unknown place. An old Orien-
    40
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    tal gentleman with a long white beard was by himself on the stage,
playing music on some kind  of strange stringed instrument. Unlike  my
vision at the bottom of the pit, however, my father and I did not turn
into little  birds and  fly  away to  Chinon  in France.  Instead,  my
father's body disappeared completely, leaving only his eyes. Within  a
few seconds there were five other  pairs of eyes forming a hexagon  in
the air  above  me.  I  recognized Omeh's  eyes  immediately,  and  my
mother's, but the other three were  unknown. The eyes at the  vertices
of the hexagon all stared at me, unblinking, as if they were trying to
communicate something. Just before the music stopped I heard a  single
distinct  sound.  Several  voices  simultaneously  uttered  the   word
"Danger."
    What was the origin  of my hallucinations and  why was I the  only
one of the three  of us to experience  them? Richard and Michael  also
endured sensory  deprivation,  and  they  have  each  admitted  seeing
"bizarre colored patterns," but their images were never coherent.  If,
as we  have  conjectured, the  Ramans  initially injected  us  with  a
chemical or two, using the tiny threads that wound around our  bodies,
to help us sleep  in the unfamiliar surroundings,  why was I the  only
one to respond with such wild visions?
    Richard and Michael both think the  answer is simple, that I am  a
"drug labile individual  with a  hyperactive imagination."  As far  as
they are concerned, that's the  entire explanation. They don't  pursue
the subject any further and, although they are polite when I raise the
many  issues  associated  with  my  "trips,"  they  don't  even   seem
interested anymore. I might have expected that kind of a response from
Richard, but certainly not from Michael.
    Actually  even  our  predictable  General  O'Toole  has  not  been
completely himself since  we began our  sessions in the  tank. He  has
clearly been preoccupied with other  matters. Only this morning did  I
obtain a small glimpse of what has been going on in his mind.
    "I have always,"  Michael finally  said slowly, after  I had  been
pestering him with  friendly questions for  several minutes,  "without
consciously acknowledging it,  redefined and relimited  God with  each
new breakthrough in science. I had  managed to integrate a concept  of
the Ra-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    41
    mans into my Catholicism, but in so doing I had merely expanded my
limited definition of  Him. Now, when  I find myself  onboard a  robot
spacecraft traveling  at  relativistic  speeds,  1  see  that  I  must
completely unfetter God. Only then can He be the supreme being of  all
the particles and processes in the universe."
    The challenge  of my  life in  the  near future  is at  the  other
extreme. Richard and Michael are focused on profound ideas-Richard  in
the realm of  science and  engineering, Michael  in the  world of  the
soul. Although I  thoroughly enjoy the  stimulating ideas produced  by
each of them in  his separate search for  the truth, someone must  pay
attention to the everyday  tasks of living. The  three of us have  the
responsibility, after all, of  preparing our only  member of the  next
generation for her adult life.  It looks as if  the task of being  the
primary parent will always fall to me.
    It is  a  responsibility  I gladly  embrace.  When  Simone  smiles
radiantly at me during a break from her nursing, I don't muse about my
hallucinations, it  really doesn't  matter that  much whether  or  not
there is a God,  and it is not  of overwhelming significance that  the
Ramans have developed  a method for  using water as  nuclear fuel.  At
that instant the only  thing that is important  is that I am  Simone's
mother.
    31 July 2201
    Spring has definitely come to Rama. The thaw began as soon as  the
maneuver was  completed.  By that  time  the temperature  topside  had
reached a frigid  twenty-five below zero,  and we had  begun to  worry
about how much lower the  outside temperature could become before  the
system  regulating  the  thermal  conditions  in  our  lair  would  be
stretched to  the  limit. The  temperature  has been  rising  steadily
almost a degree per day since then  and, at that rate, will cross  the
freezing level within two more weeks.
    We are now  outside the  solar system in  the near-perfect  vacuum
that fills the  immense voids  between neighboring stars.  Our sun  is
still the dominant object in the sky, but
    42
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    none of the  planets is even  visible. Two or  three times a  week
Richard searches  through the  telescopic data  for some  sign of  the
comets in the Oort Cloud, but thus far he has seen nothing.
    Where is the heat coming from that is warming the interior of  our
vehicle?  Our  master   engineer,  the   handsome  cosmonaut   Richard
Wakefield, had  a  quick  explanation  when  Michael  asked  him  that
question yesterday. "The  same nuclear system  that was providing  the
huge velocity change is  probably now generating  the heat. Rama  must
have two different operating regimes.  When it is in the  neighborhood
of a heat source, like a star,  it turns off all its primary  systems,
including propulsion and thermal control."
    Both  Michael  and  I  congratulated  Richard  for  an   eminently
plausible explanation. "But,"  I asked  him two days  ago, "there  are
still many other  questions. Why, for  example, does it  have the  two
separate engineering systems? And why does it turn off the primary one
at all?''
    "Here I can only speculate," Richard answered with his usual grin.
"Maybe the primary systems need periodic repairs and these can only be
accomplished when there is an external  source of heat and power.  You
have seen how the  various biots maintain the  surface of Rama.  Maybe
there's another set of  biots who perform all  the maintenance on  the
primary systems."
    "I have another idea," Michael said slowly. "Do you believe we are
meant to be dhboard this spacecraft?"
    "What do you mean?" Richard asked, his brow furrowed.
    "Do you think it is  a random event that we  are here? Or is it  a
likely event,  given  all the  probabilities  and the  nature  of  our
species, that some members of the  human race would be inside Rama  at
this moment?"
    I liked Michael's line of  reasoning. He was hinting, although  he
didn't yet understand it completely  himself, that perhaps the  Ramans
were not just geniuses in  the hard sciences and engineering.  Perhaps
they knew something about universal psychology as well. Richard wasn't
following.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    43
    "Are you suggesting,"  I asked,  "that the  Ramans purposely  used
their secondary systems  in the neighborhood  of the Earth,  expecting
thereby to lure us into a rendezvous?"
    "That's preposterous," Richard said immediately.
    "But Richard," Michael rejoined, "think about it. What would  have
been the probability of  any contact if the  Ramans had streaked  into
our system at a  significant fraction of the  speed of light,  rounded
the Sun, and then  gone on their merry  way? Absolutely zero. And,  as
you have indicated yourself,  there may be  other 'foreigners,' if  we
can call ourselves that, on this ship as well. I doubt if many species
have the ability ..."
    The conversation continued for  almost half an  hour. When it  was
over I reminded the men that the Cylindrical Sea would soon melt  from
below, and that there would be hurricanes and tidal waves  immediately
afterward. We  all later  agreed that  we should  retrieve the  backup
sailboat from the Beta site.
    It took the men slightly more than twelve hours to trek both  ways
across the ice. Night  had already fallen by  the time they  returned.
When Richard  and Michael  reached our  lair, Simone,  who is  already
completely aware of her surroundings, reached out her arms to Michael.
    "I see someone is glad that I'm back," Michael said jokingly.
    "As long as it's just  Simone," Richard said. He seemed  strangely
tense and distant.
    Last night  his  peculiar  mood  continued.  "What's  the  matter,
darling?" I  asked him  when we  were alone  together on  our mat.  He
didn't reply immediately, so I kissed him on the cheek and waited.
    "It's Michael," Richard  said at length.  "I just realized  today,
when we were carrying the sailboat  across the ice, that he's in  love
with you. You should hear him. All  he talks about is you. You're  the
perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect friend. He even admitted
that he was envious of me."
    I caressed Richard for a few seconds, trying to figure out how  to
respond. "I think you're making too much of
    44
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    some casual  statements, darling,"  I said  finally. "Michael  was
simply expressing  his honest  affection. I  am very  fond of  him  as
well-' *
    "I know-that's what bothers me," Richard interrupted me  abruptly.
"He takes care of Simone most of the time when you're busy, the two of
you talk for hours while I'm working on my projects-"
    He stopped and stared  at me with a  strange, forlorn look in  his
eyes. His gaze was scary. This was not the same Richard Wakefield that
I have known  intimately for over  a year. A  chill rushed through  my
system before his eyes softened and he reached over to kiss me.
    After we  made love  and  he fell  asleep,  Simone stirred  and  I
decided to  feed her.  While I  was nursing  I thought  back over  the
entire period  of time  since Michael  found  us at  the foot  of  the
chairlift. There  was nothing  I could  cite that  should have  caused
Richard the  slightest  bit  of  jealousy.  Even  our  lovemaking  has
remained regular and satisfying throughout,  although I will admit  it
hasn't been too imaginative since Simone's birth.
    The crazy look  that I  had seen  in Richard's  eyes continued  to
haunt me even after Simone was  finished nursing. I promised myself  I
would find more time to be alone with Richard in the coming weeks.
    6
    20June2202 I verified today that I am in-
    I deed pregnant again. Michael was delighted, Richard surprisingly
unresponsive. When I talked to Richard privately, he acknowledged that
he had mixed  feelings because  Simone had finally  reached the  stage
where she didn't  need "constant  attention" anymore.  I reminded  him
that when we had talked two months ago about having another child,  he
had given his enthusiastic consent.  Richard suggested to me that  his
eagerness to father a second child had been strongly influenced by  my
"obvious excitement" at the time.
    The new baby  should arrive  in mid-March.  By then  we will  have
finished with the nursery  and will have enough  living space for  the
entire family. I am sorry that  Richard is not thrilled about being  a
father again, but I am glad that Simone will now have a playmate.
    1 5 March 2203
    Catharine Colin Wakefield (we will call her Katie) was born on the
thirteenth of March at 6:16 in the morning. It
    46 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    was  an  easy  birth,  only  four  hours  from  the  first  strong
contraction to delivery. There was no significant pain at any time.  I
delivered squatting on my haunches and  was in such good shape that  I
cut the umbilical myself.
    Katie already cries a lot.  Both Genevieve and Simone were  sweet,
mellow babies,  but  Katie is  obviously  going to  be  a  noisemaker.
Richard is pleased that I wanted to  name her after his mother. I  had
hoped that he  might be  more interested in  his role  as father  this
time, but at present he is too busy working on his "perfect data base"
(it will index and provide easy access to all our information) to  pay
much attention to Katie.
    My third daughter weighed just  under four kilograms at birth  and
was fifty-four centimeters  long. Simone was  almost certainly not  as
heavy when she was born, but we did not have an accurate scale at  the
time. Katie's skin color is quite fair, almost white in fact, and  her
hair is much lighter  than the dark black  tresses of her sister.  Her
eyes are surprisingly blue. I know that it's not unusual for babies to
have blue eyes and that often  they darken significantly in the  first
year. But I never expected a child of mine to have blue eyes for  even
a moment.
    18 May 2203
    It's hard for me  to believe that Katie  is already more than  two
months old. She is such  a demanding baby! By  now I should have  been
able to teach her not to pull on my nipples, but I cannot break her of
the habit. She  is especially  difficult when anyone  else is  present
while I am  nursing. If  I even  turn my head  to talk  to Michael  or
Richard, or especially if I try  to answer one of Simone's  questions,
then Katie jerks on my nipple with a vengeance.
    Richard has been extremely moody lately. At times he is his  usual
brilliant, witty  self,  keeping  Michael and  me  laughing  with  his
erudite banter; however, his  mood can shift in  an instant. A  single
seemingly innocuous observation by  either of us  can plunge him  into
depression or even anger.
    I suspect that Richard's real problem these days is bore-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    47
    dom. He has  finished his data  base project and  not yet  started
another major  activity.  The fabulous  computer  he built  last  year
contains subroutines that  make our  interface with  the black  screen
almost routine. Richard could add some variety to his days by  playing
a more active part in Simone's development and education, but I  guess
it's just not his style. He does not seem to be fascinated, as Michael
and I are, with  the complex patterns of  growth that are emerging  in
Simone.
    When I was first pregnant with Katie, I was quite concerned  about
Richard's apparent lack of interest  in children. I decided to  attack
the problem directly by asking him to help me set up a  minilaboratory
that would enable us to analyze  part of Katie's genome from a  sample
of my amniotic fluid. The project involved complex chemistry, a  level
of interaction  with the  Ramans deeper  than any  we had  ever  tried
before, and the creation and calibration of some sophisticated medical
instruments.
    Richard loved the task. I did too,  for it reminded me of my  days
in medical school. We worked  together for twelve, sometimes  fourteen
hours a day  (leaving Michael  to take  care of  Simone-those two  are
certainly fond of each other) until  we were finished. Often we  would
talk about our  work late into  the night, even  while we were  making
love.
    When the day came, however, that we completed the analysis of  our
own future child's genome,  I discovered, much  to my amazement,  that
Richard was  more  excited  about  the fact  that  the  equipment  and
analysis  met  all   our  specifications   than  he   was  about   the
characteristics of our second daughter. I was astonished. When I  told
him  that  the  child   was  a  girl,  and   didn't  have  Down's   or
Whitting-ham's syndrome, and  none of her  a priori cancer  tendencies
were outside the acceptable  ranges, he reacted matter-of-factly.  But
when I  praised the  speed  and accuracy  with  which the  system  had
completed the test, Richard beamed with pride. What a different man my
husband is! He is much more comfortable with the world of  mathematics
and engineering than he is with other people.
    Michael has noticed Richard's recent restlessness as well. He  has
encouraged Richard to create more toys for
    48 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Simone like the brilliant  dolls he made when  I was in the  final
months of  my pregnancy  with Katie.  Those dolls  are still  Simone's
favorite playthings. They walk around on their own and even respond to
a dozen verbal  commands. One night,  when Richard was  in one of  his
exuberant moods, he programmed TB  to interact with the dolls.  Simone
was almost hysterical with laughter after The Bard (Michael insists on
calling Richard's Shakespeare-spouting robot by its full name)  chased
all three of the dolls into a  corner and then launched into a  medley
of love sonnets.
    Not even TB  has cheered Richard  these last two  weeks. He's  not
sleeping well, which is unusual for  him, and he has shown no  passion
for anything. Our regular and varied sex life has even been suspended,
so Richard must be really  struggling with his internal demons.  Three
days ago he left early in the morning (it was also just after dawn  in
Rama-every now and  then our  Earth clock in  the lair  and the  Raman
clock outside are in  synch) and stayed  up in New  York for over  ten
hours. When I asked him what he had been doing, he replied that he had
sat on the wall and stared at the Cylindrical Sea. Then he changed the
subject.
    Michael and Richard are  both convinced that we  are now alone  on
our island. Richard has  entered the avian  lair twice recently,  both
times staying on the side of the vertical corridor away from the  tank
sentry. He even  descended once to  the second horizontal  passageway,
where I made my  leap, but he  saw no signs  of life. The  octo-spider
lair now has a pair of complicated grills between the covering and the
first  landing.  For   the  past   four  months,   Richard  has   been
electronically monitoring the region around the octo lair again;  even
though he admits there  may be some ambiguities  in his monitor  data,
Richard insists  he can  tell from  visual inspection  alone that  the
grills have not been opened for a long time.
    The men assembled the  sailboat a couple of  months ago, and  then
spent two hours checking it out  on the Cylindrical Sea. Simone and  I
waved to them from the shore. Fearful that the crab biots would define
the boat as "garbage"  (as they apparently  did the other  sailboat-we
never did figure out what  happened to it; a  couple of days after  we
escaped
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    49
    from me phalanx of  nuclear missiles we returned  to where we  had
left the sailboat and it  was gone), Richard and Michael  disassembled
it again and brought it into our lair for safekeeping.
    Richard has said several times that  he would like to sail  across
the sea, toward the south, and see if he can find any place where  the
five-hundred-meter cliff  can be  scaled.  Our information  about  the
Southern Hemicylinder of Rama is very limited. Except for the few days
when we were on the biot hunt with the original Newton cosmonaut team,
our knowledge of the region is limited to the crude mosaics  assembled
in realtime from the initial  Newton drone images. It would  certainly
be fascinating and exciting to  explore the south-maybe we could  even
find out where all those octospiders went. But we can't afford to take
any risks at this juncture. Our family is critically dependent on each
of the three adults-the loss of any one of us would be devastating.
    I believe Michael OToole is content with the life we have made for
ourselves on Rama,  especially since the  addition of Richard's  large
computer has made so much more information readily available to us. We
now have access to all the  encyclopedic data that was stored  onboard
the Newton military ship. Michael's current "study unit," as he  calls
his organized recreation, is art history. Last month his  conversation
was full of  the Medici  and the  Catholic popes  of the  Renaissance,
along with Michelangelo, Raphael, and the other great painters of  the
period. He is now involved with the nineteenth century, a time in  art
history that  I  find  more  interesting.  We  have  had  many  recent
discussions about the impressionist "revolution," but Michael does not
accept my argument that impressionism was simply a natural  by-product
of the advent of the camera.
    Michael spends  hours  with Simone.  He  is patient,  tender,  and
caring. He has  carefully monitored her  development and has  recorded
her major milestones  in his  electronic notebook.  At present  Simone
knows twenty-one of her twenty-six letters by sight (she confuses  the
pairs C and 5, as  well as ¥ and V,  and for some reason cannot  learn
the K), and can count to twenty on a good day.
    50
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Simone can  also  correctly  identify drawings  of  an  avian,  an
octospider, and the four most prevalent types of biots. She knows  the
names of  the twelve  disciples as  well, a  fact that  does not  make
Richard happy.  We have  already had  one "summit  meeting" about  the
spiritual education  of  our  daughters, and  the  result  was  polite
disagreement.
    That leaves me. I am  happy most of the  time, although I do  have
some days when Richard's  restlessness or Katie's  crying or just  the
absurdity of  our strange  life  on this  alien spaceship  combine  to
overwhelm me. I am always busy. I plan most of the family  activities,
decide what we're eating and  when, and organize the children's  days,
including their naps. I never stop asking -the question, where are  we
going? But it no longer frustrates me that I do not know the answer.
    My personal intellectual  activity is  more limited  than I  might
choose if I were left to my own devices, but I tell myself that  there
are only so  many hours  in the day.  Richard, Michael,  and I  engage
often in  lively conversation,  so  there is  certainly no  dearth  of
stimulation.  But  neither   of  them  has   much  interest  in   some
intellectual areas that have always been a part of my life. My  skills
in languages  and linguistics,  for  example, have  been a  source  of
considerable pride for me  since my earliest  days in school.  Several
weeks ago I had  a terrifying dream  in which I  had forgotten how  to
write or speak  in anything but  English. For two  weeks thereafter  I
spent two hours  by myself  each day,  not just  reviewing my  beloved
French, but also studying Italian and Japanese as well.
    One afternoon last month Richard  projected on the black screen  a
Raman external  telescope output  that included  our Sun  and  another
thousand stars in the field of view. The Sun was the brightest of  the
objects, but just barely. Richard reminded Michael and me that we  are
already more than  twelve trillion  kilometers away  from our  oceanic
home planet in close orbit around that insignificant distant star.
    Later the same evening  we watched Eleanor the  Queen, one of  the
thirty or so movies originally carried onboard the Newton to entertain
the cosmonaut  crew.  The  movie  was loosely  based  on  my  father's
successful novels about
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA 51
    Eleanor of Aquitaine and was filmed in many of the locations  that
I had  visited with  my father  when 1  was an  adolescent. The  final
scenes of the movie, showing the  years before Eleanor died, all  took
place in L'Abbaye de Fontevrault. I remember being fourteen years  old
and standing in the abbey beside my father opposite the carved  effigy
of Eleanor, my hands  trembling with emotion as  I clutched his.  "You
were a great woman," I  once said to the spirit  of the queen who  had
dominated twelfth century history in France and England, "and you have
set an example for me to follow. I will not disappoint you."
    That  night,  after  Richard  was  asleep  and  while  Katie   was
temporarily quiet, I thought about the day again and was filled with a
deep sorrow, a sense  of loss that I  could not quite articulate.  The
juxtaposition of  the retreating  Sun and  the image  of myself  as  a
teenager, making bold promises to a queen who had been dead for almost
a thousand years, reminded me that everything I had ever known  before
Rama is now finished. My two new  daughters will never see any of  the
places that meant so  much to me and  Genevieve. They will never  know
the smell of freshly mown grass  in springtime, the radiant beauty  of
the flowers, the songs  of the birds,  or the glory  of the full  moon
rising out of the ocean. They will  not know the planet Earth at  all,
or any of its inhabitants, except for this small and motley crew  they
will call their  family, a  meager representation  of the  overflowing
life on a blessed planet.
    That night I wept quietly for  several minutes, knowing even as  I
was weeping that  by morning I  would again be  wearing my  optimistic
face. After all, it could be much worse. We have the essentials: food,
water, shelter, clothing, good health, companionship, and, of  course,
love. Love is the most important  ingredient for the happiness of  any
human life, either on Earth or on Rama. If Simone and Katie learn only
of love from the world we've left behind, it will be enough.
    7
    Today was unusual in every respect.
    1 April 2204
    First, I announced  as soon  as everyone  was awake  that we  were
going to dedicate the day to  the memory of Eleanor of Aquitaine,  who
died, if the historians are correct  and we have properly tracked  the
calendar, exactly one  thousand years  ago today. To  my delight,  the
entire  family  supported  the  idea  and  both  Richard  and  Michael
immediately volunteered to help  with the festivities. Michael,  whose
art history unit has  now been replaced by  one on cooking,  suggested
that he  prepare a  special medieval  brunch in  honor of  the  queen.
Richard dashed off with TB, whispering to me that the little robot was
going to return as Henry Plantagenet. I had developed a short  history
lesson for Simone, introducing her to Eleanor and the twelfth  century
world. She was unusually attentive.  Even Katie, who never sits  still
for longer than five minutes, was cooperative and didn't interrupt us.
She played quietly  with her  baby toys  most of  the morning.  Simone
asked me at the end of the  lesson why Queen Eleanor had died. When  I
responded that the
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    53
    queen had died of old  age, my three-year-old daughter then  asked
if Queen Eleanor had "gone to heaven."
    "Where did you get that idea?" I asked Simone.
    "From Uncle Michael," she replied. "He told me that good people go
to heaven when they die and bad people go to hell."
    "Some people believe there is a heaven," I said after a reflective
pause. "Others believe  in what's called  reincarnation, where  people
come back and live again as a different person or even as a  different
kind of animal. Some other people believe that each special life is  a
unique miracle, awakening from conception to birth, and going to sleep
forever at death." I smiled and tousled her hair.
    "What do you believe, Mama?" my daughter then asked.
    I felt something  very close  to panic.  I temporized  with a  few
comments while I tried to figure  out what to say. An expression  from
my  favorite  T.S.  Eliot  poem,  "to  lead  you  to  an  overwhelming
question," whisked in and out of my mind. Luckily I was rescued.
    "Fare thee well, young lady." The little robot TB, dressed in what
was supposed to pass  for medieval riding garb,  walked into the  room
and informed Simone that  he was Henry  Plantagenet, king of  England,
and husband of Queen Eleanor. Simone's smile brightened. Katie  looked
up and grinned.
    "The queen and I built a grand empire," the robot said, making  an
expansive gesture with his little arms, "that eventually included  all
of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and half of what is now France."
TB recited a  prepared lecture  with gusto, amusing  Simone and  Katie
with his winks and  hand gestures. He then  reached in his pocket  and
pulled out a miniature knife and fork, claiming that he had introduced
the concept of eating utensils to the "barbaric English."
    "But why did you put Queen Eleanor in prison?" Simone asked  after
the robot was finished. 1 smiled. She had indeed paid attention to her
history lesson.  The  robot's head  pivoted  and looked  in  Richard's
direction. Richard  held up  a finger,  indicating a  brief wait,  and
rushed out
    54
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    into the corridor. In no more  than a minute TB, a.k.a. Henry  II,
returned. The  robot walked  over  to Simone.  "I  fell in  love  with
another woman," he .said,  "and Queen Eleanor was  angry. To get  even
with me, she turned my sons against me. ..."
    A short time later Richard and I were involved in a mild  argument
about  the  real  reasons  why  Henry  imprisoned  Eleanor  (we   have
discovered many  times that  we each  learned a  different version  of
Anglo-French history) when we heard a distant but unmistakable shriek.
Within moments all five of us were topside. The shriek repeated.
    We looked up in the  sky above us. A  solitary avian was flying  a
wide pattern a few hundred meters  above the tops of the  skyscrapers.
We hurried over  to the ramparts,  beside the Cylindrical  Sea, so  we
could have a better look. Once, twice, three times the great  creature
flew around the perimeter of the island.  At the end of each loop  the
avian emitted a single long shriek. Richard waved his arms and shouted
throughout the  flight,  but  there  was no  indication  that  he  was
noticed.
    The children became restless after  about an hour. We agreed  that
Michael would take them back to the lair and Richard and I would  stay
as long as there  was any possibility of  contact. The bird  continued
flying in the same pattern. "Do you think it's looking for something?"
I asked Richard.
    "I don't know," he said, shouting again and waving at the avian as
it reached the point in its loop where it was closest to us. This time
it changed  course,  inscribing  long graceful  arcs  in  its  helical
descent. As it  grew closer,  Richard and I  could see  both its  gray
velvet underbelly  and the  two bright,  cherry-red rings  around  its
neck.
    "It's our friend," I whispered  to Richard, remembering the  avian
leader who had agreed to transport us across the Cylindrical Sea  four
years earlier.
    But this avian was not the healthy, robust creature that had flown
in the center of the formation when we had escaped from New York. This
bird was skinny  and emaciated,  its velvet dirty  and unkempt.  "It's
sick," Richard said as the bird  landed about twenty meters away  from
us.
    The avian jabbered something softly and jerked its head
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    55
    around nervously, as  if it were  expecting more company.  Richard
took one step toward it and the creature waved its wings, flapped them
once, and backed up  a few meters. "What  food do we have  available,"
Richard said in a low voice,  "that is chemically most like the  manna
melon?"
    I shook  my head.  "We don't  have  any food  at all  except  last
night's chicken- Wait," I said, interrupting myself, "we do have  that
green punch the children like. It looks like the liquid in the  center
of the manna melon."
    Richard was gone before I had finished my sentence. During the ten
minutes until he  returned, the  avian and  I stared  silently at  one
another. I tried to  focus my mind on  friendly thoughts, hoping  that
somehow my good intentions would be communicated through my eyes. Once
I did see the avian change its expression, but of course I had no idea
what either expression meant.
    Richard returned carrying one of  our black bowls filled with  the
green punch. He set the  bowl in front of us  and pointed at it as  we
backed away six  or eight meters.  The avian approached  it in  small,
halting steps, stopping  eventually right  in front of  the bowl.  The
bird dropped its  beak into  the liquid, took  a small  sip, and  then
threw its head back  to swallow. Apparently the  punch was all  right,
for die liquid was drained in less  than a minute. When the avian  was
finished, it  backed up  two steps,  spread its  wings to  their  full
extent, and made a full circular turn.
    "Now we should say you're welcome,"  I said, extending my hand  to
Richard. We executed  our circular turn,  as we had  done when we  had
said good-bye and thank you four years earlier, and bowed slightly  in
the avian's direction when we were finished.
    Both Richard  and  I thought  that  the creature  smiled,  but  we
readily admitted later that we might have imagined it. The gray velvet
avian spread its  wings, lifted off  the ground, and  soared over  our
heads into the air.
    "Where do you think it's going?" I asked Richard.
    "It's dying," he replied softly. "It's taking one last look around
the world it has known.''
    56 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE 6 January 2205
    Today is my birthday. I am  now forty-one years old. Last night  I
had another of my vivid dreams. I was very old. My hair was completely
gray  and  my  face   was  heavily  wrinkled.  I   was  living  in   a
castle-somewhere near the  Loire, not too  far from Beauvois-with  two
grown daughters (neither of whom looked, in the dream, like Simone  or
Katie or Genevieve) and three grandsons. The boys were all  teenagers,
healthy physically, but there was  something wrong with each of  them.
They were  all dull,  maybe even  retarded. I  remember in  the  dream
trying to  explain to  them  how the  molecule of  hemoglobin  carries
oxygen from the pulmonary  system to the tissues.  None of them  could
understand what I was saying.
    I woke up from the dream in a depression. It was the middle of the
night and everyone else  in the family  was asleep. As  I often do,  I
walked down the corridor to the nursery to make certain that the girls
were still covered by their  light blankets. Simone hardly ever  moves
at night but  Katie, as  usual, had thrown  her blanket  off with  her
thrashing around. I put the cover back over Katie and then sat down in
one of the chairs.
    What is bothering me? I wondered.  Why have I been having so  many
dreams about children and  grandchildren? One day last  week I made  a
joking reference  to  the possibility  of  having a  third  child  and
Richard, who is going through another of his extended gloomy  periods,
almost jumped out of his skin. I  think he's still sorry I talked  him
into having Katie. I dropped  the subject immediately, not wanting  to
provoke another of his nihilistic tirades.
    Would I really want  another baby at this  juncture? Does it  make
any sense at  all, given  the situation  in which  we find  ourselves?
Putting aside for  the moment any  personal reasons I  might have  for
giving birth to a third child, there is a powerful biological argument
for continuing to reproduce. Our best guess at our destiny is that  we
will never have  any future contact  with other members  of the  human
species. If we are the  last in our line, it  would be wise for us  to
pay heed  to  one of  the  fundamental tenets  of  evolution:  Maximum
genetic variation
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    57
    produces the  highest  probability  of survival  in  an  uncertain
environment.
    After I had thoroughly awakened from my dream last night, my  mind
carried the scenario even further.  Suppose, I told myself, that  Rama
is really not  going anywhere,  at least not  soon, and  that we  will
spend the rest of  our lives in our  current conditions. Then, in  all
likelihood, Simone and Katie will outlive the three of us adults. What
will happen next?  I asked. Unless  we have somehow  saved some  semen
from  either  Michael  or  Richard   (and  both  the  biological   and
sociological problems would be formidable),  my daughters will not  be
able to reproduce. They themselves  may arrive at paradise or  nirvana
or some other  world, but they  will eventually perish  and the  genes
they carry will die with them.
    But suppose, I continued, that I give birth to a son. Then the two
girls will  have  a  male  companion their  age  and  the  problem  of
succeeding generations will be dramatically lessened.
    It was at this point in my thought pattern that a truly crazy idea
jumped into my  brain. One of  my major areas  of specialty during  my
medical  training  was  genetics,  especially  hereditary  defects.  I
remembered my case studies of the royal families of Europe between the
fifteenth and eighteenth centuries and the many "inferior" individuals
produced from the excessive inbreeding. A son produced by Richard  and
me would have the same genetic  ingredients as Simone and Katie.  That
son's children with either of the girls, our grandchildren, would have
a very high risk of defects. A son produced by Michael and me, on tiie
other hand, would share only half his genes with the girls and, if  my
memory of the data serves me  correctly, his offspring with Simone  or
Katie would have a drastically lower defect risk.
    I immediately  rejected  this  outrageous  thought.  It  did  not,
however, go  away.  Later  in  the night,  when  I  should  have  been
sleeping, my  mind  returned to  the  same  topic. What  if  I  become
pregnant by Richard again,  I asked myself, and  I have a third  girl?
Then it will be  necessary to repeat the  entire process. I'm  already
forty-one. How  many  more  years  do  I  have  before  the  onset  of
menopause,
    58
    ARTHUR C, CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    even if I delay it chemically? On the basis of the two data points
thus far, there is no evidence that Richard can produce a boy at  all.
We could establish a  laboratory to permit  male sperm selection  from
his semen,  but it  would take  a monumental  effort on  our part  and
months of detailed interaction with the Ramans. And there would  still
remain the issues of sperm preservation and delivery to the ovaries.
    I thought through  the various proven  techniques of altering  the
natural sex selection process (the  man's diet, type and frequency  of
intercourse, timing with  respect to ovula-tion,  etc.) and  concluded
that Richard and I  would probably have a  good chance of producing  a
boy naturally, if we were very careful. But at the back of my mind the
thought persisted  that the  odds  would be  still more  favorable  if
Michael were the  father. After  all, he had  two sons  (out of  three
children) as a result of random behavior. However much I might be able
to improve the  probabilities with Richard,  the same techniques  with
Michael would virtually guarantee a son.
    Before I fell back asleep I considered briefly the'imprac-ticality
of the  entire idea.  A foolproof  method of  artificial  insemination
(which I  would  be required  to  supervise,  even though  I  was  the
subject) would have to  be devised. Could we  do that, in our  current
situation, and guarantee both  the sex and the  health of the  embryo?
Even hospitals on Earth, with all the resources at their command,  are
not always  successful. The  other alternative  was to  have sex  with
Michael.  Although  I  did  not  find  that  thought  unpleasant,  the
sociological ramifications seemed so great  that 1 abandoned the  idea
altogether.
    (Six hours later.)  The men  surprised me tonight  with a  special
dinner. Michael  is  becoming  quite  a  cook.  The  food  tasted,  as
advertised, like beef Wellington, although it looked more like creamed
spinach. Richard and Michael also served a red liquid that was labeled
wine. It  wasn't terrible,  so  I drank  it,  discovering much  to  my
surprise that it contained some alcohol and 1 actually felt high.
    All of us adults were, in fact,  slightly tipsy by the end of  the
dinner. The girls, Simone especially, were puzzled
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    59
    by our behavior. During our  dessert of coconut pie, Michael  told
me that 41 was a "very special  number." He then explained to me  that
it was the  largest prime that  started a long  quadratic sequence  of
other primes.  When I  asked him  what a  quadratic sequence  was,  he
laughed and  said he  didn't  know. He  did,  however, write  out  the
forty-element sequence he was talking about:  41, 43, 47, 53, 61,  71,
83, 97, 113 . .  . , concluding with the  number 1,601. He assured  me
that every  one of  the forty  numbers in  the sequence  was a  prime.
"Therefore," he  said  with a  twinkle,  "forty-one must  be  a  magic
number."
    While I was laughing,  our resident genius  Richard looked at  the
numbers and then,  after no  more than a  minute of  playing with  his
computer, explained  to Michael  and me  why the  sequence was  called
"quadratic." "The second differences  are constant," he said,  showing
us what he meant with an  example. "Therefore the entire sequence  can
be generated by  a simple quadratic  expression. Take/(AO =  N2 - N  +
41," he continued,  "where N is  any integer from  0 through 40.  That
function will generate your entire sequence.
    "Better still," he said with a laugh, "consider f(N) = N2 - 81N  +
1681, where  N is  an integer  running from  1 to  80. This  quadratic
formula starts at the tail end of your string of numbers, f(l) - 1601,
and proceeds  through  the  sequence in  decreasing  order  first.  It
reverses itself at ^40) = f(4l)  = 41, and then generates your  entire
array of numbers again in increasing order.''
    Richard smiled. Michael and I just stared at him in awe.
    13 March 2205
    Katie had her  second birthday today  and everyone was  in a  good
mood, Richard especially. He  does like his  little girl, even  though
she manipulates him outrageously. For her birthday he took her over to
the octospider lair cover and  they rattled the grills together.  Both
Michael and  I  expressed our  disapproval,  but Richard  laughed  and
winked at Katie.
    At dinner Simone played a short piano piece that Mi-
    60
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    chael has been teaching her and Richard served a quite  remarkable
wine-a Raman chardonnay,  he called  it- with our  poached salmon.  In
Rama poached salmon looks like scrambled eggs on Earth, which is a bit
confusing, but we  continue to  adhere to our  convention of  labeling
foods according to their tastes.
    I'm feeling buoyantly happy,  even though I must  admit that I  am
slightly nervous about my coming  discussion with Richard. He is  very
upbeat at the present time, mostly because he's busily working on  not
one, but two major projects. Not only is he making liquid  concoctions
whose taste and  alcohol content rival  the fine wines  of the  planet
Earth, but also he is creating  a new set of twenty-centimeter  robots
based on the characters from the plays of the twentieth century  Nobel
laureate Samuel Beckett.  Michael and  I have been  urging Richard  to
reincarnate his Shakespeare troupe for  several years, but the  memory
of his lost  friends has  always stopped  him. But  a new  playwright-
that's  a  different  question.  He  has  already  finished  the  four
characters in Endgame. Tonight the children laughed gleefully when the
old folks  "Nagg" and  "Nell"  rose out  of  their tiny  garbage  cans
shouting, "My pap. Bring me my pap."
    I am definitely going  to present to Richard  my idea of having  a
son with Michael as the father. He will, I am certain, appreciate  the
logic and the science of  the suggestion, although I can  hardly^xpect
him to  be  terribly enthusiastic  about  it.  Of course  I  have  not
mentioned my idea at all to Michael yet. He does know I have something
serious on my mind, however, because I have asked him if he would look
after the girls this  afternoon while Richard and  I go topside for  a
picnic and a talk.
    My nervousness about  this issue  is probably  unwarranted. It  is
doubtless based on a definition of proper behavior that simply has  no
application to our  present situation. Richard  is feeling good  these
days. His wit has  been very sharp  lately. He may  throw a few  sharp
zingers at me during our discussion, but I bet he will be in favor  of
the idea at the end.
    8
    7 May 2205 This has been the spring of
    I our discontent. Oh, Lord,
    what fools we mortals be. Richard, Richard, please come back.
    Where to start? And how to begin? Do  I dare to eat a peach? In  a
minute there are visions and revisions  that a minute ... In the  next
room Michael and Simone come and go, talking of Michelangelo.
    My father always  told me  that everyone makes  mistakes. Why  did
mine have to be so colossal? The  idea made good sense. My left  brain
said it was logical. But deep down inside the human being, reason does
not always carry the day. Emotions  are not rational. Jealousy is  not
the output of a computer program.
    There were plenty  of warnings.  That first afternoon,  as we  sat
beside the Cylindrical  Sea and had  our "picnic," I  could tell  from
Richard's eyes that there  was a problem. Uh-oh,  back off, Nicole,  I
said to myself.
    But later he seemed so reasonable. "Of course," Richard said  that
same afternoon, "what  you are suggesting  is the genetically  correct
thing to do. I will go with you to
    62
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    tell Michael. Let's get  this over as fast  as we can, hoping  one
encounter will be all that is necessary."
    I felt elated at  the time. It never  occurred to me that  Michael
might balk. "It would  be a sin,"  he said in  the evening, after  the
girls were asleep,  within seconds  after he understood  what we  were
proposing.
    Richard took the offensive, arguing that the entire concept of sin
was an  anachronism even  on Earth  and that  Michael was  just  being
silly. "Do  you really  want me  to do  this?" Michael  asked  Richard
directly at the end of the conversation.
    "No," Richard answered after a brief hesitation, "but it's clearly
in the  best interests  of  our children."  I  should have  paid  more
attention to the "no."
    It never occurred to me that my plan might not work. I tracked  my
ovulation cycle  very carefully.  When  the designated  night  finally
arrived, I informed Richard and he stalked out of the lair for one  of
his long hikes in Rama. Michael was nervous and fighting his  feelings
of guilt, but even in my worst doomsday scenario I had not .  imagined
that he might be unable to have intercourse with me.
    When we took off  our clothes (in the  dark, so Michael would  not
feel  uncomfortable)  and  lay  beside  each  other  on  the  mats,  I
discovered that his  body was  rigid and tense.  I kissed  him on  the
forehead and cheeks. Then I tried to loosen him up by rubbing his back
and neck. After  about thirty  minutes of touching  (but nothing  that
would be considered sexual foreplay),  I snuggled my body against  his
in a suggestive way. It  was obvious we had  a problem. His penis  was
still completely flaccid.
    I did not know what to do. My initial thought, which of course was
completely irrational, was that Michael did not find me attractive.  I
felt terrible,  as if  someone had  slapped  me in  the face.  All  my
repressed feelings  of  inadequacy burst  to  the surface  and  I  was
surprisingly angry.  Luckily  I didn't  say  anything (neither  of  us
talked during this entire period) and Michael couldn't see my face  in
the dark. But my body language must have signaled my disappointment.
    "I'm sorry," he said softly.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    63
    "It's all right," I answered, trying to be nonchalant.
    I propped myself up on an elbow and caressed his forehead with  my
other hand. I expanded my light massage, letting my fingers ran gently
around his face, neck, and shoulders. Michael was completely  passive.
He lay on his back without moving,  his eyes closed most of the  time.
Although I  am  certain he  was  enjoying  the rub,  he  neither  said
anything nor  uttered any  murmurs of  pleasure. By  this time  I  was
becoming exceedingly anxious. I found myself wanting Michael to caress
me, to tell me that I was all right.
    At length I rolled over with part of my body across his. I let  my
breasts drop gently on his torso  while my right hand played with  the
hah- on his chest. I leaned up  to kiss him on the lips, intending  to
arouse him elsewhere with my left hand, but he pulled away quickly and
then sat up.
    "I can't do this," Michael said, shaking his head.
    "Why not?" I  asked quietly, my  body now in  an awkward  position
beside him.
    "It's wrong," he answered with great solemnity.
    I tried  several  times  in  the  next  few  minutes  to  start  a
conversation, but Michael  did not want  to talk. Eventually,  because
there was nothing else for me to  do, I dressed silently in the  dark.
Michael barely managed a meager "Good night" when I left.
    I did not return  immediately to my  room. Once I  was out in  the
corridor I realized that  I was not yet  ready to confront Richard.  I
leaned against  the  wall and  struggled  with the  powerful  emotions
engulfing me. Why  had I assumed  everything would be  so simple?  And
what would I tell Richard now?
    From the sound  of Richard's  breathing I,  knew that  he was  not
asleep when I entered  our room. If  I had had  more courage, I  might
have told him right  then what had happened  with Michael. But it  was
easier to ignore it for the moment. That was a serious mistake.
    The next two days were strained. Nobody mentioned what Richard had
once referred to as the "fertilization event." The men tried to act as
if everything was normal.  After dinner the  second night I  persuaded
Richard to take a walk with me while Michael put the girls to bed.
    64
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Richard was explaining the chemistry of his new wine  fermentation
process as we stood on  the ramparts overlooking the Cylindrical  Sea.
At one point I interrupted him  and took his hand. "Richard," I  said,
my eyes  searching for  love and  reassurance in  his, "this  is  very
difficult. ..." My voice trailed off.
    "What is it, Nikki?" he asked, forcing a smile.
    "Well," I  answered,  "it's  Michael. You  see,"  I  blurted  out,
"nothing really happened. ... He couldn't . . ."
    Richard stared at me for a long time. "You mean he's impotent?" he
asked.
    I nodded  first and  then completely  confused him  by shaking  my
head. "Probably not really," I stammered, "but he was the other  night
with me. I think  he's just too  tense or feels  guilty or maybe  it's
been too long-" I stopped myself, realizing I was saying too much.
    Richard gazed across the sea for what seemed like an eternity. "Do
you  want  to  try  again?"   he  said  eventually  in  a   completely
expressionless voice. He did not turn to look at me.
    "I... I don't know," I answered. I squeezed his hand. I was  going
to say something else, to ask him if he could deal with the  situation
if I tried one  more time, but Richard  abruptly walked away from  me.
"Let me know when you make up your mind," he said tersely.
    For a week or two  I was certain that I  was going to abandon  the
entire idea. Slowly, very slowly, a semblance of cheer returned to our
little family. The night after my  period was over Richard and I  made
love twice for the first time in a year. He seemed especially  pleased
and was very talkative as we cuddled after the second intercourse.
    "I must say I was really worried there for a while," he said. "The
thought of your having sex  with Michael, even for supposedly  logical
reasons, was driving me crazy. I know it doesn't make rational  sense,
but  I   was  terribly   afraid  that   you  might   like  it-do   you
understand?-and mat somehow our relationship might be affected."
    Richard was obviously assuming that I wasn't going to try again to
become pregnant with  Michael's child.  I didn't argue  with him  that
night because  I  too  was  momentarily content.  A  few  days  later,
however, when I began reading
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    65
    about impotence in my medical books, I realized myself that I  was
still determined to proceed with my plan.
    During the week before I ovulated again, Richard was busy  brewing
his wine (and maybe  tasting it a bit  more often than  necessary-more
than once he  was a little  drunk before dinner)  and creating  little
robots out of Samuel Beckett's characters. My attention was focused on
impotence. My curriculum at medical  school had virtually ignored  the
subject. And since  my own  sexual experience  has been  comparatively
limited, I  had never  personally been  exposed to  it before.  I  was
surprised to  learn  that impotence  is  an extremely  common  malady,
primarily psychological but very  often with an exacerbating  physical
component as  well, and  that there  are many  well-defined  treatment
patterns, all of which focus on lessening the "performance anxiety" in
the man.
    Richard saw  me  preparing  my urine  for  ovulation  testing  one
morning. He didn't say anything, but  I could tell from his face  that
he was  hurt and  disappointed.  I wanted  to  reassure him,  but  the
children were in the room and I was afraid there might be a scene.
    I didn't tell Michael that we were going to make a second attempt.
I thought that his anxiety would be reduced if he didn't have time  to
think about it.  My plan  almost worked. I  went with  Michael to  his
room, after we had put the children to bed, and explained to him  what
was happening while we undressed. He had the beginnings of an erection
and, despite his mild  protests, I moved quickly  to sustain it. I  am
certain that we would  have been successful if  Katie had not  started
screaming "Mommy, Mommy" just when we were ready to begin intercourse.
    Of course I left Michael and ran down the corridor to the nursery.
Richard was already there.  He was holding Katie  in his arms.  Simone
was sitting up on  her mat, rubbing  her eyes. The  three of them  all
stared at my  naked body  in the doorway.  "I had  a terrible  dream,"
Katie said, holding tightly to Richard. "An octospider was eating me."
    I walked into  the room. "Are  you feeling better  now?" I  asked,
reaching out to take Katie. Richard continued to hold her and she made
no effort to come to me. After an
    66
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    uncomfortable moment  I went  over  to Simone  and draped  my  arm
across her shoulder.
    "Where are your pajamas, Mother?" my four-year-old asked. Most  of
the time both Richard and I sleep in the Raman version of pajamas. The
girls are quite  accustomed to my  naked body-the three  of us  shower
together virtually  every  day-but at  night,  when I  come  into  the
nursery, I'm almost always wearing my pajamas.
    I was going to give Simone  a flippant answer when I noticed  that
Richard too was staring  at me. His eyes  were definitely hostile.  "I
can take care of things here," he said harshly. "Why don't you  finish
what you were doing?"
    I returned to Michael to try one more time to achieve  intercourse
and conception. It  was a  bad decision. I  made a  futile attempt  to
arouse Michael for  a couple  of minutes and  then he  pushed my  hand
away. "It's useless," he said. "I'm almost sixty-three years old and I
haven't had  intercourse for  five  years. I  never masturbate  and  I
consciously try not to think about sex. My erection earlier was just a
temporary stroke of  luck." He was  silent for almost  a minute.  "I'm
sorry, Nicole," he then added, "but it's not going to work."
    We lay silently side by side  for several minutes. I was  dressing
and preparing to leave when I noticed that Michael had fallen into the
rhythmic breathing pattern that precedes sleep. I suddenly  remembered
from my  reading  that men  with  psychological impotence  often  have
erections during their  sleep, and  my mind dreamed  up another  crazy
idea. I laid awake beside Michael  for quite a while, waiting until  I
was certain he was in a deep sleep.
    I stroked  him very  softly  at first.  I  was delighted  that  he
responded very quickly. After a  while I slightly increased the  vigor
of my massage, but I was extremely careful not to wake him up. When he
was definitely ready I prepared myself and moved over on top of him. I
was only moments away  from achieving intercourse  when I jostled  him
too roughly and he awakened.  I tried to continue,  but in my haste  I
must have hurt him, for he uttered a yelp and looked at me with  wild,
startled eyes. Within seconds his erection had vanished.
    I rolled over on my back and heaved a deep sigh. I was
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    67
    terribly disappointed. Michael was asking me questions, but 1  was
too distraught  to answer.  Tears suffused  my eyes.  I dressed  in  a
hurry, kissed Michael lightly on  the forehead, and stumbled out  into
the corridor. I stood there for another five minutes before I had  the
strength to return to Richard.
    My husband was  still working.  He was  down on  his knees  beside
Pozzo, from Waiting for Godot. The  little robot was in the middle  of
one  of  his  long,  rambling   speeches  about  the  uselessness   of
everything. Richard ignored me at first. Then, after silencing  Pozzo,
he turned  around. "Do  you  think you  took  long enough?"  he  asked
sarcastically.
    "It still didn't work," I answered dejectedly. "I guess-''
    "Don't give me that shit," Richard suddenly shouted angrily.  "I'm
not that stupid. Do you expect me to believe that you spent two  hours
naked with him and nothing happened? I know about you women. You think
that..."
    I don't remember the rest of what  he said. I do recall my  terror
as he advanced toward  me, his eyes  full of anger.  I thought he  was
going to hit  me and I  braced myself.  Tears burst from  my eyes  and
rolled down my cheeks. Richard called me horrible names and even  made
a racist slur.  He was  insane. When  he raised his  arm in  a fury  I
bolted from the room, rushing down  the corridor toward the stairs  to
New York. I nearly ran over little Katie, who had been awakened by the
shouting and was standing dumbfounded at the door of the nursery.
    It was light in Rama. I walked around, crying intermittently,  for
most of an hour.  I was furious  with Richard, but  I was also  deeply
unhappy with  myself.  In  his  rage  Richard  had  said  that  I  was
"obsessed" with  this idea  of mine  and that  it was  just a  "clever
excuse" to have intercourse with Michael so that I could be the "queen
bee of the hive." I hadn't replied  to any of his rantings. Was  there
even a  smidgin  of  truth in  his  accusation?  Was any  part  of  my
excitement about the  project a  desire on my  part to  have sex  with
Michael?
    I convinced  myself that  my motivations  had all  been  "proper,"
whatever that means, but that I had been in-
    68 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    credibly stupid about this entire affair from the very  beginning.
I, of all  people, should have  known that what  I was suggesting  was
impossible. Certainly  after I  saw  Richard's initial  response  (and
Michael's too, for  that matter), I  should have immediately  forsaken
the idea. Maybe Richard was right  in some ways. Maybe I am  stubborn,
even obsessed with the idea of providing maximum genetic variation  to
our offspring.  But I  know for  certain that  I did  not concoct  the
entire thing just so I could have sex with Michael.
    It was dark in our room when I returned. I changed into my pajamas
and plopped down, exhausted,  on my mat. After  a few seconds  Richard
rolled over, hugged me fiercely, and said, "My darling, Nicole, I'm so
so sorry. Please forgive me."
    I have not heard his  voice since then. He  has been gone now  for
six days. I slept soundly that night, unaware mat Richard was  packing
his things and leaving me a note. At seven o'clock in the morning,  an
alarm sounded. There was a message filling the black screen. It  said,
"FOR NICOLE  DBS JARDINS  ONLY-Push  K when  you  want to  read."  The
children were not yet awake, so I pushed the K button on the keyboard.
    Dearest Nicole,  this is  the most  difficult letter  I have  ever
written in my  life. I am  temporarily leaving you  and the family.  I
know that this will create considerable hardship for you, Michael, and
the girls, but believe me, it is the only way. After last night it  is
apparent to me that there is no other solution.
    My darling, I love you with all  my heart and know, when my  brain
is in control of my emotions, that what you are trying to do is in the
best interests of the  family. I feel  terrible about the  accusations
that I made last night. I feel even worse about all the names I called
you, especially the racial  epithets and my frequent  use of the  word
"bitch." I hope that you can forgive me, even though I'm not certain I
can forgive myself, and  will remember my love  for you instead of  my
insane, unbridled anger.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    69
    Jealousy is a  terrible thing.  "It doth  mock the  meat it  feeds
upon" is an understatement. Jealousy is completely consuming,  totally
irrational, and absolutely debilitating. The most wonderful people  in
the world are nothing but raging animals when trapped in the throes of
jealousy.
    Nicole, darling, I did not tell  you the complete truth last  year
about the end of my marriage to Sarah. I suspected for months that she
was seeing other men on those nights she was spending in London. There
were plenty of telltale signs-her uneven interest in sex, new  clothes
that were never worn with  me, sudden fascinations with new  positions
or different sexual practices,  phone calls with  nobody on the  other
end-but I loved  her so madly,  and was so  certain that our  marriage
would be over if I confronted her,  that I didn't do anything until  I
was enraged by my jealousy.
    Actually, as I would lie in my bed at Cambridge and picture  Sarah
having intercourse  with  another man,  my  jealousy would  become  so
powerful that I could not fall asleep until I had imagined Sarah dead.
When Mrs. Sinclair called me that night  and I knew I could no  longer
pretend that Sarah  was faithful, I  went to London  with the  express
intention of killing both my wife and her lover.
    Luckily I had no gun and my rage upon seeing them together made me
forget the knife  I had placed  in the  pocket of my  overcoat. But  I
definitely would have  killed them if  the melee had  not aroused  the
neighbors and I had not been restrained.
    You may be wondering what all this has to do with you. You see, my
love, each of us develops definitive patterns of behavior in his life.
My pattern of insane  jealousy was already present  before I met  you.
During the two times that you have gone to be intimate with Michael, I
have been unable to stop the memories of Sarah from returning. I  know
you are  not  Sarah,  and  that  you  are  not  cheating  on  me,  but
nevertheless, my emotions return  in that same  lunatic pattern. In  a
very strange sense, because the idea of your betraying me is
    70 ARTHURC. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    so impossible to conceive, I feel worse, more frightened, when you
are with Michael than I did when  Sarah was with Hugh Sinclair or  any
of her other actor friends.
    I hope some  of this makes  sense. I am  leaving because I  cannot
control my jealousy, even though I acknowledge it to be irrational.  I
do not want  to become  like my father,  drinking away  my misery  and
ruining the lives of everyone around me. I sense that you will achieve
this conception, one way or another,  and I would prefer to spare  you
my bad behavior during the process.
    I expect that I will be  back soon, unless I encounter  unforeseen
dangers in my explorations, but I do  not know exactly when. I need  a
period of healing, so that I can  again be a solid contributor to  our
family. Tell the girls that I am off on a journey. Be kind  especially
to Katie-she will miss me the most.
    I love you, Nicole. I  know that it will  be difficult for you  to
understand why I am leaving, but please try.
    Richard
    1 3 May 2205
    Today I  spent  five  hours  topside in  New  York  searching  for
Richard. I  went over  to the  pits, to  both lattices,  to all  three
plazas. I walked the  perimeters of the island  along the ramparts.  I
shook the grill on the octospider lair and descended briefly into  the
land of the  avians. Everywhere  I called  his name.  I remember  that
Richard found me five  years ago because of  the navigation beacon  he
had placed on his Shakespearean robot Prince Hal. I could have used  a
beacon today.
    There were no  signs of Richard  anywhere. I believe  that he  has
left the island. Richard is an excellent swimmer- he could easily have
made it across to the Northern Hemi-cylinder-but what about the  weird
creatures inhabiting the Cylindrical Sea? Did they let him across?
    Come back, Richard. I miss you. I love you.
    He had obviously been thinking about leaving for sev-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    71
    era! days. He had updated and arranged our catalog of interactions
with the Ramans to make it as easy as possible for Michael and me.  He
took the largest of our packs and his best friend TB, but he left  the
Beckett robots behind.
    Our family meals  have been dreadful  affairs since Richard  left.
Katie is nearly always angry. She wants to know when her daddy will be
back and why he has been gone so long. Michael and Simone endure their
sorrow in quiet. Their bond continues  to deepen-they seem to be  able
to comfort one another quite  well. For my part,  I have tried to  pay
more attention to Katie, but I am no substitute for her beloved daddy.
    The nights are terrible. I do not sleep. I go over and over all my
interactions with  Richard  the last  two  months and  relive  all  my
mistakes. His  letter before  departing was  very revealing.  I  never
would have thought that his earlier difficulties with Sarah would have
had the slightest impact  on his marriage to  me, but I recognize  now
what he was saying about patterns.
    There are patterns in my emotional life as well. My mother's death
when I  was only  ten taught  me the  terror of  abandonment. Fear  of
losing a strong connection has  made intimacy and trust difficult  for
me. Since my  mother, I have  lost Genevieve, my  father, and now,  at
least temporarily,  Richard.  Each time  the  pattern recurs  all  the
chimeras of the past are reactivated. When I cried myself to sleep two
nights ago, I realized that I  was missing not only Richard, but  also
Mother, Genevieve, and  my mar-velous  father. I was  feeling each  of
those losses all  over again. So  I can understand  how my being  with
Michael could trigger Richard's painful memories of Sarah.
    The process of learning  never stops. Here  I am, forty-one  years
old, and  1 am  discovering another  facet of  the truth  about  human
relationships. I  have obviously  wounded Richard  deeply. It  doesn't
matter that there is  no logical basis for  Richard's concern that  my
sleeping with Michael might lead to an alienation of my affection  for
him. Logic has no  application here. Perception  and feeling are  what
count.
    I had forgotten how devastating  loneliness can be. Richard and  I
have been together for five years. He might not
    72
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    73
    have had all the attributes of my prince charming, but he has been
a wonderful  companion and  is, without  a doubt,  the smartest  human
being I have ever met. It would be an immeasurable tragedy if he  were
never to return. I grieve when I think, even for a moment, that I  may
have seen him for the last time.
    At nights,  when I  am  especially lonely,  I often  read  poetry.
Baudelaire and Eliot have been my favorites since my university  days,
but the last few evenings I have been finding comfort in the poems  of
Benita Garcia. During  her days  as a cadet  at the  Space Academy  in
Colorado, her wild passion for life caused her lots of pain. She threw
herself into her cosmonaut studies and the arms of the men surrounding
her  with  equal  elan.  When  Benita  was  called  before  the  cadet
disciplinary committee  for no  transgression except  her  uninhibited
sexuality, she  realized  how schizophrenic  men  were where  sex  was
concerned.
    Most of the literary  critics prefer her  first volume of  poetry,
Dreams of a Mexican  Girl, which established  her reputation when  she
was still a teenager, over the  wiser, less lyrical book of poems  she
published during her final year at the academy. With Richard now  gone
and my mind still  struggling to understand  what has really  occurred
during these  last months,  it is  Benita's poems  of late  adolescent
angst and questioning that resonate with me. Her path to adulthood was
extremely difficult. Although her work remained rich in images, Benita
was no longer Pollyanna  walking among the ruins  at Uxmal. Tonight  I
read several times  one of  her university poems  that I  particularly
like.
    My childhood dreams were not like this, My prince came only for  a
kiss, Then carried me away  from pain, Can I  not see him once  again?
The masks offend me,  college boy, I wear  my dress without much  joy.
The price I pay to hold your hand, Belittles me as you have planned.
    My dresses brighten up  my room, Like  desert flowers after  rain.
You come tonight, my newest love, But which me do you want to see? The
pale pastels are best for books, My blues and greens, an evening make,
As friend, or even wife  to be. But if it's  sex that's in your  mind,
Then red or black and darkened eyes, Become the whore that I must be.
    9
    14 December 2205 I guess I should celebrate,
    I but I feel that I have won
    a Pyrrhic victory. I am finally pregnant with Michael's child. But
what a cost. We still have heard nothing from Richard and I fear  that
I may have alienated Michael as well.
    Michael and I each separately accepted the full responsibility for
Richard's departure. I dealt with my  culpability as well as I  could,
recognizing that I would have  to put it behind me  to be any kind  of
meaningful mother to the girls. Michael, on the other hand,  responded
to Richard's  action  and  his  own  guilt  by  pouring  himself  into
religious devotion. He is still reading his Bible at least twice every
day. He prays before  and after every meal,  and often chooses not  to
take part in family activities so that he can "communicate" with  God.
The word atonement is currently very big in Michael's vocabulary.
    He has swept Simone  along in his reborn  Christian zeal. My  mild
protests are essentially ignored. She  loves the story of Jesus,  even
though she can't  have more than  the slightest notion  of what it  is
really about. The miracles
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    75
    especially fascinate  Simone.  Like  most  children,  she  has  no
difficulty suspending her  disbelief. Her mind  never asks "how"  when
Jesus walks on the water or turns the water into wine.
    My comments are not completely  fair. I'm probably jealous of  the
rapport that exists between Michael and Simone. As her mother I should
be delighted that  they are  so compatible.  At least  they have  each
other. Try as we might,  poor Katie and I  remain unable to make  that
deep connection.
    Part of  the  problem is  that  Katie  and I  are  both  extremely
stubborn. Although she is only two  and a half years old, she  already
wants to control  her own  life. Take something  simple, for  example,
like the planned set of activities  for the day. I have been  creating
the schedules for  everybody in  the family  since our  first days  in
Rama. Nobody else has ever argued seriously with me, not even Richard.
Michael and Simone always accept whatever I recommend-as long as there
is ample unstructured time.
    But Katie is a  different story. If I  schedule a walk topside  in
New York before an alphabet lesson, she wants to change the order.  If
I plan chicken for dinner, she wants pork or beef. We start  virtually
every morning with a fight about the activities for the day. When  she
doesn't like my  decisions, Katie sulks,  or pouts, or  cries for  her
"daddy." It really hurts when she calls for Richard.
    Michael says that I  should acquiesce to  her desires. He  insists
that it's just a phase of growing up. But when I point out to him that
neither Genevieve  nor Simone  were  ever like  Katie, he  smiles  and
shrugs.
    Michael and I do not always agree on parenting techniques. We have
had several interesting discussions about  family life in our  bizarre
circumstances. Toward  the end  of  one of  the conversations,  I  was
slightly miffed about Michael's assertion that I was "too strict" with
the girls,  so I  decided to  bring  up the  religion issue.  I  asked
Michael why it  was so important  to him that  Simone learn about  the
minutiae in Jesus' life.
    "Someone has to cany on the tradition," he said vaguely.
    "So you believe that there will be a tradition to carry
    76 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    on, that we are not going to drift forever in space and die one by
one in terrifying loneliness."
    "I believe that God has a plan for all human beings," he answered.
    "But what is His plan for  us?" I asked. "We don't know,"  Michael
replied. "Any mor,e than those billions of people still back on  Earth
know what His plan is for them. The process of living is searching for
His plan."
    I shook my head and Michael continued. "You see, Nicole, it should
be much easier  for us. We  have far fewer  distractions. There is  no
excuse for  our not  remaining close  to God.  That's why  my  earlier
preoccupations with food and art history are so difficult to  forgive.
In Rama, human beings  have to make  a major effort  to fill up  their
time with something other than prayer and devotion."
    I admit that  his certitude  annoys me  at times.  In our  present
circumstances, the life of Jesus seems to have no more relevance  than
the life of Attila the Hun or any other human being who has ever  been
alive on that distant  planet two light-years away.  We are no  longer
part of the human race. We are either doomed, or the beginning of what
will essentially be a new species. Did  Jesus die for all our sins  as
well, those of us who will never  see the Earth again? If Michael  had
not been a Catholic and programmed from birth in favor of procreation,
I never would have convinced him to conceive a child. He had a hundred
reasons why it was not  the right thing to do.  But in the end,  maybe
because I  was disturbing  his nightly  devotions with  my  persistent
attempts to persuade him, he finally  consented. He warned me (hat  it
was highly likely that  "it would never work"  and that he "would  not
take any responsibility" for my frustration.
    It took us three months to produce an embryo. During the first two
ovulation cycles I was  unable to arouse him.  I tried laughter,  body
massage, music, food-everything mentioned in any of the articles about
impotence. His guilt and tension  were always stronger than my  ardor.
Fantasy finally provided the solution. When I suggested to Michael one
night that he should imagine I was his wife Kathleen
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    77
    throughout the entire affair,  he was finally  able to sustain  an
erection. The mind is indeed a wonderful creation.
    Even with fantasy, making love with Michael was not an easy  task.
In the first place,  and this is  probably an unkind  thing for me  to
say, his preparations alone were enough to put any ordinary woman  out
of the  mood. Just  before he  took off  his clothes,  Michael  always
offered a prayer to God. What did he pray for? It would be fascinating
to know the answer.
    Eleanor of Aquitaine's  first husband,  Louis VII  of France,  had
been raised as  a monk and  only became king  because of a  historical
accident. In my father's novel about Eleanor there is a long  interior
monologue in  which she  complains about  making love  "surrounded  by
solemnity and  piety and  the coarse  cloth of  the Cistercians."  She
longed for gaiety  and laughter  in the  bedroom, for  bawdy talk  and
wanton passion. I can  understand why she  divorced Louis and  married
Henry Plantagenet.
    So I am now pregnant  with the boy child  (I hope) who will  bring
genetic variation to  our progeny. It  has been quite  a struggle  and
almost certainly not worth it. Because of my desire to have  Michael's
child, Richard is gone and Michael is, at least temporarily, no longer
the close friend and companion that  he was during our first years  on
Rama. I have paid the price for my success. Now I must hope that  this
spacecraft does indeed have a destination.
    1 March 2206
    I repeated  the partial  genome  test this  morning to  verify  my
initial results.  There is  no doubt  about it.  Our unborn  baby  boy
definitely has Whittingham's syndrome. Fortunately there are no  other
identifiable defects, but Whittingham's is bad enough.
    I showed the data to Michael when we had a few moments alone after
breakfast. At first he didn't understand  what I was telling him,  but
when I used the  word retarded, he reacted  immediately. I could  tell
that he was envisioning a child who would be completely unable to take
    78
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    care of himself. His concerns were only partially allayed 'when  I
explained  that  Whittingham's   is  nothing  more   man  a   learning
disability, a simple failure of  the electrochemical processes in  the
brain to operate properly.
    When I  performed  the first  partial  genome test  last  week,  I
suspected Whittingham's, but since there  was a possible ambiguity  in
the results, I didn't say anything to Michael. Before drawing a second
amniotic  sample,  I  wanted  to  review  what  was  known  about  the
condition. My  abridged  medical encyclopedia  unfortunately  did  not
contain enough information to satisfy me.
    This afternoon,  while  Katie was  napping,  Michael and  I  asked
Simone if she would read a book in the nursery for an hour or so.  Our
perfect angel readily complied.  Michael was much  calmer than he  had
been in the morning.  He acknowledged that he  had been devastated  at
first by  the  news about  Benjy  (Michael  wants to  name  the  child
Benjamin Ryan OToole, after  his grandfather). Apparently reading  the
Book of  Job  had  played a  major  role  in helping  him  regain  his
perspective.
    I explained to  Michael that Benjy's  mental development would  be
slow and tedious. He was comforted, however, when I informed him  that
many Whittingham's sufferers  had eventually achieved  twelve-year-old
equivalency after twenty years of  schooling. I assured Michael  there
would be no physical signs of the defect, as there are in Down's,  and
that since  Whittingham's  is a  blocked  recessive trait,  there  was
little likelihood that any possible offspring would be affected before
the third generation at the earliest.
    "Is there any way of knowing which  one of us has the syndrome  in
our  genes?"  Michael  asked  when  we  were  near  the  end  of   our
conversation.
    "No," I  replied.  "It's  a very  difficult  disorder  to  isolate
because it apparently arises  from several different defective  genes.
Only if the syndrome is active is the diagnosis straightforward.  Even
on Earth attempts to identify carriers have not been successful."
    I started to tell him that  since the disease was first  diagnosed
in 2068, there have been almost no cases in either Africa or Asia.  It
has been basically a Caucasian disorder,
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    79
    with the highest  frequency of  occurrence in  Ireland. I  decided
Michael would learn  this information soon  enough (it is  all in  the
main article in the  medical encyclopedia- which  he is reading  now),
and I didn't want him to feel any worse than he already did.
    "Is there any cure?" he asked next.
    "None for us," I said, shaking my head. "There was some indication
in the last decade that  genetic countermea-sures could be  effective,
if used  during  the  second  trimester  of  pregnancy.  However,  the
procedure is complicated, even on Earth, and can result in losing  the
fetus altogether."
    That would have been a perfect time in the discussion for  Michael
to mention the  word abortion.  He didn't. His  set of  beliefs is  so
steadfast and unwavering that I'm certain he never even considered it.
For him, abortion is an  absolute wrong, on Rama  as well as Earth.  I
found myself  wondering  if  there were  any  conditions  under  which
Michael would have considered an abortion. What if the baby had Down's
syndrome and also was blind? Or had multiple congenital problems  that
guaranteed an early death?
    If Richard had been here, we  would have had a logical  discussion
about the advantages and disadvantages  of an abortion. He would  have
created one of  his famous  Ben Franklin  sheets, with  pros and  cons
listed separately on the two sides  of the large screen. I would  have
added a  long list  of  emotional reasons  (which Richard  would  have
omitted in his original list) for  not having an abortion, and in  the
end we almost  certainly would  have all  agreed to  bring Benjy  into
Rama. It would have been a rational, community decision.
    I want to have this baby. But I also want Michael to reaffirm  his
commitment as  Benjy's  father. A  discussion  of the  possibility  of
abortion would have elicited that renewed commitment. Blind acceptance
of the  rules  of  God or  the  church  or any  structured  dogma  can
sometimes make  it too  easy for  an individual  to withhold  his  own
support for a specific decision. I hope that Michael is not that  kind
of person.
    10
    30 August 2206
    Benjy came early. Despite my repeated assurances
    that he would look perfectly healthy, Michael seemed relieved when
the boy was born three days ago with no physical abnormalities. It was
another easy birth.  Simone was surprisingly  helpful during both  the
labor and delivery. For a  girl who is not yet  six years old, she  is
extremely mature.
    Benjy also has blue eyes, but they're not as light as Katie's  and
I don't think they  will stay blue.  His skin is  light brown, just  a
little darker  than Katie's,  but lighter  than mine  or Simone's.  He
weighed three  and  a  half  kilograms  at  birth  and  was  fifty-two
centimeters long.
    Our world remains unchanged. We don't talk about it very much, but
all of  us except  Katie have  given up  hope that  Richard will  ever
return. We are headed for Raman winter again, with the long nights and
the shorter days. Periodically  either Michael or  I goes topside  and
searches for some sign  of Richard, but it's  a mechanical ritual.  We
don't really expect to find anything. He has been gone now for sixteen
months.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    81
    Michael and I  now take  turns computing our  trajectory with  the
orbit determination program that Richard designed. In the beginning it
took us several weeks to  figure out how to  use it, despite the  fact
that Richard had left explicit instructions with us. We reverify  once
a week that we  are stiH headed  in the direction  of Sirius, with  no
other star system along our path.
    Despite Benjy's presence, it seems that I have more time to myself
than I have ever had before. I have been reading voraciously and  have
rekindled my  fascination  for  the  two  heroines  who  dominated  my
adolescent mind and imagination. Why have  Joan of Arc and Eleanor  of
Aquitaine always appealed  so much to  me? Because not  only did  they
both display inner strength and self-sufficiency, but also each  woman
succeeded in a male-dominated world  by ultimately relying on her  own
abilities.
    I was a very lonely teenager. My physical surroundings at Beauvois
were magnificent and  my father's  love was overflowing,  but I  spent
virtually my entire adolescence  by myself. In the  back of my mind  I
was always  terrified mat  death or  marriage would  take my  precious
father away from me.  I wanted to make  myself more self-contained  to
avoid the pain that would occur if I were ever separated from  Father.
Joan and  Eleanor  were  perfect  role  models.  Even  today,  I  find
reassurance in reading  about their lives.  Neither woman allowed  the
world around her to define what was really important in life.
    Everyone's health continues to be good. This past spring, as  much
to keep myself  busy as  anything, I inserted  a set  of the  leftover
biometry probes in each of us and monitored the data for a few  weeks.
The monitoring process reminded me of the days of the Newton  mission-
can it really be more than six  years since the twelve of us left  the
Earth to rendezvous with Rama?
    Anyway, Katie was fascinated by the biometry. She would sit beside
me while I was scanning Simone or Michael and ask dozens of  questions
about the data on the displays. In  no time at all she understood  how
the system worked and what the  warning files were all about.  Michael
has commented that  she is  extraordinarily bright.  Like her  father.
Katie still misses Richard terribly.
    82
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Although Michael talks about feeling  ancient, he is in  excellent
shape for a sixty-four-year-old man. He is very concerned about  being
physically active enough for the children and has been jogging twice a
week since the beginning of my  pregnancy. Twice a week. What a  funny
concept. We have held faithfully to our Earth calendar, even though it
has absolutely no meaning here on  Rama. The other night Simone  asked
about days, months, and years. As Michael was explaining the  rotation
of the Earth,  the seasons of  the year,  and the orbit  of the  Earth
around the Sun, I suddenly had  a vision of a magnificent Utah  sunset
that I had shared with Genevieve on  our trip to the American West.  I
wanted to tell Simone about  it. But how can  you explain a sunset  to
someone who has not seen the Sun?
    The calendar reminds us of  what we were. If  we ever arrive at  a
new planet, with a real day  and night instead of this artificial  one
in Rama, then we will most  certainly abandon the Earth calendar.  But
for  now,  holidays,  the  passage  of  months,  and  most  especially
birthdays, all remind us of our roots on that beautiful planet we  can
no longer even find with the best Raman telescope.
    Benjy is now ready  to nurse. His mental  capabilities may not  be
the best, but he certainly has no  problem letting me know when he  is
hungry. Michael and I, by mutual consent, have not yet told Simone and
Katie about their  brother's condition.  That he  will take  attention
away from them while he is an infant will be difficult enough for them
to handle. That his need for  attention will continue, and even  grow,
when he becomes a toddler  and a little boy is  more than they can  be
expected to grasp at this point in their young lives.
    1 3 March 2207
    Katie is four years old today. When I asked her two weeks ago what
she wanted for her birthday, she didn't hesitate a second. "I want  my
daddy back," she said.
    She is a solitary, isolated little girl. Extremely quick to
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    83
    learn, she is also the moodiest child I have ever had. Richard was
also extremely volatile. He would sometimes be so elated and exuberant
that he couldn't contain himself, usually when he had just experienced
something exciting  for  the  first time.  But  his  depressions  were
formidable. There were times when he  would go a week or more  without
laughing or even smiling.
    Katie has inherited his gift for mathematics. She can already add,
subtract, multiply, and  divide-at least with  small numbers.  Simone,
who is certainly  no slouch,  appears more evenly  talented. And  more
generally interested  in  a  wide  range of  subjects.  But  Katie  is
certainly pressing her in math.
    In the almost two years since Richard has been gone, I have  tried
without success to  replace him in  Katie's heart. The  truth is  that
Katie and I clash. Our personalities are not compatible as mother  and
daughter. The individuality and  wildness that I  loved in Richard  is
threatening in Katie. Despite my best intentions, we always end up  in
a contest.
    We could not, of course, produce Richard for Katie's birthday. But
Michael and I did try very hard to have some interesting presents  for
her. Even though neither of us is particularly skilled at electronics,
we did manage to create a small video game (it took many  interactions
with the Ramans  to produce  the right parts-and  many nights  working
together to make something Richard  probably could have finished in  a
day) called ' 'Lost in Rama.''  We made it very simple, because  Katie
is only four years old.  After playing with it  for two hours she  had
exhausted all the options and had figured  out how to get home to  our
lair from any starting point in Rama.
    Our biggest surprise  came tonight,  when we asked  her (this  has
become a tradition for us  in Rama) what she would  like to do on  her
birthday evening. "I  want to go  inside the avian  lair," Katie  said
with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.
    We tried to talk her out of  it by pointing put that the  distance
between the ledges  was greater  than her height.  In response,  Katie
went over to the rope ladder of lattice
    84
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    material hanging at the side of the nursery and showed us that she
could climb it. Michael  smiled. "Some things  she has inherited  from
her mother," he said.
    "Please, Mom?" Katie  then said  in her  precocious little  voice.
"Everything else  is so  boring. I  want to  look at  the tank  sentry
myself, from only a few meters away."
    Even though I had some misgivings, I walked over to the avian lair
with Katie and told her to wait topside while I put the rope ladder in
place. At the first landing, opposite the tank sentry, I stopped for a
moment and looked across  the chasm at  that perpetual motion  machine
protecting the entry to the horizontal tunnel. Are you always there? I
wondered. And have you ever been replaced or repaired during all  this
time?
    "Are you ready, Mom?" I heard my daughter call from above.  Before
I could scramble  up to  meet her,  Katie was  already descending  the
ladder. I scolded her when I caught  up with her at the second  ledge,
but she ignored me. She was terribly excited. "Did you see, Mom?"  she
said. "I did it by myself."
    I congratulated her even though my  mind was still reeling from  a
mental picture of Katie slipping off  the ladder, banging into one  of
the ledges,  and then  careening  into the  bottomless depths  of  the
vertical corridor. We continued  down the ladder  with my helping  her
from below until we reached the  first landing and pair of  horizontal
tunnels. Across the  chasm the  tank sentry  continued its  repetitive
motion. Katie was ecstatic.
    "What's behind that tank thing?"  she asked. "Who made it?  What's
it doing there? Did you really jump across this hole?"
    In response to  one of her  questions, I turned  and took  several
steps into  the tunnel  behind us,  following my  flashlight beam  and
assuming Katie was following me. Moments later, when I discovered that
she was still standing  back on the  edge of the  chasm, I froze  with
fear. I watched her pull a small object out of the pocket of her dress
and throw it across the chasm at the tank sentry.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    85
    I yelled at Katie, but it was  too late. The object hit the  front
of the tank. Immediately there was  a loud pop like gunshots, and  two
metal projectiles smashed into  the wall of the  lair not more than  a
meter above her head.
    "Yippee," Katie shouted as I jerked her back from the abyss. I was
furious. My  daughter  began  to  cry.  The  noise  in  the  lair  was
deafening.
    She stopped crying abruptly several  seconds later. "Did you  hear
it?" she asked.
    "What?" I said, my heart still pounding wildly.
    "Over there," she said. She  pointed across the vertical  corridor
into the blackness behind the sentry. I shone the flashlight into  the
void, but we could see nothing.
    We both stood absolutely still,  holding hands. There was a  sound
coming from the tunnel behind the sentry. But it was at the very limit
of my hearing, and I could not identify it.
    "It's an avian," Katie said with conviction. "I can hear its wings
flapping. Yippee," she shouted again in her loudest voice.
    The sound  ceased.  Although  we  waited  fifteen  minutes  before
climbing out of  the lair, we  never heard anything  else. Katie  told
Michael and Simone that we had heard an avian. I couldn't  corroborate
her story but chose not to argue with her. She was happy. It had  been
an eventful birthday.
    8 March 2208
    Patrick Erin O'Toole, a perfectly  healthy baby in every  respect,
was bom  yesterday at  2:15  in the  afternoon.  The proud  father  is
holding him at this very moment, smiling as my fingers dart across the
keyboard on my electronic notebook.
    It is late at night  now. Simone put Benjy  to sleep, as she  does
every night at  nine o'clock, and  then went to  bed herself. She  was
very tired. She took care of Benjy without any help from anyone during
my surprisingly long labor. Every time I would shout, Benjy
    86
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    would cry out in response and Simone would try to soothe him.
    Katie has already claimed Patrick as her baby brother. She is very
logical. If Benjy is Simone's, then  Patrick must belong to Katie.  At
least she is showing some interest in another member of the family.
    Patrick was not planned, but both Michael and I are delighted that
he showed up to join our family. His conception was sometime late last
spring, probably  in  the first  month  after Michael  and  I  started
sharing his bedroom  at night.  It was my  idea that  we should  sleep
together, although I'm certain  that Michael had  thought about it  as
well.
    On the night that Richard had  been gone for exactly two years,  I
was completely unable  to sleep.  I was  feeling lonely,  as usual.  I
tried to imagine sleeping all  the rest of my  nights by myself and  I
became very despondent. Just after midnight I walked down the corridor
to Michael's room.
    Michael and I have been relaxed and easy with each other from  the
beginning this time. I guess we  were both ready. After Benjy's  birth
Michael was very busy  helping me with all  the children. During  that
period he  eased up  a little  on his  religious activities  and  made
himself more accessible  to all  of us, including  me. Eventually  our
natural compatibility reasserted itself. All that was left was for  us
both to acknowledge that Richard was never going to return.
    Comfortable. That's the best way to describe my relationship  with
Michael. With Henry, it was ecstasy. With Richard, it was passion  and
excitement, a  wild  roller-coaster  ride in  life  and  bed.  Michael
comforts me.  We  sleep holding  hands,  the perfect  symbol  for  our
relationship. We make love rarely, but it is enough.
    I have made  some concessions.  I even  pray some,  now and  then,
because it  makes Michael  happy. For  his part,  he has  become  more
tolerant about  exposing  the  children to  ideas  and  value  systems
outside of his Catholicism. We have agreed that what we are seeking is
harmony and consistency in our mutual parenting.
    There are six of us now, a single family of human
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    87
    beings closer to several other stars than we are to the planet and
star of  our  birth. We  still  do not  know  if this  giant  cylinder
hurtling through space is really going anywhere. At times it does  not
seem to  matter. We  have created  our  own world  here in  Rama  and,
although it is limited, I believe that we are happy.
    11
    30 January 2209 I had forgotten what it felt
    I like to have adrenaline
    coursing through my system. In the last thirty hours our calm  and
placid life on Rama has been utterly destroyed.
    It all began  with two  dreams. Yesterday morning,  just before  I
woke up, I had a dream  about Richard that was extraordinarily  vivid.
Richard wasn't actually in my dream-I mean, he didn't appear alongside
Michael, Si-mone, Katie, and me. But  Richard's face was inset in  the
upper left-hand comer  of my dream  screen while the  four of us  were
engaged in some  normal, everyday  activity. He kept  calling my  name
over and over. His call was so loud that I could still hear it when  I
awakened.
    I had  just begun  to  tell Michael  about  the dream  when  Katie
appeared at  the  doorway  in  her  pajamas.  She  was  trembling  and
frightened. "What is it, darling?" I  asked, beckoning to her with  my
open arms.
    She came over and hugged me  tightly. "It's Daddy," she said.  "He
was calling me last night in my dreams."
    A chill  ran down  my  spine and  Michael sat  up  on his  mat.  I
comforted Katie with my words, but I was unnerved
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    89
    by the coincidence.  Had she heard  my conversation with  Michael?
Impossible. We had seen her the moment she arrived at our room.
    After Katie returned to the nursery to change her clothes, I  told
Michael that I could not possibly ignore the two dreams. He and I have
often discussed my  occasional psychic powers.  Although he  generally
discounts the  whole  idea  of extrasensory  perception,  Michael  has
always admitted that it is  impossible to state categorically that  my
dreams and visions do not foreshadow the future.
    "I must  go  topside and  look  for  Richard," I  told  him  after
breakfast. Michael had  expected me  to make  such an  effort and  was
prepared to look after the children. But it was dark in Rama. We  both
agreed that it would be better if I waited until our evening, when  it
would again be light in the spacecraft world above our lair.
    I took a  long nap so  that I would  have plenty of  energy for  a
thorough search. I  slept fitfully, and  kept dreaming that  I was  in
danger. Before I  left, I  made certain  that there  was a  reasonably
accurate graphics drawing of Richard stored in my portable computer. I
wanted to be able to show the object of my quest to any avians that  I
might encounter.
    After kissing the children good  night, I headed straight for  the
avian lair. I was not that surprised when I found that the tank sentry
was gone. Years ago, when I was first invited into the lair by one  of
the avian residents, the tank sentry had also not been present.  Could
it be that I was  somehow being invited again?  And what did all  this
have to do with my dream? My heart was pounding like crazy as I passed
the room with the cistern of  water and headed deeper into the  tunnel
that the absent sentry had usually guarded.
    I never heard a  sound. I walked for  almost a kilometer before  I
came to a  tall doorway on  my right. I  cautiously peered around  the
corner. The room was  dark, like everywhere in  the avian lair  except
the vertical corridor. I switched on  my flashlight. The room was  not
very deep, maybe  fifteen meters  at the  most, but  it was  extremely
tall. Against the wall  opposite the door were  rows and rows of  oval
storage bins. The beam from my light showed
    90
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    that the rows extended all the way to the high ceiling, which must
have been just under one of the plazas in New York.
    It did not take  me long to  figure out the  purpose of the  room.
Each of the storage bins was the  size and shape of a manna melon.  Of
course, I thought to myself. This must have been where the food supply
was kept. No wonder they didn't want anybody in here.
    After verifying that all the bins were indeed empty, I started  to
walk back toward the vertical corridor.  Then, on a hunch, I  reversed
my direction,  passed the  storage  room, and  continued on  down  the
tunnel. It must go  somewhere, I reasoned, or  it would have ended  at
the melon room.
    After another half a kilometer the tunnel widened gradually  until
it entered a large circular chamber. In the center of the room,  which
had a high ceiling, was a broad domed structure. Around the walls were
about twenty alcoves, cut into  the walls at regular intervals.  There
was no light except my flashlight beam, so it took several minutes  to
integrate the room,  with the  domed building  in the  middle, into  a
composite picture.
    I walked completely  around the perimeter,  examining the  alcoves
one after  another. Most  were empty.  In one  of them  I found  three
identical tank  sentries  neatly arrayed  against  the back  wall.  My
initial impulse  was  to be  wary  of the  sentries,  but it  was  not
necessary. They were all dormant.
    By far the most interesting of  the alcoves, however, was the  one
at the center  of the  room, exactly  one hundred  and eighty  degrees
around the circle from  the entrance tunnel.  This special alcove  was
carefully organized and had  thick shelves cut  into its walls.  There
were fifteen shelves in all, five each on the two sides and five  more
on the wall  opposite the doorway  to the alcove.  The shelves on  the
sides had objects arranged on them (everything was very orderly);  the
shelves against the  far wall each  had five round  pits hollowed  out
along their lengths.
    The contents of  these pits,  which were  each further  subdivided
into sections, like portions of a pie, were fascinat-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    91
    ing. One of the sections in each of the pits contained a very fine
material, like  ash. A  second section  contained one,  two, or  three
rings, either  cherry  red  or gold,  that  I  immediately  recognized
because of their similarity to the  rings we had seen around the  neck
of our  gray  velvet  avian friend.  There  did  not seem  to  be  any
particular pattern to the  rest of the articles  in the pits-in  fact,
some of the pits were empty except for the ash and the rings.
    Eventually I turned around and approached the domed structure. Its
front door  faced the  special alcove.  I examined  the door  with  my
flashlight. An intricate design was carved on its rectangular surface.
There were four separate panels, or quadrants, in the design. An avian
was in  the top  left quadrant,  with a  manna melon  in the  adjacent
panel, on  the right.  The lower  two quadrants  contained  unfamiliar
pictures. On  the  left side  was  a  carving of  a  jointed,  striped
creature running on six  legs. The final panel,  on the bottom  right,
featured a large box filled with very thin mesh or webbing.
    After some hesitation I pushed open the door. I nearly jumped  out
of my skin when a  loud alarm, like a  Klaxon, pierced the silence.  I
stood inside  the door  without  moving while  the alarm  sounded  for
almost a minute. When it was over, I still did not move. I was  trying
to hear if anyone (or anything) was responding to the alarm.
    No sound  disturbed  the silence.  After  a few  minutes  I  began
examining the inside of the building. A transparent cube, roughly  two
and a half meters in each dimension, occupied the center of the single
room. The walls of the cube were stained in spots, partially obscuring
my vision, but I could still see that the bottom ten centimeters  were
covered by  a  fine, dark  material.  The  room around  the  cube  was
decorated with geometric patterns on  the walls, floors, and  ceiling.
One of the cube faces had  a narrow entryway that permitted access  to
the cube interior.
    I went inside. The fluffy black  material appeared to be ash,  but
it was a slightly different consistency  than the similar stuff I  had
found in the alcove pits. My  eyes followed the beam of my  flashlight
as it moved  in an orderly  pattern around the  cube. Near the  center
there was an
    92
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    object partially buried in the ash.  I walked over, picked up  the
object, shook it off, and nearly fainted. It was Richard's robot TB.
    TB was considerably altered. His exterior was blackened, his  tiny
control panel had melted  off, and he no  longer operated. But it  was
unmistakably him. I put the little robot to my lips and kissed him. In
my mind's eye I could see him spouting one of Shakespeare's sonnets as
Richard listened with rapt enjoyment.
    It was obvious that TB had been  hi a fire. Had Richard also  been
trapped in  an inferno  inside  the cube?  I  sifted through  the  ash
carefully but found no bones. I did wonder, however, what it was  that
had burned and created all the ash.  And what was TB doing inside  the
cube in the first place?
    I was convinced that Richard was somewhere hi the avian lair, so I
spent another  eight long  hours  scrambling up  and down  ledges  and
exploring tunnels. I visited all tiie places I had been before, during
my short  sojourn  long  ago,  and even  found  some  interesting  new
chambers of unknown purpose. But there were no signs of Richard. There
were, in fact, no signs  of life of any  kind. Mindful that the  short
Raman day was almost over and  that the four children would be  waking
up soon in our own lair, I finally returned, tired and dejected, to my
Raman home.
    Both the cover and the grill to our lair were open when I arrived.
Although I  was fairly  certain that  I had  closed them  both  before
leaving,  I  could  not  remember  my  exact  actions  at   departure.
Eventually I told myself  that perhaps I had  been too excited at  the
time and had  forgotten to  close everything.  I had  just started  to
descend when I heard Michael call "Nicole" from behind me.
    I turned  around. Michael  was approaching  from the  lane to  the
east. He  was moving  quickly,  which was  unusual  for him,  and  was
carrying baby Patrick in his arms.  "There you are," he said,  panting
as I walked up to him. "I was beginning to worry-"
    He stopped abruptly, stared at me for an instant, and then  looked
around quickly. "But where's Katie?" he said anxiously.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    93
    "What do you mean, where's Katie?" I asked, the look on  Michael's
face causing me alarm.
    "Isn't she with you?" he asked.
    When I shook  my head  and said that  I hadn't  seen her,  Michael
suddenly erupted  in  tears. I  rushed  forward and  comforted  little
Patrick, who  was  frightened by  Michael's  sobs and  started  crying
himself.
    "Oh, Nicole," Michael said. "I'm so, so sorry. Patrick was  having
a bad  night,  so  I brought  him  into  my room.  Then  Benjy  had  a
stomachache and Simone and I had to  nurse him for a couple of  hours.
We all fell  asleep while Katie  was alone in  the nursery. About  two
hours ago, when we all woke up, she was gone."
    I had never seen Michael so distraught before. I tried to  comfort
him, to  tell  him  that  Katie  was  probably  just  playing  in  the
neighborhood somewhere (And when we find  her, I was thinking, /  will
give her a scolding she'll never forget), but Michael argued with me.
    "No, no," he said, "she's nowhere around. Patrick and I have  been
looking for over an hour."
    Michael, Patrick, and I  went. downstairs to  check on Simone  and
Benjy. Simone informed us that  Katie had been extremely  disappointed
when I had decided to look for Richard alone. "She had hoped,"  Simone
said serenely, "that you would take her with you."
    "Why  didn't  you   tell  me   this  last  night?"   I  asked   my
eight-year-old daughter.
    "It didn't seem that important,"  Simone said. "Besides, it  never
occurred to me that Katie would try to find Daddy by herself."
    Michael and I were both exhausted, but  one of us had to look  for
Katie. I was the correct choice.  I washed my face, ordered  breakfast
for everybody from the Ramans, and told a quick version of my  descent
into the avian lair. Simone and  Michael turned the blackened TB  over
slowly in their hands. I could  tell they too were wondering what  had
happened to Richard.
    "Katie said  that  Daddy went  to  find the  octospiders,"  Simone
commented just before I left. "She said it was more exciting in  their
world."
    94
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    I was filled with dread  as I trudged over  to the plaza near  the
octospider lair. While I was walking,  the lights went out and it  was
night again  in Rama.  "Great," I  muttered to  myself. "Nothing  like
trying to find a missing child in the darkness."
    Both the octospider  covering and  the pair  of protective  grills
were open. I had never seen the grills open before. My heart skipped a
beat. I knew instinctively  that Katie had gone  down into their  lair
and that, despite my  fear, I was  about to follow  her. First I  bent
down on my knees and shouted "Katie" twice into the blackness  beneath
me. I heard her name echoing through the tunnels. I strained to listen
for a response,  but there were  no sounds  at all. At  least, I  told
myself, /  also  don't hear  any  dragging brushes  accompanied  by  a
high-frequency whine.
    I descended the  ramp to the  large cavern with  the four  tunnels
that Richard and I had once labeled "Eenie, Mee-nie, Mynie, and  Moe."
It was difficult, but I forced myself to enter the tunnel that Richard
and I  had followed  before. After  a few  steps, however,  I  stopped
myself, backed up, and then went into the adjacent tunnel. This second
corridor  also  led  to  the  descending  barrel  corridor  with   the
protruding spikes, but it  passed the room that  Richard and I  called
the octospider museum along the way. I remembered clearly the terror I
had felt nine years  earlier when I had  found Dr. Takagishi,  stuffed
like a hunting trophy, hanging in that museum.
    There was a reason  I wanted to visit  the octospider museum  that
was not necessarily  related to my  search for Katie.  If Richard  had
been killed by the octospiders (as Takagishi apparently was-although I
am still not convinced that he did not die from a heart attack), or if
they had found  his body somewhere  else in Rama,  men perhaps it  too
would be in  the room. To  say mat I  wasn't anxious to  see an  alien
taxidermist's version  of  my  husband  would  be  an  understatement;
however, above all  I wanted  to know  what had  happened to  Richard.
Especially after my dream.
    I took a deep breath when I arrived at the entrance to the museum.
I turned slowly left through the  doorway. The lights came on as  soon
as I crossed the threshold, but
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    95
    fortunately Dr. Takagishi was not staring directly in my face.  He
had been moved  across the room.  In fact, the  whole museum had  been
rearranged in the intervening years. All the biot replicas, which  had
occupied most of the space in the room when Richard and I had  visited
it briefly before, had been removed. The two "exhibits," if one  could
call them that, were now the avians and the human beings.
    The avian display was closer  to the door. Three individuals  were
hanging from the ceiling, their wings  outspread. One of them was  the
gray velvet avian with the two cherry red neck rings that Richard  and
I had seen just before its death. There were other fascinating objects
and even photographs  in the  avian exhibit,  but my  eyes were  drawn
across the room, to the display surrounding Dr. Takagishi.
    I sighed with relief when I  realized that Richard was not in  the
room. Our sailboat was there, however, the one that Richard,  Michael,
and I had used to cross the Cylindrical Sea. It was on the floor right
next to Dr. Takagishi. There was also an assortment of items that  had
been salvaged from our picnics and  other activities in New York.  But
the center of the exhibit was a set of framed pictures on the back and
side wails.
    From across the room  I could not tell  much about the content  of
the pictures. I gasped, however, as I approached them. The images were
photographs, set  in rectangular  frames, many  of which  showed  life
inside our  lair.  There were  photos  of  all of  us,  including  the
children. They showed us eating, sleeping, even going to the bathroom.
I was feeling numb as I scanned the display. "We are being watched," 1
commented to myself, "even in our own home." I felt a terrible chill.
    On the  side  wall  was  a special  collection  of  pictures  that
dismayed and embarrassed me. On Earth they would have been  candidates
for an erotic museum. The images showed me making love with Richard in
several different positions. There was  one picture of Michael and  me
as well,  but it  wasn't as  sharp because  it had  been dark  in  our
bedroom that night.
    The line of pictures below the sex scenes were all photographs  of
the children's births. Each birth was shown,
    96
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    including Patrick's, confirming that  the eavesdropping was  still
continuing. The  juxtaposition of  the sex  and birth  images made  it
clear that the octospiders (or the Ramans?) had definitely figured out
our reproductive process.
    I was totally consumed with  the photographs for probably  fifteen
minutes. My concentration was finally broken when I heard a very  loud
sound of brushes dragging against  metal coming from the direction  of
the museum door. I was absolutely terrified. I stood still, frozen  in
my spot, and looked around wildly. There was no other escape from  the
room.
    Within seconds Katie  came bouncing through  the door. "Mom,"  she
shouted when she saw me. She raced across the museum, nearly  toppling
Dr. Takagishi, and jumped into my arms.
    "Oh, Mom,"  she said,  hugging and  kissing me  fiercely, "I  knew
you'd come."
    I closed my  eyes and  held my lost  child with  all my  strength.
Tears cascaded  down my  cheeks.  I swung  Katie  from side  to  side,
comforting her by saying, "It's all right, darling, it's all right."
    When I wiped my eyes and  opened them, an octospider was  standing
in the museum doorway. It was momentarily not moving, almost as if  it
were watching  the  reunion  between  mother  and  daughter.  I  stood
transfixed, swept by  a wave  of emotions  ranging from  joy to  sheer
terror.
    Katie felt my fear. "Don't worry, Mother," she said, looking  over
her shoulder at the octospider. "He  won't hurt you. He just wants  to
look. He's been close to me many times."
    My adrenaline  level  was  at an  all-time  high.  The  octospider
continued to stand  {or sit,  or whatever  octos do  when they're  not
moving) in the door. Its large black head was almost spherical and sat
on  a   body   that  spread,   near   the  floor,   into   the   eight
black-and-gold-striped tentacles. In the center  of its head were  two
parallel indentations,  symmetric about  an invisible  axis, that  ran
from the top to  the bottom. Precisely centered  in between those  two
indentations, roughly a meter above  the floor, was an amazing  square
lens structure,  ten centimeters  on  a side,  that was  a  gelatinous
combination of grid lines plus flowing black
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    97
    and white material. While the  octospider was staring at us,  that
lens was teeming with activity.
    There were  other organs  embedded  in the  body between  the  two
indentations, both above  and below  the lens, but  I had  no time  to
study them. The octospider  moved toward us in  the room and,  despite
Katie's assurances, my fear returned with full force. The brush  sound
was made by  ciliaHke attachments to  the bottom of  the tentacles  as
they moved across  the floor. The  high-frequency whine was  emanating
from a small orifice in the lower right side of the head.
    For several seconds fear immobilized my thought processes. As  the
creature  drew  closer,  my   natural  flight  responses  took   over.
Unfortunately, they were useless in this situation. There was  nowhere
to run.
    The octospider didn't stop until it was a scant five meters  away.
I had backed Katie against the  wall and was standing between her  and
the octo. I held up my hand.  Again there was a flurry of activity  in
its mysterious lens. Suddenly I had an idea. I reached into my  flight
suit and  pulled  out my  computer.  With my  fingers  trembling  (the
octospider had raised  a pair  of tentacles  in front  of its  lens-in
retrospect I wonder if it thought I was going to produce a weapon),  I
called the image of Richard up on the monitor and thrust it out toward
the octospider.
    When I made  no additional movement  the creature slowly  returned
its two protective tentacles  to the floor. It  stared at the  monitor
for almost a full minute and then, much to my astonishment, a wave  of
bright purple coloring ran completely around its head, starting at the
edge of its indentation. This purple was followed a few seconds  later
by a rainbow pattern  of red, blue, and  green, each band a  different
thickness, that  also came  out  of the  same indentation  and,  after
circling the  head, retreated  into  the parallel  indentation  almost
three hundred and sixty degrees away.
    Katie and I both  stared in awe. The  octospider picked up one  of
its tentacles, pointed at  the monitor, and  repeated the wide  purple
wave. Moments later, as before, came the identical rainbow pattern.
    "It's talking to us, Mommy," Katie said softly.
    98
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "I think you're right," I replied. "But I don't have any idea what
it's saying."
    After waiting for what seemed like forever, the octo-spider  began
to move backward toward the  doorway, its extended tentacle  beckoning
us to follow.  There were no  more bands  of color. Katie  and I  held
hands and cautiously followed. She started looking around and  noticed
the photographs on  the wail for  the first time.  "Look, Mommy,"  she
said, "they have pictures of our family."
    I shushed  her  and  told  her to  please  pay  attention  to  the
octospider. It backed  into the  tunnel and headed  toward the  spiked
vertical corridor and the subways. That  was the opening we needed.  I
picked Katie up, told her to hang on tight, and raced down the  tunnel
at top speed. My feet scarcely touched the floor until I was up on the
ramp and back in New York.
    Michael was ecstatic to  see Katie safe, even  though he was  very
concerned (as I still am) that there were cameras hidden in the  walls
and ceilings of our living quarters, i never did scold Katie  properly
for going off on her own- I was too relieved to find her at all. Katie
told Simone  that she  had had  a "fabulous  adventure" and  that  the
octospider was "nice." Such is the world of the child.
    4 February 2209
    Oh, joy of joys!  We have found Richard!  He is still alivel  Just
barely, for he  is in  a deep coma  and has  a high fever,  but he  is
nevertheless alive.
    Katie and Simone found him this  morning, lying on the ground  not
fifty meters from the opening  to our lair. The  three of us had  been
planning to play some soccer in the plaza and were ready to leave  the
lair when Michael called  me back for something.  I told the girls  to
wait for  me in  the area  around the  lair entrance.  When they  both
started screaming a  few minutes later,  I thought something  terrible
had happened. I  rushed up  the stairs and  immediately saw  Richard's
comatose body in the distance.
    At first I  was afraid  that Richard was  dead. The  doctor in  me
immediately went to work, checking his vital signs.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    99
    The girls  hung over  me  while I  was examining  him.  Especially
Katie. She kept  saying, over and  over, "Is Daddy  alive? Oh,  Mommy,
make Daddy be all right."
    Once I had  confirmed that he  was in a  coma, Michael and  Simone
helped me carry Richard down the stairs. I injected a set of  biometry
probes into his system and have been monitoring the output ever since.
    I took his clothes off and checked  him from head to toe. He  has,
some scratches and bruises that I have not seen before, but that's  to
be expected after all this time. His blood cell counts are  peculiarly
close to normal-I  would have expected  white cell abnormalities  with
his almost forty-degree temperature.
    There was another big surprise when we examined Richard's clothing
in detail.  In his  jacket pocket  we found  the Shakespearean  robots
Prince Hal and  Falstaff, who had  disappeared nine years  ago in  the
strange world below  the spiked corridor  in what we  thought was  the
octospider lair.  Somehow Richard  must have  convinced the  octos  to
return his playmates.
    I have been sitting here beside Richard now for seven hours.  Most
of the time this  morning other members of  the family have also  been
here, but for the  last hour Richard  and I have  been alone. My  eyes
have feasted on  his face  for minutes on  end, my  hands have  roamed
across his neck,  his shoulders,  and his  back. My  touching him  has
evoked a flood  of memories and  my eyes have  often been filled  with
tears. I never thought  I would see or  touch him again. Oh,  Richard,
welcome home. Welcome home to your wife and family.
    12
    13 April 2209 \A/e nave nac* an
    V V day. Just after lunch,
    while I was sitting beside Richard and routinely checking all  his
biometry, Katie  asked  me if  she  could  play with  Prince  Hal  and
Falstaff. "Of course," I told her without thinking. I was certain that
the little  robots were  not functioning  and, to  tell the  truth,  I
wanted her out of the room so  that I could try another technique  for
bringing Richard out of his coma.
    I have never seen a coma even remotely like Richard's. Most of the
time his  eyes  are  open,  and occasionally  they  even  seem  to  be
following an object  in his field  of vision. But  there are no  other
signs of life or  consciousness. No muscles ever  move. I have used  a
variety of stimuli, some mechanical, mostly chemical, to try to  rouse
him from his comatose  state. None of them  have worked. That's why  I
was so unprepared for what happened today.
    After Katie had been  gone for about ten  minutes, I heard a  very
strange mix of sounds coming from  the nursery. I left Richard's  side
and walked into the corridor. Before I reached the nursery the strange
noise resolved itself into
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    101
    clipped speech with a very peculiar rhythm. "Hello," a voice  that
sounded as if it were in the bottom of a well said. "We are  peaceful.
Here is your man."
    The voice was  coming from  Prince Hal,  who was  standing in  the
middle of the room  when I entered the  nursery. The children were  on
the floor  surrounding  the  robot, somewhat  tentatively  except  for
Katie. She was clearly excited.
    "I was  just  playing with  the  buttons,"  Katie said  to  me  in
explanation when I  gave her  a questioning glance,  "and suddenly  he
started talking."
    No motions  accompanied  Prince  Hal's  speech.  How  peculiar,  I
thought, remembering  that Richard  took pride  in the  fact that  his
robots always moved and spoke in  concert. Richard did not do this,  a
voice inside my head  told me, but I  initially dismissed the idea.  I
dropped down on the floor beside the children.
    "Hello. We are peaceful. Here is your man," Prince Hal said  again
several seconds later. This time  an eerie' feeling swept through  me.
The girls  were still  laughing, but  they quickly  stopped when  they
noticed the strange expression on  my face. Benjy crawled over  beside
me and grabbed my hand.
    We were  sitting  on the  floor  with our  backs  to the  door.  I
suddenly had a feeling  there was someone behind  me. I turned  around
and saw Richard standing in the  doorway. I gasped and jumped up  just
as he fell and lost consciousness.
    The children all  screamed and began  to cry. I  tried to  comfort
them after quickly examining Richard. Since Michael was topside in New
York having  his afternoon  walk, I  cared for  Richard on  the  floor
outside the nursery for over an  hour. During that time I watched  him
very closely. He was  exactly as he  had been when I  left him in  the
bedroom earlier. There was no obvious sign that he had been awake  for
thirty or forty seconds in the interim.
    When Michael returned he helped  me carry Richard to the  bedroom.
We talked for over an hour about why Richard had awakened so abruptly.
Later I read and reread every article about coma in my medical  books.
I am convinced that Richard's coma is caused by a mixture of
    102 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    physical and psychological  problems. In my  opinion the sound  of
that  strange  voice  induced  a   trauma  in  him  that   temporarily
overwhelmed the factors creating the coma.
    But why did he  then relapse so quickly?  That's a more  difficult
issue. Perhaps he had exhausted his small energy base by walking  down
the hail. There's no way we can really know. In fact, we cannot answer
most of the  questions about  what happened today,  including the  one
that Katie keeps asking: Who is it that is peaceful?
    1 May 2209
    Let it  be recorded  that  on this  day Richard  Colin  Wake-field
actually acknowledged his family and spoke his first words. For almost
a week he  has been  working up to  this moment,  initially by  giving
signs of recognition  with his face  and eyes and  then by moving  his
lips as if to make words. He smiled at me this morning and almost said
my name, but his first actual word was "Katie," spoken this  afternoon
after his cherished daughter gave him one of her energetic hugs.
    There is a feeling of euphoria in the family, especially among the
girls. They are celebrating  the return of their  father. I have  told
Simone and Katie repeatedly that Richard's rehabilitation will  almost
certainly be  long and  painful, but  I guess  they are  too young  to
comprehend what that means.
    I am a very happy woman. It was impossible for me to restrain  the
tears when  Richard  distinctly whispered  "Ni-cole"  in my  ear  just
before dinner.  Even though  I  realize that  my  husband is  not  yet
anywhere near normal, I am now certain that he will eventually recover
and that fills my heart with joy.
    18 August 2209
    Slowly but surely  Richard continues  to improve.  He only  sleeps
twelve hours a day now, can walk almost a
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    103
    mile  before  becoming  fatigued,  and  is  able  to   concentrate
occasionally on a problem if  it's especially interesting. He has  not
yet begun to interact with the Ramans through the keyboard and screen.
He has, however, taken  Prince Hal apart  and tried unsuccessfully  to
determine what caused the strange voice in the nursery.
    Richard is the first to admit that he is not himself. When he  can
talk about it,  he says that  he is "in  a fog, like  a dream but  not
quite as  sharp." It  has been  over three  months since  he  regained
consciousness, but  he  still  can't remember  very  much  about  what
happened to him after he left us.  He believes he was in the coma  for
the last year or so. His estimate is based more on vague feelings than
on any particular fact.
    Richard insists that he  lived in the avian  lair for some  months
and that he was  present at a spectacular  cremation. He can't  supply
any other details. Richard has  also twice contended that he  explored
the Southern Hemicylinder and found  the main city of the  octospiders
near the southern bowl,  but since what he  can remember changes  from
day to day,  it is difficult  to place much  credence in any  specific
recollection.
    I have replaced Richard's biometry set twice already and have very
lengthy records of all his critical parameters. His charts are  normal
except in two areas-his mental activity and his temperature. His daily
brain  waves  defy  description.  There  is  nothing  in  my   medical
encyclopedia that will allow me to interpret any pair of these charts,
much less the entire set. Sometimes the level of activity in his brain
is astronomically high;  sometimes it  seems to  stop altogether.  The
electrochemical measurements are equally peculiar. His hippocampus  is
virtually  dormant-that  could  explain  why  Richard's  having   such
difficulty with his memory.
    His temperature is  also weird. It  has been stable  now, for  two
months, at 37.8 degrees Celsius, eight tenths of a degree above normal
for an  average  human. I  have  checked all  his  preflight  records;
Richard's "normal"  temperature on  Earth was  a very  steady 36.9.  I
cannot explain why this elevated temperature persists. It's almost  as
if
    104 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    his body and some pathogen are in stable equilibrium, neither able
to subdue the other.  But what pathogen could  it be that would  elude
all my attempts to identify it?
    All the children  have been especially  disappointed in  Richard's
lackadaisical behavior. During  his absence  we probably  mythologized
him somewhat, but there's no doubt he was a very energetic man before.
This new Richard is only a shadow of his former self. Katie swears she
remembers wrestling and playing vigorously with her daddy when she was
only two (her memory  has undoubtedly been  reinforced by the  stories
that Michael, Simone, and I told  her while Richard was gone), and  is
often quite angry that he spends so little time with her now. I try to
explain to her that "Daddy is still sick," but I don't think she is  .
mollified by my explanation.
    Michael moved all my things  back to this room within  twenty-four
hours after Richard's return. He is such a sweet man. He went  through
another heavy religious phase for several weeks (I expect in his  mind
he needed forgiveness  for some  fairly grievous sins)  but has  since
moderated because of the  workload on me. He  has been marvelous  with
the children.
    Simone acts as*a  backup mother.  Benjy worships her  and she  has
incredible patience with  him. Since she  had commented several  times
that Benjy was "a little slow,"  Michael and I have told Simone  about
his Whittingham's syndrome. We  still have not  told Katie. Right  now
Katie is having a  difficult time. Not even  Patrick, who follows  her
around like a pet dog, can cheer her up.
    We all know,  even the  children, that  we are  being watched.  We
searched the walls in the nursery very carefully, almost as if it were
a game, and found several minute irregularities in the surface  finish
that we declared to be cameras.  We chipped them away with our  tools,
but we could not  positively say that we  had indeed found  monitoring
devices. They may  be so  small that we  couldn't see  them without  a
microscope. At  least Richard  remembered his  favorite saying,  about
advanced alien technology being indistinguishable from magic.
    Katie was  the most  disturbed  about the  prying cameras  of  the
octospiders. She spoke openly and resentfully of
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    105
    their intrusion into  her "private  life." She  probably has  more
secrets than any of  us. When Simone told  her younger sister that  it
was really not important, because "after all, God is also watching  us
all the  time," we  had our  first sibling  religious argument.  Katie
replied with "Bullshit," a rather  unpleasant word for a  six-year-old
girl to use. Her expression reminded me to be more careful with my own
language.
    One day last month I took Richard over to the avian lair to see if
perhaps  being  there  would  refresh  his  memory.  He  became   very
frightened as soon as we were in the tunnel off the vertical corridor.
"Dark," I heard him mumble.  "I cannot see in  the dark. But they  can
see in the dark." He wouldn't walk any more after we passed the  water
and the cistern, so I brought him back to our lair.
    Richard knows that both Benjy  and Patrick are Michael's sons  and
probably suspects that  Michael and I  lived as husband  and wife  for
part of the time  he was gone,  but he has  never commented about  it.
Both Michael and I are prepared  to ask for Richard's forgiveness  and
to stress  to  him  that  we  were  not  lovers  (except  for  Benjy's
conception) until  he had  been gone  for two  years. At  the  moment,
however, Richard doesn't seem much interested in the subject.
    Richard and I have shared our old conjugal mat since soon after he
awakened from his coma. We have touched a lot and been very  friendly,
but until two weeks ago there had  never been any sex. In fact, I  was
starting to think  that sex was  another of the  things that had  been
erased from his memory, so unresponsive  had he been to my  occasional
provocative kisses.
    Then came a night, however, when  the old Richard was suddenly  in
bed with me. This is a pattern that has been occurring in other  areas
as well-every now and then his  old wit, energy, and intelligence  are
all present for a  short period of time.  Anyway, the old Richard  was
ardent,  funny,  and  imaginative.  It  was  like  heaven  for  me.  I
remembered levels of pleasure that I had long since buried.
    His sexual interest continued  for three consecutive nights.  Then
it departed as abruptly as it had arrived. At
    106 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    first I was  disappointed (Isn't  that human nature?  Most of  the
time we want it to be better. When it's as good as it can be, we  want
it to last forever), but  now I have accepted  that this facet of  his
personality must also undergo a healing process.
    Last night  Richard computed  our trajectory  for the  first  time
since he has  been back with  us. Both Michael  and I were  delighted.
"We're still  holding  the  same direction,"  he  pronounced  proudly.
"We're now less than three light-years from Sirius."
    6 January 2210
    Forty-six years old. My hair is  now mostly gray on the sides  and
in front. Back on Earth I would be debating whether or not to color my
hair. Here on Rama it does not matter.
    I am too old to be pregnant. I should tell that to the little girl
growing inside my womb. I was quite astonished when I realized that  I
was indeed pregnant again. The  onset of menopause had already  begun,
with its  strange  hot  flashes, moments  of  daffiness,  and  totally
unpredictable menstruations.  But Richard's  sperm has  made one  more
baby, another addition to this homeless family adrift in space.
    If we  never  encounter  another human  being  (and  Eleanor  Joan
Wakefield turns out to be a healthy baby,, which seems likely at  this
point), then there  will be a  total of six  possible combinations  of
parents  for  our  grandchildren.   Almost  certainly  all  of   those
permutations will not occur, but  it's fascinating to imagine. I  used
to think that Simone  would mate with Benjy,  and Katie with  Patrick,
but where will Ellie fit into the equation?
    This  is  my  tenth  birthday  onboard  Rama.  It  seems   utterly
impossible that I have  spent only twenty percent  of my life in  this
giant cylinder. Did  I have another  life once, back  on that  oceanic
planet trillions of kilometers  away? Did I  really know adult  people
other than  Richard  Wake-field and  Michael  O'Toole? Was  my  father
actually Pierre des Jardins, the famous writer of historical  fiction?
Did I
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    107
    have a  secret, dream  affair with  Henry, Prince  of Wales,  that
produced my wonderful first daughter Genevieve?
    None of  it  seems  possible.  At  least  not  today,  not  on  my
forty-sixth birthday. It's funny. Richard  and Michael have asked  me,
one time  each, about  Genevieve's  father. I  have still  never  told
anyone. Isn't that ridiculous? What possible difference could it  make
here on Rama? None at all. But it has been my secret (shared only with
my father)  since the  moment of  Genevieve's conception.  She was  my
daughter. 1  brought  her  into  the  world  and  I  raised  her.  Her
biological father, I always told myself, was of no importance.
    That is, of course, poppycock.  Hah. There's that word again.  Dr.
David Brown used it often. Goodness. I haven't thought about the other
Newton cosmonauts for  years. I  wonder if Francesca  and her  friends
made their  millions off  the Newton  mission. I  hope Janos  got  his
share. Dear  Mr. Tabori,  an absolutely  delightful man.  Hmm. I  also
wonder how Rama's escape from the nuclear phalanx was explained to the
citizens of Earth.  Ah, yes,  Nicole, this  is a  typical birthday.  A
long, unstructured voyage down memory lane.
    Francesca was so beautiful. I was  always jealous of how well  she
handled herself with people. Did she drug Borzov and Wilson? Probably.
I don't think for a  minute she meant to kill  Valeriy. But she had  a
truly twisted morality. Most genuinely ambitious people do.
    I am amused,  now when I  look back, at  how obsessed I  was as  a
young mother  in my  twenties.  I had  to  succeed at  everything.  My
ambition was quite different from  Fran-cesca's. I wanted to show  the
world that I could-play by all the rules and still win, just as I  had
done with the  triple jump in  the Olympic games.  What could be  more
impossible for an unmarried mother than to be selected as a cosmonaut?
I was certainly full of myself  during those years. Lucky for me,  and
for Genevieve, that Father was there.
    I knew, of course, every time  I looked at Genevieve that  Henry's
imprint was obvious. From  the top of  her lips to  the bottom of  her
chin, Genevieve's face is exactly like his. And I did not really  want
to deny the genetics. It was
    108 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    just so important to  me to make  it on my own,  to show at  least
myself that I was a superb mother  and woman even if I was  unsuitable
to be the queen.
    I was too black to be Queen Nicole of England, or even Joan of Arc
in one of those French anniversary  pageants. I wonder how many  years
it will be before skin color is no longer an issue among human  beings
on Earth.  Five  hundred years?  A  thousand?  What was  it  that  the
American William Faulkner said-something about Sambo will be free only
when all of  his neighbors wake  up in  the morning and  say, both  to
themselves and to  their friends, that  Sambo is free.  I think he  is
right. We  have seen  that racial  prejudice cannot  be eradicated  by
legislation. Or even by education. Each person's journey through  life
must have an  epiphany, a  moment of true  awareness, when  he or  she
realizes, once and for all, that  Sambo and every other individual  in
the world who is in any way different from him or her must be free  if
we are to survive.
    When I  was down  at the  bottom of  that pit  ten years  ago  and
certain that  I was  going  to die,  I  asked myself  what  particular
moments  of  my  life  I  would  live  over  if  I  were  offered  the
opportunity. Those hours with  Henry leapt into  my mind, despite  the
fact that he  later broke  my heart. Even  today I  would gladly  soar
again with my  prince. To  have experienced total  happiness, even  if
it's just for a few minutes or hours, is to have been alive. It is not
that important, when you are faced with death, that your companion  in
your great moment subsequently disappointed  or betrayed you. What  is
important is that sense  of momentary joy so  great you feel you  have
transcended the Earth.
    It embarrassed me a little, in the pit, that my memories of  Henry
were on  a  level equal  to  my memories  of  my father,  mother,  and
daughter. But I have since realized that I am not unique in cherishing
my recollections  of those  hours  with Henry.  Each person  has  very
special moments or  events that  are uniquely hers  and are  zealously
protected by the heart.
    My only close friend at the university, Gabrielle Mo-reau, spent a
night with Genevieve  and me at  Beauvois the year  before the  Newton
expedition was launched. We
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    109
    had not seen  each other  for seven years  and spent  most of  the
night talking,  primarily  about the  major  emotional events  of  our
lives. Gabrielle was extremely happy.  She had a handsome,  sensitive,
successful husband, three healthy, gorgeous children, and a  beautiful
manor house near Chinon, But Gabrielle's "most wonderful" moment,  she
confided to  me after  midnight  with a  girlish smile,  had  occurred
before she met her husband. She had had a powerful schoolgirl crush on
a famous movie star who one day  happened to be on location in  Tours.
Gabrielle somehow managed to  meet him in his  hotel room and talk  to
him privately for almost an hour. She kissed him a single time on  the
lips before she left. That was her most precious memory.
    Oh, my prince, it was ten years  ago yesterday that I saw you  for
the last time. Are you happy? Are  you a good king? Do you ever  think
of the black Olympic champion who gave herself to you, her first love,
with such reckless abandon?
    You asked me an indirect question,  that day on the ski  mountain,
about the  father  of  my  daughter. I  denied  you  the  answer,  not
realizing  that  my  denial  meant  I  had  still  not  forgiven   you
completely. If you  were to ask  me today, my  prince, I would  gladly
tell you.  Yes, Henry  Rex, King  of England,  you are  the father  of
Genevieve des  Jardins. Go  to her,  know her,  love her  children.  I
cannot. I am more than fifty trillion kilometers away.
    13
    Everyone was too excited to i
    30 June 2213
    .sleep last night. Except for  Benjy, bless his heart, who  simply
could not, grasp what we were telling him. Simone has explained to him
many times that our home is inside a giant cylindrical  spacecraft-she
has even shown  him on the  black screen the  different views of  Rama
from the external sensors-but the concept continues to elude him.
    When the whistle sounded yesterday Richard, Michael, and I  stared
at each other for several seconds. It  had been so long since we  last
heard it. Then we all started talking at once. The children, including
little Ellie, were full  of questions and  could feel our  excitement.
The eight of us went topside  immediately. Richard and Katie ran  over
to the sea without waiting for  the rest of the family. Simone  walked
with Benjy, Michael with Patrick.  I carried Ellie because her  little
legs just wouldn't move fast enough.
    Katie was bursting with enthusiasm when she ran back to greet  us.
"Come on, come on," she said, grabbing
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 1 1
    Simone by  the hand.  "You've got  to see  it. It's  amazing.  The
colors are fantastic."
    Indeed they were. The rainbow arcs of light crackled from horn  to
horn, filling the Raman  night with an  awesome display. Benjy  stared
southward with his mouth open. After many seconds he smiled and turned
to Simone. "It's beau-ti-ful," he said slowly, proud of his use of the
word.
    "Yes, it is, Benjy," Simone replied. "Very beautiful."
    "Ve-ry beau-ti-ful," Benjy repeated, turning  back to look at  the
lights.
    None of us  said very much  during the show  itself. But after  we
returned to  the  lair the  conversation  was nonstop  for  hours.  Of
course, someone had to explain everything to the children. Simone  was
the only one bom at the time of the last maneuver, and she was just an
infant. Richard was the  chief explainer. The  whistle and light  show
really energized him-he seemed  more like himself  last night than  he
has at any  time since he  returned-and he was  both entertaining  and
informative as he recounted everything  we knew about whistles,  light
shows, and Raman maneuvers.
    "Do you think the  octospiders are going to  return to New  York?"
Katie asked expectantly.
    "I  don't   know,"  Richard   said.  "But   that's  definitely   a
possibility."
    Katie spent the  next fifteen  minutes telling  everyone, for  the
umpteenth time, about  our encounter with  the oc-tospider four  years
ago. As usual, she  embellished and exaggerated  some of the  details,
especially from the solo part  of the story before  she saw me in  the
museum.
    Patrick loves the tale.  He wants Katie to  tell it all the  time.
"There I was," Katie  said last night, "lying  on my stomach, my  head
peering over the edge of a  gigantic round cylinder that dropped  into
the black gloom. Silver spikes were  sticking out of the sides of  the
cylinder, and I  could see them  flashing in the  dim light. 'Hey,*  I
shouted, 'anybody down there?'
    "I heard  a sound  like  dragging metal  brushes together  with  a
whine. Lights came on below me. At the bottom
    112 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    of the cylinder, beginning to climb the spikes, was a black  thing
with a round head and eight tentacles of black and gold. The tentacles
wrapped around the spikes as it climbed swiftly in my direction. ..."
    "Oc-to-spi-der," Benjy said.
    When Katie was finished with her story, Richard told the  children
that in four more days the floor was probably going to start  shaking.
He stressed that everything should be carefully anchored to the ground
and that each of us should be prepared for another set of sessions  in
the deceleration tank. Michael pointed out that we needed at least one
new toy box for the children,  and several sturdy boxes for our  stuff
as well. We have accumulated so much junk over the years that it  will
be quite a task to secure everything in the next few days.
    When Richard and I were lying alone on our mat, we held hands  and
talked for over an  hour. At one  point I told him  that I hoped  this
coming maneuver signaled the  beginning of the end  of our journey  in
Rama.
    "Hope springs  eternal in  the human  breast./ Man  never is,  but
always to be blessed," he replied. He  sat up for a moment and  looked
at me, his eyes twinkling in  the near darkness. "Alexander Pope,"  he
said. Then he  laughed. "I  bet he never  thought he  would be  quoted
sixty trillion kilometers away from Earth."
    "You seem better, darling," I said, stroking his arm.
    His brow furrowed. "Right now everything seems clear. But I  don't
know when the fog will  descend again. It could  be any minute. And  I
still cannot remember more  than the barest  outline of what  happened
during the three years that I was gone."
    He lay back down. "What do you think will happen?" I asked.
    "I'm guessing we'll have a maneuver," he replied. "And I hope it's
a big one. We are approaching Sinus very quickly and will need to slow
down considerably if our target is  anywhere in the Sinus system."  He
reached over and took my hand. "For you," he said, "and especially for
the children, I hope this is not a false alarm."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 13
    8 July 2213
    The maneuver began four  days ago, right on  schedule, as soon  as
the third and final light show was finished. We didn't see or hear any
avians or octospiders,  as we haven't  for four years  now. Katie  was
very disappointed. She wanted to see the octospiders all return to New
York.
    Yesterday a pair of the mantis  biots came into our lair and  went
straight  to  the  deceleration  tank.  They  were  carrying  a  large
container, in which were the five new webbed beds (Simone, of  course,
needs a different size now) and all the helmets. We watched them  from
a distance while  they installed  the beds  and checked  out the  tank
system. The  children  were  fascinated.  The  short  visit  from  the
mantises confirmed that we will soon  be undergoing a major change  in
velocity.
    Richard was  apparently  correct  with his  hypothesis  about  the
connection between the main propulsion system and the overall  thermal
control of Rama. The temperature has already started to drop  topside.
In anticipation  of a  long  maneuver, we  have  been busy  using  the
keyboard to order cold-weather clothing for all the children.
    The constant shaking is  again disrupting our  lives. At first  it
was amusing for the children,  but they are already complaining  about
it. For  myself,  I  am hoping  that  we  are now  near  our  ultimate
destination. Although Michael has been  praying "God's will be  done,"
my few prayers have definitely been more selfish and specific.
    1 September 221 3
    Something new is definitely happening. For the last ten days, ever
since we finished  in the tank  and the maneuver  ended, we have  been
approaching a solitary light source situated about thirty astronomical
units away from the star  Sirius. Richard has ingeniously  manipulated
the sensor  list and  the black  screen so  that this  source is  dead
center on our  monitor at  all times, regardless  of which  particular
Raman telescope is observing it.
    Two nights ago we began to see some definition in the
    114 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    object. We speculated that perhaps it was an inhabited planet  and
Richard rushed around computing the heat input from Sirius on a planet
whose distance was roughly equal  to Neptune's distance from our  Sun.
Even though Sirius is much larger, brighter, and hotter than the  Sun,
Richard  concluded  that  our  paradise,   if  this  was  indeed   our
destination, was still going to be very cold.
    Last night  we  could  see  our target  more  clearly.  It  is  an
elongated  construction  (Richard  says  it  therefore  cannot  be   a
planet-anything "that size" that  is decidedly non-spherical "must  be
artificial"), shaped like a cigar, with  two rows of lights along  the
top and bottom. Because we don't know  exactly how far away it is,  we
don't know its size for certain. However, Richard has been making some
"guesstimates," based on our closing velocity, and he thinks the cigar
is roughly a hundred  and fifty kilometers  long and fifty  kilometers
tall.
    The entire family sits in our main room and stares at the monitor.
This morning we had another surprise. Katie showed us that there  were
two other vehicles in the vicinity  of our target. Richard had  taught
her last week how to change  the Raman sensors providing input to  the
black screen and, while the rest of us were talking, she accessed  the
distant radar sensor  that we  had first  used thirteen  years ago  to
identify the  nuclear missiles  coming  from Earth.  The  cigar-shaped
object appeared at the edge of the radar field of view. Standing right
hi front of the  cigar, almost indistinguishable from  it in the  wide
field, were the  two other  blips. If the  giant cigar  is indeed  our
destination, then perhaps we are about to have company.
    8 September 2213
    There is no way I can adequately describe the astounding events of
the last five days. The language does not have adjectives  superlative
enough to capture what we have seen and experienced. Michael has  even
commented that heaven may pale  by comparison beside the wonders  that
we have witnessed.
    At this moment our family is onboard a driverless small
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 1 5
    shuttle craft,  no  larger than  a  city  bus on  Earth,  that  is
whizzing us  from  the way  station  to an  unknown  destination.  The
cigar-shaped way station is  still visible, but  just barely, out  the
domed window at  the rear  of the  craft. To  our left,  our home  for
thirteen years, the cylindrical spaceship we call Rama, is headed in a
slightly different direction  than we  are. It departed  from the  way
station a few hours  after we did,  lit like a  Christmas tree on  the
outside, and we are presently separated  from it by about two  hundred
kilometers.
    Four days and eleven hours ago our Rama spacecraft came to a  stop
relative to the way station. We  were the third vehicle in an  amazing
queue. In front of us was a spinning starfish about one tenth the size
of Rama and a giant wheel, with a hub and spokes, that entered the way
station within hours after we stopped.
    The way station  itself turned out  to be hollow.  When the  giant
wheel moved into  the center of  the way station,  gantries and  other
deployable elements rolled out to meet the wheel and fix it in  place.
A suite of special vehicles in three unusual shapes (one looked like a
balloon, another like a blimp,  and the third resembled a  bathysphere
on Earth) then  entered the wheel  from the way  station. Although  we
couldn't see  what was  going on  inside  the wheel,  we did  see  the
special vehicles emerge, one  by one, at odd  intervals over the  next
two days. Each vehicle was met by a shuttle, like the one in which  we
are now flying but larger in size. These shuttles had all been  parked
in the dark in  the right-hand side  of the way  station and had  been
moved into place thirty minutes or so before the rendezvous.
    As soon as  the shuttles were  loaded, they always  took off in  a
direction directly opposite our queue.  About an hour after the  final
vehicle had emerged from the wheel and the last shuttle had  departed,
the many pieces  of mechanical  equipment attached to  the wheel  were
retracted and the great  circular spacecraft itself  eased out of  the
way station.
    The starfish in front  of us had already  entered the way  station
and was being handled by another set of gantries and attachments  when
a loud whistle summoned us topside
    116 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    in Rama. The whistle was followed by a light show in the  southern
bowl. However, this  display was  completely different  from the  ones
that we had seen before.  The Big Horn was the  star of the new  show.
Circular rings of  color formed near  its tip and  then sailed  slowly
north, centered along  the spin  axis of  Rama. The  rings were  huge.
Richard estimated they were at least  a kilometer in diameter, with  a
ring thickness of forty meters.
    The dark Raman night was illuminated by as many as eight of  these
rings at  a time.  The order  remained the  same-red, orange,  yellow,
green, blue, brown, pink, and purple-for three repetitions. As a  ring
would break  up and  disappear near  the Alpha  relay station  at  the
northern bowl of Rama, a  new ring of the  same color would form  back
near the tip of the Big Horn.
    We stood  transfixed, our  mouths agape,  as this  spectacle  took
place. As  soon as  the  last ring  disappeared  from the  third  set,
another astonishing  event occurred.  All the  lights came  on  inside
Rama! The Raman night had only begun three hours earlier-for  thirteen
years the sequence of night and day had been completely regular.  Now,
all of a sudden, it was changed. And it wasn't just the lights.  There
was music  as well;  at least  I guess  you could  call it  music.  It
sounded like millions of  tiny bells and it  seemed to be coming  from
everywhere.
    None of us moved for many seconds. Then Richard, who had the  best
pair of  binoculars,  spied  something flying  toward  us.  "It's  the
avians," he shouted, jumping up and  down and pointing at the sky.  "I
just remembered some-•thing. I visited them  in their new home in  the
north while I was on my odyssey."
    One at a time we each  looked through his binoculars. At first  it
wasn't certain that Richard was correct in his identification, but  as
they came closer the  fifty or sixty  specks resolved themselves  into
the great  birdlike  creatures we  know  as the  avians.  They  headed
straight for New York. Half the avians hovered in the sky, maybe three
hundred meters above their  lair, as the other  half dove down to  the
surface.
    "Come on, Daddy," Katie yelled. "Let's go."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 1 7
    Before I could raise any  objection, father and daughter were  off
at a sprint.  I watched Katie  run. She  is already very  fast. In  my
mind's eye I could see my mother's graceful stride across the grass in
the  park  at  Chilly-Ma-zarin-Katie  has  definitely  inherited  some
characteristics from her mother's side of the family, even though  she
is first and foremost her father's daughter.
    Simone and Benjy had already started toward our iair. Patrick  was
concerned about the avians. "Will they hurt Uncle Richard and  Katie?"
he asked.
    I smiled  at  my  handsome five-year-old  son.  "No,  darling,"  I
answered, "not if  they're careful."  Michael, Patrick,  Ellie, and  I
returned to the lair to watch the starfish being processed in the  way
station.
    We couldn't  see  much because  all  the  ports of  entry  to  the
starfish were on the opposite side,  away from the Raman cameras.  But
we assumed  some kind  of unloading  activity was  occurring,  because
eventually five shuttles departed for some new location. The  starfish
was finished with its processing very quickly. It had already left the
way station before Richard and Katie returned.
    "Start packing," Richard said breathlessly as soon as he  arrived.
"We're leaving. We're all leaving."
    "You  should  have  seen  them,"  Katie  said  to  Simone   almost
simultaneously. "They were  huge. And  ugly. They went  down in  their
lair-"
    "The avians returned to get some special things from their  lair,"
Richard interrupted  her.  "Maybe they  were  mementos of  some  kind.
Anyway, everything fits. We're getting out of here."
    As I raced around trying to put  our essentials into a few of  the
sturdy boxes, I  criticized myself for  not having figured  everything
out sooner. We had watched both the wheel and the starfish "unload" at
the way station. But it  had not occurred to us  that we might be  the
cargo to be unloaded by Rama,
    It was impossible to  decide what to pack.  We had been living  in
those six rooms (including  the two we had  fixed up for storage)  for
thirteen years. We had probably requested  an average of five items  a
day using the keyboard.
    118 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Granted, most of the objects had long since been thrown away,  but
still . . . We didn't know where we were going. How could we know what
to take?
    "Do you  have any  idea what's  going to  happen to  us?" I  asked
Richard.
    My husband was beside himself trying to figure out how to take his
large computer. "Our  history, our  science- all that  remains of  our
knowledge is there," he said,  pointing at the computer in  agitation.
"What if it's irretrievably lost?"
    It weighed only eighty kilograms altogether. I told him
    we could all help him carry the computer after we had
    packed clothing, personal items, and some food and water.
    "Do you have any idea where we're going?" I
    repeated.
    Richard shrugged his shoulders.  "Not the slightest," he  replied.
"But wherever it is, I bet it will be amazing."
    Katie came into our  room. She was holding  a small pouch and  her
eyes were alive with energy. "I'm packed and ready," she said. "Can  I
go topside and wait?"
    Her father's  affirmative  nod was  barely  in motion  when  Katie
bolted out the door.  I shook my head,  giving Richard a  disapproving
look, and went down the hall  to help Simone with the other  children.
The process of packing  for the boys was  an ordeal. Benjy was  cranky
and confused.  Even  Patrick was  irritable,  Simone and  I  had  just
finished (the job was  impossible until we forced  the boys to take  a
nap) when Richard and Katie returned from topside.
    "Our vehicle  is  here,"  Richard  said  calmly,  suppressing  his
excitement.
    "It's parked on the ice," Katie added, taking off her heavy jacket
and gloves.
    "How do you  know it's ours?"  Michael asked. He  had entered  the
room only moments  after Richard and  Katie. "It has  eight seats  and
room for our bags," my ten-year-old daughter replied. "Who else  could
it be for?"
    "Whom," I said mechanically, trying  to integrate this latest  new
information. I felt as  if I had  been drinking from  a fire hose  for
four consecutive days.
    "Did you see any octospiders?" Patrick asked.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 19
    "Oc-to-spi-der," Benjy repeated carefully.
    "No," answered Katie, "but  we did see  four mammoth planes,  real
flat, with  wide wings.  They flew  over our  heads, coming  from  the
south. We think  the flat planes  were carrying the  octos, don't  we,
Dad?"
    Richard nodded.
    I took  a deep  breath. "All  right, then,"  I said.  "Bundle  up,
everybody. Let's go.  Carry the  bags first. Richard,  Michael, and  I
will make a second trip for the computer."
    An hour  later we  were all  in the  vehicle. We  had climbed  the
stairs of our lair for the  last time. Richard pressed a flashing  red
button and  our Raman  helicopter  (I call  it  that because  it  went
straight up, not  because it  had any  rotary blades)  lifted off  the
ground.
    Our flight path was slow and vertical for the first five  minutes.
Once we  were close  to the  spin axis  of Rama,  where there  was  no
gravity and very little atmosphere,  the vehicle hovered in place  for
two or three minutes while it changed its external configuration.
    It was an awesome final view of Rama. Many kilometers below us our
island home was but a  small patch of grayish  brown in the middle  of
the frozen sea that circled the giant cylinder. I could see the  horns
in the south clearer than ever before. Those amazing long  structures,
supported by massive flying buttresses larger than small towns on  the
Earth, all pointed directly north.
    I felt strangely emotional as our craft began to move again. After
all, Rama had been my  home for thirteen years.  I had given birth  to
five children there. / also  have matured, I remember telling  myself,
and may finally be growing into the person I have always wanted to be.
    There was very  little time to  dwell on what  had been. Once  the
external configuration change was  complete, our vehicle zipped  along
the spin axis to the northern hub  in a matter of a few minutes.  Less
than an hour later  we were all  safely in this  shuttle. We had  left
Rama. I knew we would never return. I wiped the tears from my eyes  as
our shuttle pulled out of the way station.
    AT THE NODE
    1
    N
    'icole was dancing.  Her I partner  in the waltz  was Henry.  They
were young and very much in love. The beautiful music filled the  huge
ballroom as the twenty or so couples moved in rhythm around the floor.
Nicole looked stunning in her long white gown. Henry's eyes were fixed
on hers.  He  held her  firmly  at the  waist,  but somehow  she  felt
completely free.
    Her father was one of the  people standing around the edge of  the
dance floor. He was leaning against a massive column that rose  almost
twenty feet to the domed ceiling. He waved and smiled as Nicole danced
by in the arms of her prince.
    The waltz seemed to last forever. When it was finally over,  Henry
held her hands and told Nicole that he had something very important to
ask her.  At just  that moment  her father  touched her  on the  back.
"Nicole," he whispered, "we must go. It's very late."
    Nicole curtsied to the  prince. Henry was reluctant  to let go  of
her hands. "Tomorrow," he said, "We'll  talk tomorrow." He blew her  a
kiss as she left the dance floor.
    124 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    When Nicole  walked outside  it was  almost sunset.  Her  father's
sedan was  waiting. Moments  later,  as they  raced down  the  highway
beside the Loire,  she was  dressed in  blouse and  jeans. Nicole  was
younger now, maybe fourteen,  and her father  was driving much  faster
than usual. "We don't want to  be late," he said. "The pageant  starts
at eight o'clock."
    The Chateau d'Usse loomed  before them. With  its many towers  and
spires, the castle had been the inspiration for the original story  of
Sleeping Beauty. It  was only  a few  kilometers down  the river  from
Beauvois and had always been one of her father's favorite places.
    It was  the evening  of  the annual  pageant,  when the  story  of
Sleeping Beauty was replayed in front  of a live audience. Pierre  and
Nicole attended every  year. Each time  Nicole longed desperately  for
Aurora to avoid the deadly spinning wheel that would throw her into  a
coma. And each  year she wept  adolescent tears when  the kiss of  the
handsome prince awakened the beauty from her deathlike sleep.
    The pageant was over,  the audience gone.  Nicole was climbing  up
the circular  steps that  led to  the tower  where the  real  Sleeping
Beauty had supposedly lapsed into her coma. The teenager was racing up
the steps, laughing, leaving her father far behind.
    Aurora's room was  on the other  side of the  long window.  Nicole
caught her breath and stared at all the sumptuous furnishings. The bed
was canopied, the  dressers richly decorated.  Everything in the  room
was trimmed in white. It was  magnificent. Nicole glanced back at  the
sleeping, girl and gasped. It was she,  Nicole, lying in the bed in  a
white gown!
    Her heart pounded  furiously as she  heard the door  open and  the
footsteps coming toward her in the  room. Her eyes remained closed  as
the first aroma of his mint breath  reached her nose. This is it,  she
thought excitedly  to herself.  He kissed  her, gently,  on the  lips.
Nicole felt as if she were flying on the softest of clouds. Music  was
all around her. She opened her eyes and saw Henry's smiling face  only
centimeters away. She reached her arms out to
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    125
    him and he  kissed her  again, this time  with passion,  as a  man
kisses a woman.
    Nicole kissed him  back, reserving nothing,  allowing her kiss  to
tell him that she was his. But he pulled away. Her special prince  was
wearing a frown. He pointed at her face. Then he backed up slowly  and
left the room.
    She had just started to cry  when a distant sound intruded on  her
dream. A door  was opening,  light was  coming into  the room.  Nicole
blinked, then closed her eyes again to protect them against the light.
The  complicated  set  of  ul-trathin,  plasticlike  wires  that  were
attached to  her  body  automatically rewound  themselves  into  their
containers on either side of the canvas mat on which she was sleeping.
    Nicole awakened very slowly. The  dream had been extremely  vivid.
Her feelings of unhappiness had not vanished as quickly as the  dream.
She tried to chase her despair by reminding herself that none of  what
she had. dreamed was real.
    "Are you going to just lie there forever?" Her daughter Katie, who
had been asleep  beside her on  the left, was  already up and  bending
over her.
    Nicole smiled.  "No," she  said, "but  I admit  I am  more than  a
little bit groggy. I was in the middle of a dream. . . . How long  did
we sleep this time?"
    "A day short of five weeks," Simone answered from the other  side.
Her oider daughter was  sitting up, casually  arranging her long  hair
that had become matted during the test.
    Nicole glanced at her watch, verified that Simone was correct, and
sat up herself. She yawned. "So how do you feel?" she said to the  two
girls.
    "Full of energy," eleven-year-old Katie  answered with a grin.  "I
want to run, jump, wrestle with Patrick. ... I hope this was our  last
long sleep."
    "The Eagle said  it should  be," Nicole  replied. "They're  hoping
that they will have enough data  now." She smiled. "The Eagle says  we
women are more  difficult to  understand-because of  the wild  monthly
variations in our hormones."
    Nicole stood up, stretched, and gave Katie a kiss. Then
    126 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    she eased over  and hugged  Simone. Although  not quite  fourteen,
Simone was almost as  tall as Nicole. She  was a striking young  woman
with a dark brown face and soft, sensitive eyes. Simone always  seemed
calm and serene, in marked contrast to the restlessness and impatience
of Katie.
    "Why didn't  Ellie come  with us  for this  test?" Katie  asked  a
little querulously. "She's a girl too, but it seems like she never has
to do anything."
    Nicole put her arm  around Katie's shoulder as  the three of  them
headed for the door and the light. "She's only four years old,  Katie,
and according to the Eagle, Ellie's too small to give them any of  the
critical data they still need."
    In the small  illuminated foyer, directly  outside the room  where
they had been sleeping  for five weeks, they  put on their tight  body
suits, transparent helmets, and the slippers that anchored their  feet
on the floor. Nicole checked the two girls carefully before activating
the outside door  of the  compartment. She needn't  have worried.  The
door wouldn't  have opened  if any  of them  were unprepared  for  the
environmental changes.
    If Nicole and her  daughters had not seen  the large room  outside
their compartment several  times before,  they would  have stopped  in
amazement and stared for several minutes. Stretching in front of  them
was a  long chamber,  a hundred  or more  meters in  length and  fifty
meters wide. The ceiling above them, filled with banks of lights,  was
about five meters high. The room  looked like a mixture of a  hospital
operating room and a semiconductor  manufacturing plant on the  Earth.
There were no walls or cubicles dividing the room into partitions, yet
its rectangular dimensions  were clearly  suballocated into  different
tasks. The room  was busy-the  robots were all  either analyzing  data
from one set of tests or  preparing for another set. Around the  edges
of the room were compartments, like  the one in which Nicole,  Simone,
and Katie had slept  for five weeks, in  which the "experiments"  were
carried out.
    Katie walked over to the closest  compartment on the left. It  was
set back in  the corner and  was suspended from  the wall and  ceiling
along two perpendicular axes. A
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    127
    display screen built next to the metallic door showed a wide array
of what was presumably data in some bizarre cuneiformlike script.
    "Weren't we in this one last  time?" Katie asked, pointing at  the
compartment. "Wasn't this the  place where we  slept on that  peculiar
white foam and felt all the pressure?"
    Her question was transmitted inside the helmets of her mother  and
sister. Nicole and Simone both nodded and then joined Katie in staring
at the unintelligible screen.
    "Your father thinks  they are trying  to find a  vt&y that we  can
sleep through  an  entire  acceleration  regime  lasting  for  several
months," Nicole said. "The  Eagle will neither  confirm nor deny  this
conjecture."
    Although  the  three  women  had  undergone  four  separate  tests
together in this laboratory, none of  them had ever seen any forms  of
life or intelligence except for the dozen or so mechanical aliens that
apparently were  in  charge. The  humans  called these  beings  "block
robots" because,  except for  their cylindrical  "feet" which  allowed
them to  roll  around  the  floor, the  creatures  were  all  made  of
rectangular solid  chunks  that  looked like  the  blocks  that  human
children played with on Earth.
    "Why do you think we've never  seen any of the Others?" Katie  now
asked. "I mean, in here. We see them  for a second or two in the  tube
and that's all.  We know they're  here-we aren't the  only ones  being
tested."
    "This room is scheduled very carefully," her mother replied. "It's
obvious that we weren't meant to see the Others, except in passing."
    "But why*? The Eagle ought-" Katie persisted.
    "Excuse me," Simone interrupted. "But I think Big Block is  coming
over to see us."
    The largest  of the  block  robots usually  stayed in  the  square
control area  in  the  center  of  the  room  and  monitored  all  the
experiments that were under way. At  that moment he was moving  toward
them down one of the lanes that formed a grid in the room.
    Katie walked over to another compartment about twenty meters away.
From the active monitor on its  exterior wall, she could tell that  an
experiment was under way inside.
    128 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Suddenly she pounded on  the metal quite  sharply with her  gloved
hand.
    "Katie," Nicole shouted.
    "Stop that,'.' a sound came from Big Block almost  simultaneously.
He was about fifty meters away and approaching them very rapidly. "You
must not do that," he said in perfect but clipped English.
    "And what are you going to  do about it?" Katie said defiantly  as
Big Block, all five  square meters of him,  ignored Nicole and  Simone
and headed  for  the  young  girl. Nicote  ran  over  to  protect  her
daughter.
    "You must leave  now," Big  Block said, hovering  over Nicole  and
Katie from only a couple of meters away. "Your test is over. The  exit
is over there where the lights are flashing."
    Nicole tugged  firmly  on Katie's  arm  and the  girl  reluctantly
accompanied her  mother toward  the exit.  "But what  would they  do,"
Katie said  stubbornly, "if  we  decided to  stay here  until  another
experiment was finished? Who knows? Maybe one of our octospiders is in
there right now. Why are we never allowed to meet anyone else?"
    "The Eagle has explained several  times," Nicole replied, a  trace
of anger in her voice, "mat  during 'this phase' we will be  permitted
'sightings' of other creatures but no additional contact. Your  father
has repeatedly asked  why and the  Eagle has always  answered that  we
will find out in time.  . . . And  I wish you would  try not to be  so
difficult, young lady."
    "It's not much different from being in prison," Katie groused. "We
have only limited freedom  here. And we're never  told the answers  to
the really important questions."
    They  had  reached   the  long  passageway   that  connected   the
transportation center to the laboratory.  A small vehicle, sitting  at
the edge of  a moving sidewalk,  was waiting for  them. When they  sat
down, the top  of the car  closed over them  and interior lights  were
illuminated. "Before you ask," Nicole  said to Katie, pulling off  her
helmet as they started to move, "we are not allowed to see out  during
this part of the transfer because we pass portions of the  Engineering
Module that are off limits to us. Your father
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 29
    and Uncle Michael asked  this set of  questions after their  first
sleep test."
    "Do you agree  with Daddy,"  Simone inquired after  they had  been
riding in silence for several minutes,  "that we have been having  all
these sleep tests in preparation for some kind of space voyage?"
    "It seems likely," Nicole answered.  "But of course we don't  know
for certain."
    "And where are they going to send us?" asked Katie.
    "I have no idea," Nicole replied. "The Eagle has been very evasive
on all questions about our future."
    The car  was moving  about  twenty kilometers  per hour.  After  a
fifteen-minute ride it stopped. The "lid" of the vehicle rolled itself
back as soon  as all  the helmets were  properly in  place again.  The
women exited into  the main transportation  center of the  Engineering
Module. It was laid  out in a  circle and was  twenty meters tall.  In
addition to  half  a  dozen  moving  sidewalks  leading  to  locations
interior to the  module, the  center contained  two large,  multilevel
structures  from  which   the  sleek  tubes   departed.  These   tubes
transported equipment,  robots, and  living creatures  back and  forth
among the  Habitation, Engineering,  and Administration  modules,  the
three huge spherical complexes that were the primary components of the
Node.
    As soon as they were inside the station, Nicole and her  daughters
heard a voice  on their helmet  receivers. "Your tube  will be on  the
second level. Take the escalator on  the right. You will be  departing
in four minutes."
    Katie  rolled  her   head  from  side   to  side,  surveying   the
transportation center. She could see racks of equipment, cars  waiting
to take  travelers  to  destinations inside  the  Engineering  Module,
lights, escalators,  and  station  platforms. But  there  was  nothing
moving. No robots and no living creatures.
    "What would happen,"  she said to  her sister and  mother, "if  we
refused to go  up there?" She  stopped in the  middle of the  station.
"Then your schedule would be all  fouled up," she shouted at the  tall
ceiling.
    "Come on, Katie," Nicole said  impatiently, "we just went  through
this in the laboratory."
    130 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 31
    Katie started  walking again.  "But  I do  want to  see  something
different," she complained. "I know that this place is not always this
empty. Why  are  we  kept  isolated?  It's  as  if  we're  unclean  or
something."
    "Your tube  will depart  in two  minutes," the  disembodied  voice
said. "Second level on the right."
    "Isn't it amazing that the robots and controllers can  communicate
with each and every species in its own language?" Simone commented  as
they reached the escalator.
    "I think it's freaky," Katie replied. "Just for once, I'd like  to
see whoever or whatever controls this place make a mistake. Everything
is too slick. I'd  like to hear  them speak avian to  us. Or for  that
matter, speak avian to the avians."
    On the second level they shuffled along a platform for about forty
meters until they reached a transparent vehicle, shaped like a bullet,
the size of an extremely large automobile on Earth. It was parked,  as
always, on a track  on the left  side of the  median. There were  four
parallel tracks on the platform altogether, two on either side of  the
median. All the others were currently empty.
    Nicole turned and looked  across the transportation center.  Sixty
degrees around the circle was an identical tube station. The tubes  on
that side went to the  Administration Module. Simone was watching  her
mother. "Have you ever been over there?" she asked.
    "No," replied Nicole.  "But I  bet it would  be interesting.  Your
father says it looks wonderfully strange from up close."
    Richard just had to explore, Nicole thought, remembering the night
almost a year ago when  her husband set out to  "hitch" a ride to  the
Administration Module. Nicole  shuddered. She  had gone  out into  the
atrium of their apartment with Richard and tried to dissuade him while
he was putting on his space suit.  He had figured out how to fool  the
door monitor (the next day a  new, foolproof system was in place)  and
could hardly wait to take an "unsuper-vised" look around.
    Nicole had  barely slept  that  night. In  the  wee hours  of  the
morning their light panel had  signaled that someone or something  was
in the atrium. When she had looked on
    a.
    the monitor, there was a  strange birdman standing there,  holding
her unconscious husband in his arms. That had been their first contact
with the Eagle. . . .
    The thrust of the tube  momentarily pinned them against the  backs
of their seats and  returned Nicole to the  present. They zoomed  away
from the Engineering Module. In less than a minute they were  hurtling
at full speed down the long, extremely narrow cylinder that  connected
the two modules.
    The median and  four tube tracks  were at the  center of the  long
cylinder. Out to their right, in  the far distance, the lights of  the
spherical Administration  Module shone  against a  blue background  of
space. Katie had her  tiny binoculars out. "I  want to be ready,"  she
said. "They always go by so fast."
    Several minutes later  she announced "It's  coming" and the  three
women pressed  against the  right  side of  the  vehicle. In  the  far
distance another tube approached  on the opposite  side of the  track.
Within instants it was  upon them and  the humans had  no more than  a
second to stare across at the occupants of the vehicle heading for the
Engineering Module.
    "Wow!" said Katie as the tube rushed past.
    "There were two different types," said Simone.
    "Eight or ten creatures altogether."
    "One set was pink, the other gold. Both mostly spherical."
    "And those long  stringy tentacles, like  gossamer. How big  would
you guess they were, Mother?"
    "Five, maybe six  meters in diameter,"  Nicole said. "Much  bigger
than we are."
    "Wow!" said Katie  again. "That was  really something." There  was
excitement in  her eyes.  The  girl loved  the feeling  of  adrenaline
rushing through her system.
    / too have never  stopped being amazed,  Nicole thought. Not  once
during these  thirteen months.  But  is this  all  there is?  Were  we
brought all the way here from Earth just to be tested? And  titillated
by the existence  of creatures  from other  worlds? Or  is there  some
other, deeper purpose?
    There was a momentary silence in the speeding vehicle.
    132 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Nicole, who was sitting in  the middle, drew her daughters  closer
to her. "You know I love you, don't you?" she said.
    "Yes, Mother," Simone replied. "And we love you too."
    2
    T:
    •he reunion party was a success. Benjy embraced his beloved Simone
the moment she walked into the apartment. Katie had Patrick pinned  to
the floor no more than a minute later.
    "See," she said, "I can still beat you."
    "But not by much," Patrick  replied. "I'm getting stronger.  You'd
better watch out."
    Nicole hugged both  Richard and  Michael before  little Ellie  ran
over and leapt into her arms.  It was evening, two hours after  dinner
on the twenty-four-hour clock used by  the family, and Ellie had  been
almost ready for  bed when  her mother  and sisters  had arrived.  The
little girl walked  down the hall  to her room  after proudly  showing
Nicole that she could now read cat, dog, and boy.
    The adults let Patrick stay awake until he was exhausted.  Michael
carried him to bed  and Nicole tucked him  in. "I'm glad you're  back,
Mommy," he said. "I missed you very much."
    "And I missed you  too," Nicole answered. "I  don't think I'll  be
going away for so long again."
    134 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "I hope not," the six-year-old said. "I like having you here."
    Everyone but  Nicole was  asleep by  one o'clock  in the  morning.
Nicole was not tired.  After all, she had  just finished sleeping  for
five weeks. After lying  restlessly beside Richard  in bed for  thirty
minutes, she decided to take a walk.
    Although their apartment itself had  no windows, the small  atrium
just off  the entrance  hall had  an exterior  window that  offered  a
breathtaking view of the other two vertices of the Node. Nicole walked
into the atrium,  put on her  space suit,  and stood in  front of  the
outer door. It  did not  open. She  smiled to  herself. Maybe  Katie's
right. Maybe we are just prisoners here. It had been clear very  early
in their  stay mat  the outside  door was  locked intermittently;  the
Eagle had explained that it was  "necessary" to keep them from  seeing
things they "couldn't understand."
    Nicole gazed out  the window.  At that moment  a shuttle  vehicle,
similar in shape to the one that had brought them to the Node thirteen
months before, was  approaching the  Habitation Module  transportation
center. What  land  of  wonderful creatures  do  you  contain?  Nicole
thought. And are they as astounded as we were when we first arrived?
    Nicole would never forget  those first views of  the Node. All  of
the family had thought, after they had left the way station, that they
would reach their next destination within several hours. They had been
wrong. Their  separation from  the illuminated  Rama craft  had  grown
slowly until after six hours they could  no longer see Rama at all  on
their left. The lights  of the way station  behind them were  becoming
faint. They were all  tired. Eventually the  entire family had  fallen
asleep.
    It had  been Katie  who  had awakened  them.  "I see  where  we're
going," she had shouted triumphantly, her excitement unrestrained. She
had pointed out the front shuttle window, a little to the right, where
one strong and growing light was  dividing itself into three. For  the
next four  hours  the image  of  the Node  grew  and grew.  From  that
distance it had been an awesome sight, an equilateral
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    135
    triangle with three glowing, transparent spheres at its  vertices.
And what a  scale! Even their  experience with Rama  had not  prepared
them for the majesty of this incredible engineering creation. Each  of
the three sides, actually long transportation corridors connecting the
three spherical modules, was  over a hundred  and fifty kilometers  in
length. The  spheres at  each vertex  were twenty-five  kilometers  in
diameter. Even from a great distance the humans could discern activity
on many of the separate levels inside the modules.
    "What is going to happen now?" Patrick had anxiously asked  Nicole
as the shuttle had altered its path and started heading toward one  of
the vertices of the triangle.
    Nicole had picked Patrick  up and held him  in her arms. "I  don't
know, darling," she had said softly to  her son. "We have to wait  and
see."
    Benjy had been completely  awestruck. He had  stared for hours  at
the great illuminated triangle in space. Simone had often stood beside
him, holding his hand. While the shuttle was making its final approach
to one of the spheres, she  had felt his muscles tense. "Don't  worry,
Benjy," Simone had said reassuringly, "everything will be all right."
    Their shuttle had entered  a narrow corridor  cut into the  sphere
and then docked in a berth  at the edge of the transportation  center.
The family had  cautiously left  the craft, carrying  with them  their
bags  and  Richard's  computer.  Then  the  shuttle  had   immediately
departed, unnerving even the adults  by its swift disappearance.  Less
than a minute later they heard the first disembodied voice.
    "Welcome," it had said in  an unmodulated tone. "You have  arrived
at the Habitation Module. Proceed straight ahead and stand in front of
the gray wall."
    "Where is  that voice  coming from?"  Katie had  asked. Her  voice
contained the fright they all were feeling.
    "Everywhere," Richard  had answered.  "It's above  us, around  us,
even below us." They all scanned the walls and ceiling.
    "But how does it  know English?" Simone  had inquired. "Are  there
other people here?"
    Richard laughed nervously. "Unlikely," he replied.
    136 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Probably this place has been in contact with Rama in some way and
has a master language algorithm. I wonder-''
    "Please move forward," the  voice had interrupted.  "You are in  a
transportation complex. The vehicle that will take you to your section
of the module is waiting on a lower level."
    It had taken  them several  minutes to  reach the  gray wail.  The
children had never been in unconfined weightlessness before. Katie and
Patrick jumped off the  platform and did flips  and rolls in the  air.
Benjy, watching their fun, tried to copy their antics.  Unfortunately,
he was not  able to figure  out how to  use the ceiling  and walls  to
return to  the platform.  He was  completely disoriented  by the  time
Simone rescued him.
    When the entire family and its baggage were properly positioned in
front of the wall, a wide door  opened and they entered a small  room.
Special  tight-fitting  suits,  helmets,  and  slippers  were   neatly
arranged on a bench. "The transportation center and most of the common
areas here at the Node," the voice said in its absolute monotone,  "do
not have an  atmosphere that is  suitable for your  species. You  will
need to wear this clothing unless you are inside your apartment."
    When they were  all dressed, a  door on the  opposite side of  the
room opened and they  entered the main hall  of the Habitation  Module
transportation center. The station was identical to the one they would
later encounter  at  the Engineering  Module.  Nicole and  her  family
descended two levels,  as directed  by the voice,  and then  proceeded
around the circular periphery  to where their  "bus" was waiting.  The
closed vehicle was comfortable and well  lit, but they were unable  to
see out during the hour and a half that it traveled through a maze  of
passageways. At length the bus halted and its top lifted off.
    "Take the hall to your left," another, similar voice had  directed
as soon as all eight of them were standing on the metallic floor. "The
hall splits into two pathways after four hundred meters. Take the path
to your right  and stop in  front of  the third square  marker on  the
left. That is the door to your apartment."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    137
    Patrick had sprinted  off down one  of the halls.  "That i is  the
wrong hall," the voice had announced without in-i flection. "Return to
the dock and take the next hall on
    your left."
    j . There was nothing for them to see on the walk from
    the dock to their apartment. In the succeeding months,
    : they would make the walk many times, either going to
    the exercise room or, occasionally, for tests over in the
    : Engineering Module, and they would still never see any-
    1 thing except walls and ceilings and the square markers
    I they would come to recognize as doors. The place was
    i obviously carefully monitored. Nicole and Richard both
    felt certain, from the very beginning, that some, perhaps
    ; . many, of the apartments in their area were occupied by
    someone or something, but they never ever saw any of
    the Others in the corridors.
    ': After finding and entering the specified door to their
    jv> apartment, Nicole and her family removed their special
    j? clothing in the atrium and stored it in the cabinets created
    j | for that purpose. The children took turns looking out the
    \ window at the other two spherical modules while they
    ^ waited for the inner door to open. A few minutes later
    I they saw the interior of their  new home for the very first ,  *
time.
    II They  were  all  overwhelmed.  Compared  to  the  relatively  I
primitive conditions in  which they  had been  living in  I Rama,  the
family's apartment at the  Node was paradise. i  Each of the  children
had his or her own room. Michael
    > ^ had a suite for himself at one end of the unit; Richard and »•
Nicole's master bedroom, complete even with a king-sized
    IV bed, was at the opposite end  of the apartment, just off the  I
entrance hall. There were four bathrooms altogether, plus
    i f a  kitchen, a  dining room,  and even  a playroom  for the  ::
children. The furniture in each  room was surprisingly ap-|  propriate
and tastefully designed. The apartment contained •; over four  hundred
square meters of living space.
    Even the adults were stunned. "How in the world could
    they have done this?" Nicole had asked Richard that first
    night, out of earshot of the overjoyed children.
    : Richard had cast a bewildered glance around them. "I
    ;| can only surmise," he had replied, "that somehow all our
    138 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    actions in Rama were monitored  and telemetered here to the  Node.
They must also have had access to our data bases and extracted the way
we live  from  that set  of  information." Richard  grinned.  "And  of
course, even  way out  here, if  they have  sensitive receivers,  they
could  be  picking  up  television   signals  from  Earth.  Isn't   it
embarrassing to think that we are represented by such-''
    "Welcome,"  another  identical  voice  had  interrupted  Richard's
thought. Again the sound seemed to be coming from all directions.  "We
hope everything  in your  apartment  is satisfactory.  If it  is  not,
please tell us. We cannot possibly  respond to everything that all  of
you say at all  times. Therefore, a  simple communication regimen  has
been established. On your kitchen counter  is a white button. We  wiil
assume that everything said by  an individual after pushing the  white
button  is  directed  at   us.  When  you   are  finished  with   your
communication, push the white button again. In that way-"
    "I have one question first,"  Katie had then interrupted. She  had
run into the kitchen to push the button. "Just who are you, anyway?"
    A tiny delay of maybe one second had preceded the answer. "We  are
the collective  intelligence that  governs the  Node. We  are here  to
assist you, to make you more  comfortable, and to supply you with  the
essentials for living.  We will also,  from time to  time, ask you  to
perform certain tasks that will help us to understand you better. ..."
    Nicole could no longer see the  shuttle she had been watching  out
the window. Actually, she had been so deeply immersed in her memory of
their arrival  at the  Node  that she  had temporarily  forgotten  the
newcomers. Now, as she returned to the present, in her mind's eye  she
imagined an assemblage of strange creatures disembarking on a platform
and being startled upon hearing a  voice address them in their  native
language. The experience  of wonder  must be  universal, she  thought.
Belonging to alt conscious chemicals.
    Her  eyes  lifted  from  the   near  field  and  focused  on   the
Administration Module in the distance. What goes on over
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    139
    there? Nicole wondered. We hapless  creatures move back and  forth
between Habitation and  Engineering. All our  activities appear to  be
logically orchestrated. But  by whom?  And for what?  Why has  someone
brought all these beings to this artificial world?
    Nicole had no answer to  these infinite questions. As usual,  they
gave her a  powerful sense  of her own  insignificance. Her  immediate
impulse was to go back inside and hug one of her children. She laughed
at herself. Both pictures are true indications of our position in  the
cosmos, she thought. We are both desperately important to our children
and absolutely  nothing  in  the  grand scheme  of  things.  It  takes
enormous wisdom to  see that there  is no inconsistency  in those  two
points of view.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    141
    3
    ;reakfast was  a  celebration.  They  ordered  a  feast  from  the
exceptional cooks  who prepared  their food.  The designers  of  their
apartment had considerately provided them with a variety of ovens  and
a full refrigerator, in  case they wanted to  prepare their own  meals
from the raw materials.  However, the alien (or  robot) cooks were  so
good, and so quickly trained, that Nicole and her family almost  never
prepared the meals  themselves-they just pushed  the white button  and
ordered.
    "I want pancakes this morning," Katie announced in the kitchen.
    "Me too, me too," her sidekick Patrick added.
    "What  kind  of  pancakes?"  the  voice  intoned.  "We  have  four
different types in our memory. There is buckwheat, buttermilk-"
    "Buttermilk," interrupted Katie.  "Three altogether," She  glanced
at her little brother. "Better make it four."
    "With butter and maple syrup," Patrick shouted.
    "Four pancakes with butter and maple syrup," said the voice. "Will
that be all?"
    "One apple juice and one orange juice as well," Katie said after a
brief consultation with Patrick.
    "Six minutes and eighteen seconds," the voice said.
    When the food was ready, the family gathered at the round table in
the kitchen. The youngest children  explained to Nicole what they  had
been doing during her absence. Patrick was especially proud of his new
personal record in  the fifty-meter  dash over in  the exercise  room.
Benjy laboriously counted to ten and everyone applauded. They had just
finished breakfast and were cleaning the dishes off the table when the
doorbell rang.
    The adults looked  at each other  and Richard walked  over to  the
control console, where he turned on  the video monitor. The Eagle  was
standing outside their door.
    "I hope it's not another test," said Patrick spontaneously.
    "No ...  no,  I  doubt  it," Nicole  replied,  moving  toward  the
entryway. "He's  probably here  to give  us the  results of  the  last
experiments."
    Nicole took a deep  breath before she opened  the door. No  matter
how many times she encountered the Eagle, her adrenaline level  always
increased in his presence. Why was that? Was it his awesome  knowledge
that frightened her? Or his power  over them? Or just the  bewildering
fact of his existence?
    The Eagle greeted  her with what  she had come  to recognize as  a
smile. "May I come in?" he said  pleasantly. "I would like to talk  to
you, your husband, and Mr. OToole."
    Nicole stared at him (or it,  her mind instantly flashed), as  she
always did. He was tall, maybe  two and a quarter meters, and-  shaped
like a human being  from the neck down.  His arms and torso,  however,
were covered with small,  tightly woven charcoal gray  feathers-except
for the  four  fingers on  each  hand,  which were  creamy  white  and
featherless, Below  his waist,  the surface  of the  Eagle's body  was
flesh-colored, but it was  obvious from the sheen  of his outer  layer
that no attempt had been made to duplicate real human skin. There  was
no hair below his waist and neither visible joints nor genitalia.  His
feet had no toes. When the Eagle walked, wrinkles developed around
    142 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    the knee area, but they disappeared when he was standing still.
    The Eagle's face was mesmerizing.  His head had two large,  powder
blue eyes on either side of a protruding grayish beak. When he  talked
the beak  opened  and his  perfect  English  came from  some  kind  of
electronic voice box at  the back of the  throat. The feathers on  the
top of his head were white  and contrasted sharply with the dark  gray
of his face,  neck, and  back. The feathering  on his  face was  quite
sparse and scattered.
    "May I come in?" the Eagle  repeated politely when Nicole did  not
move for several seconds.
    "Of course ... of course," she replied, moving away from the door.
"I'm sorry ... I just hadn't seen you for so long."
    "Good morning, Mr. Wakefield,  Mr. O'Toole. Hello, children,"  the
Eagle said as he strode into the living room.
    Patrick and Benjy both backed away from him. Of all the  children,
only Katie and little Ellie did not seem to be afraid.
    "Good morning,"  Richard replied.  "And  what can  we do  for  you
today?" he  inquired. The  Eagle never  made social  calls. There  was
always some purpose for his visits.
    "As I told your wife at the  door," the Eagle replied, "I need  to
talk to ail three  of you adults.  Can Simone take  care of the  other
children while we chat for an hour or so?"
    Nicole had  already started  herding the  children back  into  the
playroom when the  Eagle stopped  her. "That won't  be necessary,"  he
said. "They can use the whole apartment.  The four of us are going  to
the conference room across the hall."
    Uh-oh, Nicole thought  immediately. This is  something big.  We've
never left the children alone in the apartment before.
    She was suddenly  very concerned about  their safety. "Excuse  me,
Mr. Eagle," she said.  "Will the children be  all right here? I  mean,
they're not going to have any special visitors or anything like  that.
..."
    "No, Mrs. Wakefield," the Eagle responded matter-of-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    143
    factly. "I give you my word that nothing will interfere with  your
children."
    Out in the atrium, when the  three humans started to put on  their
space suits, the  Eagle stopped  them. "That won't  be necessary,"  he
said. "Last night we reconfigured this portion of the sector. We  have
sealed off  the hall  just before  the junction  and transformed  this
whole area  into an  Earthlike  habitat. You'll  be  able to  use  the
conference room without putting on any special clothing."
    The Eagle started talking as soon  as' they sat down in the  large
conference room across the hall.  "Since our first encounter you  have
repeatedly asked me questions about what you are doing here and I have
not given you direct answers. Now  that your final set of sleep  tests
is completed-successfully, I might add-I have been empowered to inform
you about the next phase of your mission.
    "I have also  been given  permission to tell  you something  about
myself. As all of  you have suspected, I  am not a living  creature-at
least not by your  definition." The Eagle laughed.  "I was created  by
the intelligence  that  governs the  Node  to interface  with  you  on
sensitive issues. Our early observations of your behavior indicated  a
reluctance on your part  to interact with  the disembodied voices.  It
had already been  decided to create  me, or something  similar, as  an
emissary to your family when you, Mr. Wakefield, nearly caused serious
chaos in this sector by trying  to make an unscheduled and  unapproved
visit to the  Administration Module.  My appearance at  that time  was
designed to preclude further untoward behavior.
    "We have now entered," the Eagle continued after only a  momentary
hesitation, "the most  important time  period of your  stay here.  The
spaceship you  call  Rama is  over  a*t the  Hangar  undergoing  major
refurbishment and engineering redesign. You human beings will now take
part in that redesign process, for some of you will be returning  with
Rama to the solar system in which you originated."
    Richard and  Nicole  both started  to  interrupt. "Let  me  finish
first," the Eagle said. "We have very carefully prepared my remarks to
cover your anticipated questions."
    The alien birdman glanced at each of the three humans
    144 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    around the table before continuing at a slower pace. "Notice  that
I did not say  that you will  be going back to  Earth. If the  nominal
plan succeeds, those of you who return will interact with other  human
beings in your  solar system,  but not on  your Home  planet. Only  if
there is  some required  deviation  from the  baseline plan  will  you
actually return to Earth.
    "Notice also  that  only  some  of you  will  be  returning.  Mrs.
Wakefield," the Eagle said directly to Nicole, "you will definitely be
traveling again in Rama.  This is one of  the constraints that we  are
placing on the mission. We  will let you and  the rest of your  family
decide who will accompany you on the journey. You can go alone if  you
choose, leaving everyone else here at  the Node, or you can take  some
of the others.  However, you cannot  all make the  voyage on Rama.  At
least one reproductive pair must stay here at the Node-to ensure  some
data for our encyclopedia  in the unlikely event  that the mission  is
unsuccessful.
    "The primary purpose  of the  Node is to  catalogue life-forms  in
this part  of  the galaxy.  Spacefaring  life-forms have  the  highest
priority and our specifications call for us to collect vast amounts of
data about each and every spacefarer we encounter. To accomplish  this
task, we have worked out, over hundreds of thousands of years of  your
time, a method of gathering this data that minimizes the likelihood of
a  cataclysmic  intrusion  into  the  evolutionary  pattern  of  those
spacefarers while at the same  time maximizing the probability of  our
obtaining the vital data.
    "Our basic  approach  involves  sending  observing  spacecraft  on
reconnaissance missions, hoping to lure spacefarers to us so they  can
be identified and phenotyped. Repeat spacecraft are later sent to  the
same target, first to expand the degree of interaction, and ultimately
to capture a representative subset of the spacefaring species so  that
long-term and detailed observations can  take place in an  environment
of our choice."
    The Eagle paused. Nicole's  mind and heart were  both racing at  a
frantic pace. She had so many  questions. Why had she been  especially
selected to return? Would she be
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    145
    able to see Genevieve? And what exactly did the Eagle mean by  the
word capture-did he understand that  the word was usually  interpreted
in a hostile manner? Why did-
    "I think I understood most of what you said," Richard spoke first,
"but youJiave omitted some crucial information. Why are you  gathering
all this data about spacefaring species?"
    The Eagle smiled.  "In our information  hierarchy there are  three
basic levels. Access to  each level by an  individual or a species  is
permitted or denied based  on a set of  established criteria. With  my
earlier statements  we  have given  you,  as representatives  of  your
species, Level II information for the  first time. It is a tribute  to
your intelligence that your initial question seeks an answer which  is
classified as Level III."
    "Does all that  gobbledygook mean  you're not going  to tell  us?"
Richard asked, laughing nervously.
    The Eagle nodded.
    "Will you  tell us  why I  alone am  required to  make the  return
voyage?" Nicole now asked.
    "There are many reasons," the  Eagle answered. "First, we  believe
you are the  best suited physically  for the return  voyage. Our  data
also  indicates  that  your  superior  communication  skills  will  be
invaluable after the capture phase of the mission is completed.  There
are additional  considerations as  well, but  those two  are the  most
important."
    "When will we be leaving?" Richard asked.
    "That's not certain. Part of the schedule is dependent on you.  We
will let you know  when a firm departure  date is established. I  will
tell you, however, that it will almost certainly be in less than  four
of your months."
    We're going to leave very soon,  Nicole thought. And at least  two
of us must stay here. But who?
    "Any reproductive pair can be left here at the Node?" Michael  now
inquired, following the same pattern of thought as Nicole.
    "Almost, Mr. OToole," the Eagle replied. "The youngest girl  Ellie
would not be acceptable with you as a partner-we might not be able  to
keep you alive and fertile
    146 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    until she reaches sexual maturity-but any other combination  would
be fine. We  must have  a high probability  of successfully  producing
healthy offspring."
    "Why?" Nicole asked.
    ' 'There exists a  very small probability  that your mission  will
not be successful and that the pair left at the Node will be the  only
humans we are able to  observe. As infant spacefarers, having  reached
that  stage  without   the  usual  assistance,   you  are   especially
interesting to us.''
    The conversation could  have lasted  indefinitely. However,  after
several more questions, the Eagle abruptly rose and announced that his
participation in the conference was over. He encouraged the humans' to
deal quickly with the issue of  "allocation," as he called it, for  he
intended to begin work  almost immediately with  those members of  the
family who would be returning in  the direction of Earth. It would  be
their job to help him design  the "Earth module inside Rama."  Without
any additional explanation, he left the room.
    The three  adults  agreed  not  to  tell  the  children  the  most
important details of their meeting with the Eagle for at least a  day,
until after  they had  had  a chance  to  reflect and  converse  among
themselves. That night, after  the children had  gone to bed,  Nicole,
Richard, and  Michael  talked quietly  in  the living  room  of  their
apartment.
    Nicole opened the conversation by  admitting that she was  feeling
angry and powerless.  Despite the fact  that the Eagle  had been  very
nice about it, she said, he had basically ordered them to  participate
in the return mission.  And how could they  refuse? The entire  family
was absolutely dependent upon the  Eagle-or at least the  intelligence
that he represented-for its survival. No threats had been made, but no
threats were needed. They had no choice but to comply with the Eagle's
instructions.
    But who among the family should stay at the Node? Nicole  wondered
aloud. Michael said it was absolutely essential mat at least one adult
remain at  the Node.  His  argument was  persuasive.  Any two  of  the
children, even  Simone  and Patrick,  would  need the  benefit  of  an
adult's experience and wisdom to have any chance for happiness
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    147
    under the circumstances. Michael then  volunteered to stay at  the
Node, saying  that it  was unlikely  he would  survive a  return  trip
anyway.
    AH  three  of  them   agreed  that  it   was  clearly  the   Nodal
intelligence's intention to have the humans sleep most of the way back
to the solar system. Otherwise, what was the purpose of all the  sleep
tests? Nicole did not like the idea of the children missing out on the
critical development periods  of their lives.  She suggested that  she
should return alone, leaving everyone else in the family at the  Node.
After all, she  reasoned, it's  not as if  the children  would have  a
"normal" life on Earth after they make the journey.
    "If we are interpreting the  Eagle correctly," she said,  "anybody
who returns will end up ultimately  as a passenger on Rama heading  to
some other location in the Galaxy."
    "We don't know that  for certain," Richard  argued. "On the  other
hand, whoever stays here  is almost certainly  doomed to never  seeing
any humans other than the family."
    Richard added that he intended to  make the return trip under  any
circumstances, not just  to be  a companion  for Nicole,  but also  to
experience the adventure.
    The trio could not reach a final agreement about the deployment of
the children  during that  first evening's  discussion. But  they  did
firmly resolve the issue of what the adults were going to do.  Michael
OToole would  stay at  the Node.  Nicole and  Richard would  make  the
return journey to the solar system.
    In bed after the meeting Nicole could not sleep. She kept  running
through all the options in her mind. She was certain that Simone would
make a better  mother than  Katie. Besides, Simone  and Uncle  Michael
were extremely compatible  and Katie  would not want  to be  separated
from her father. But who should be left to mate with Simone? Should it
be Benjy,  who loved  his sister  madly, but  would never  be able  to
engage in an intelligent conversation?
    Nicole tossed and turned for hours. In truth, she didn't like  any
of the  choices.  She understood  well  the source  of  her  disquiet.
However the issue was resolved, she would
    148 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    be forced once  again to separate,  probably permanently, from  at
least a few members of  the family that she loved.  As she lay in  her
bed in the middle of the night the ghosts and pain of past separations
returned to  haunt  her. Nicole's  heart  ached as  she  imagined  the
parting that would come in a  few months. Pictures of her mother,  her
father, and Genevieve  tugged at  her heartstrings.  Maybe that's  all
life is, she thought in her temporary depression, an endless  sequence
of painful partings.
    4
    M:
    other, Father, wake up. I Iwant to talk to you."
    Nicole had been dreaming. She had been walking in the woods behind
her family villa at Beauvois. It  had been springtime and the  flowers
had been magnificent. It took her a few seconds to realize that Simone
was sitting on their bed.
    Richard reached  over and  kissed his  daughter on  the  forehead.
"What is it, dear?" he asked.
    "Uncle Michael and I were saying  our matins together and I  could
tell that he was distressed."  Simone's serene eyes moved slowly  back
and forth from one parent to  the other. "He told me everything  about
your conversation yesterday with the Eagle."
    Nicole sat up quickly as Simone continued. "I've had over an  hour
now  to  mink  carefully   about  everything.  I   know  I'm  only   a
thirteen-year-old girl, but I believe I  have a solution to this,  uh,
allocation issue that will make everybody in the family happy."
    "My dear Simone," Nicole replied,  reaching out for her  daughter,
"it's not your responsibility to solve-"
    150 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "No, Mother," Simone gently interrupted.  "Please hear me out.  My
solution involves something that  none of you  adults would ever  even
consider. It could only come from me. And it's obviously the best plan
for everyone concerned."
    Richard's brow was now furrowed. "What are you talking about?"  he
said.
    Simone took a deep breath, "I want to stay at the Node with  Uncle
Michael.  I  will  become  his  wife  and  we  will  be  the   Eagle's
'reproductive pair.'  Nobody else  needs to  stay, but  Michael and  I
would be happy to keep Benjy with us as well."
    "Whaat?" Richard shouted. He was flabbergasted. "Uncle Michael  is
seventy-two  years   old!  You're   not   even  fourteen   yet.   It's
preposterous, ridiculous-" He was suddenly silent.
    The  mature  young  woman  who  was  his  daughter  smiled.  "More
preposterous than the Eagle?" she  replied. "More ridiculous than  the
fact that  we  have  traveled  eight light-years  from  the  Earth  to
rendezvous with a giant intelligent triangle that is now going to send
some of us back in the opposite direction?"
    Nicole regarded Simone with awe and admiration. She said  nothing,
but reached out  and gave  her daughter a  strong hug.  Tears swam  in
Nicole's eyes. "It's all right, Mother," Simone said after the embrace
was ended. "After you recover  from the initial shock, you'll  realize
that what I'm  suggesting is  by far the  best solution.  Ifc you  and
Father make the return trip together-as I think you should-then either
Katie or Elite or I must stay  here at the Node and mate with  Patrick
or Benjy or Uncle  Michael. The only  combination that is  genetically
sound is either Katie  or I with Uncle  Michael. I've thought  through
all the possibilities. Michael and I are very close. We have the  same
religion. If we  stay and marry,  then each of  the other children  is
free to choose. They can either remain  here with us or return to  the
solar system with you and Daddy."
    Simone put her hand on her  father's forearm. "Daddy, I know  that
in many ways this will be harder on  you than it is on Mother. I  have
not yet mentioned my idea to
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    151
    Uncle Michael. He certainly did not suggest it. If you and  Mother
don't give me your support, then it can't work. This marriage will  be
difficult enough for Michael to accept even if you don't object."
    Richard shook his  head. "You  are amazing,  Simone." He  embraced
her. "Please let us think about it  for a while. Promise me you  won't
say another word about this until your mother and I have had a  chance
to talk.''
    "I promise," Simone said. "Thank you both very much. I love  you,"
she added at the door to their bedroom.
    She turned and walked  down the illuminated  hall. Her long  black
hair reached almost  to her  waist. You  have become  a woman,  Nicole
thought, watching Simone's graceful walk. And not just physically. You
are mature way beyond your  years. Nicole imagined Michael and  Simone
as husband and wife and was surprised  that she didn't find it at  all
objectionable.  Considering  everything,   Nicole  said  to   herself,
realizing that after his protests Michael O'Toole would be very happy,
your idea  may be  the least  unsatisfactory choice  in our  difficult
situation.
    Simone did not waver from her intention even when Michael objected
strenuously to what he called her "proposed martyrdom." She  explained
to him, patiently, that her marriage to him was the only one  possible
since Katie  and  he  were,  by  everyone's  assessment,  incompatible
personalities, and  anyway Katie  was still  only a  girl, a  year  or
eighteen months away from  sexual maturity. Would  he prefer that  she
marry one  of  her  half  brothers  and  commit  incest?  No,  no,  he
responded.
    Michael assented  when he  saw  that there  were no  other  viable
choices  and  that  neither  Richard  nor  Nicole  raised  any  strong
objections to the marriage. Richard, of course, tempered his  approval
with the phrase  "in these unusual  circumstances," but Michael  could
tell that Simone's father had at least partially accepted the idea  of
his thirteen-year-old daughter  marrying a  man old enough  to be  her
grandfather.
    Within  a  week   it  had  been   decided,  with  the   children's
involvement, that Katie, Patrick, and little Ellie would all
    152 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    make the return trip on Rama with Richard and Nicole. Patrick  was
reluctant to leave his father,  but Michael O'Toole graciously  agreed
that his six-year-old son would probably have a "more interesting  and
fulfilling" life if he stayed with  the rest of the family. That  left
only Benjy.  The  adorable  boy, chronologically  eight  but  mentally
equivalent to an  average three-year-old,  was told that  he would  be
welcome either in Rama or at the Node. He could barely comprehend what
was going to happen to the  family, and was certainly not prepared  to
make such a  momentous choice.  The decision  frightened and  confused
him; he became quite distraught and lapsed into a deep depression.  As
a result, the family  postponed discussions of  Benjy's fate until  an
undefined time in the future.
    "We will be gone a day and  a half, maybe two," the Eagle said  to
Michael and the children. "Rama  is being reconditioned at a  facility
about ten thousand kilometers from here."
    "But I want to go too,"  Katie said petulantly. "I also have  some
good ideas for the Earth module."
    "We'll involve  you  in  later phases  of  the  process,"  Richard
assured Katie. "We'll have  a design center right  here beside us,  in
the conference room."
    Eventually Richard and Nicole finished their good-byes and  joined
the Eagle in the hallway. They put on their special suits and  crossed
over into  the common  area  of the  sector.  Nicole could  tell  that
Richard was excited. "You do love adventure, don't you, darling?"  she
said.
    He nodded. "I think it was Goethe who said that everything a human
being wants  can  be  divided into  four  components-love,  adventure,
power, and fame.  Our personalities  are shaped  by how  much of  each
component we seek. For me, adventure has always been numero uno."
    Nicole was contemplative as they entered a waiting car along  with
the Eagle.  The lid  closed over  them and  again they  could not  see
anything during their ride to the transportation center. Adventure  is
very important to me  also, Nicole thought. And  as a young girl  fame
was my upper-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 53
    most goal. She smiled to herself. But now it's definitely love.  .
. . We would be boring if we never changed.
    They traveled in a shuttle identical  to the one that had  brought
them to  the Node  originally. The  Eagle sat  in front,  Richard  and
Nicole in the rear. The view behind them of the spherical modules, the
transportation  corridors,  and  the   entire  lighted  triangle   was
absolutely sensational.
    The direction  they were  going was  toward Sirius,  the  dominant
feature in the space surrounding the Node. The large, young white star
glowed in  the distance,  appearing  roughly the  same size  as  their
native Sun would look from the asteroid belt.
    "How did you happen to pick  this location for the Node?"  Richard
asked the Eagle after they had been cruising for about an hour.
    "What do you mean?" he replied.
    "Why here, why in the Sirius system, instead of some other place?"
    The Eagle laughed.  "This location  is only  temporary," he  said.
"We'll be moving again as soon as Rama departs."
    Richard was puzzled. "You mean  the entire Node moves!" He  turned
around and  glanced  back  at  the triangle  glowing  faintly  in  the
distance. "Where is the propulsion system?"
    "There are small propulsion capabilities  in each of the  modules,
but they are  only used  in case  of an  emergency. Transport  between
temporary holding  sites  is  accomplished  by  what  you  would  call
tugs-they affix themselves to  ports on the sides  of the spheres  and
provide virtually all the trajectory change velocity."
    Nicole thought about Michael and Simone and became worried. "Where
will the Node go?" she asked.
    "It's probably  not  specified  exactly yeC'  the  Eagle  answered
vaguely. "It's always a stochastic  function anyway, depending on  how
the various activities  are proceeding."  He continued  after a  short
silence. "When our work  in a specific place  is finished, the  entire
configu-
    154 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    ration - Node,  Hangar, and  Way Station  - are  moved to  another
region of interest."
    Richard and Nicole stared silently at each other in the  backseat.
They were having difficulty grasping  the magnitude of what the  Eagle
was telling them. The entire Node  moved\ It was too much to  believe.
Richard decided to change the subject.
    "What is your definition of  a spacefaring species?" he asked  the
Eagle.
    "One that has  ventured, either on  its own or  through its  robot
surrogates, outside the sensible atmosphere of its home planet. If its
own planet has no atmosphere, or if the species has no home planet  at
all, then the definition is more complicated."
    "You mean there are intelligent  creatures that have evolved in  a
vacuum? How can that be possible?"
    "You're an atmospheric chauvinist,"  the Eagle replied. "Like  all
creatures, you  limit  the ways  that  life might  express  itself  to
environments similar to your own."
    "How many spacefaring  species are there  in our galaxy?"  Richard
asked a little later.
    "That's one of  the objectives  of our  project -  to answer  that
question exactly. Remember, there are more man a hundred billion stars
in the Milky Way. Slightly more than a quarter of them have  planetary
systems surrounding them. If only one out of every million stars  with
planets was home to a spacefaring  species, then there would still  be
twenty-five thousand spacefarers in our galaxy alone."
    The Eagle turned  around and  looked at Richard  and Nicole.  "The
estimated number  of  spacefarers  in  the  galaxy,  as  well  as  the
spacefarer density in  any specified zone,  is Level III  information.
But I can tell you one thing. There are Life Dense Zones in the galaxy
where the  average  number of  spacefarers  is greater  than  one  per
thousand stars."
    Richard whistled. "This  is staggering stuff,"  he said to  Nicole
excitedly. "It means that the local evolutionary miracle that produced
us is a common paradigm  in the universe. We  are unique, to be  sure,
for nowhere  else  would  the  process  that  produced  us  have  been
duplicated exactly. But the characteristic that is truly special about
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 55
    our species-namely our ability to  model our world and  understand
both it and where we fit into its overall scheme-that capability  must
belong to thousands of creatures! For without that ability they  could
not have become spacefarers."
    Nicole was  overwhelmed.  She  recalled a  similar  moment,  years
before when  she  was with  Richard  in  the photograph  room  of  the
octospider lair in Rama, when she had struggled to grasp the immensity
of the universe in terms of  total information content. Again now  she
realized that  the  entire  set  of knowledge  in  the  human  domain,
everything that any member  of the human species  had ever learned  or
experienced, was no  more than  a single grain  of sand  on the  great
beach representing  everything that  had ever  been known  by all  the
sentient creatures of the universe.
    5
    T!
    •heir shuttle stopped several hundred kilometers from the  Hangar.
The facility had a  strange shape, completely flat  on the bottom  but
with rounded sides and top. The  three factories in the Hangar-one  at
each end and another in the  middle-each looked from the outside  like
geodesic domes. They rose sixty or seventy kilometers above the bottom
of the structure.  Between these  factories the roof  was much  lower,
only eight or  ten kilometers  above the  flat plane,  so the  overall
appearance of the top of the Hangar was what might have been  expected
from the back  of a three-humped  camel, if such  a creature had  ever
existed.
    The Eagle, Nicole,  and Richard  had stopped to  watch a  starfish
craft which, according to  the Eagle, had  been reconditioned and  was
now ready for its next voyage. The  starfish had come out of the  left
hump. Although  small  compared to  either  the Hangar  or  Rama,  the
starfish was still almost ten kilometers from its center to die end of
a ray. It had begun to spin as  soon as it was free of the Hangar.  As
the shuttle remained "parked" some fifteen
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 57
    kilometers away,  the  starfish increased  its  spin rate  to  ten
revolutions per  minute.  Once  its  spin  rate  was  stabilized,  the
starfish zoomed away to the left.
    "That leaves only  Rama out  of this  set," the  Eagle said.  "The
giant wheel, which was  first in your queue  at the Way Station,  left
four months ago. It required only minimal refurbishing."
    Richard wanted to ask  a question, but  he restrained himself.  He
had already learned  during the flight  from the Node  that the  Eagle
voluntarily gave them virtually all the information he was allowed  to
share. "Rama has been  quite a challenge,"  the Eagle continued.  "And
we're still not certain exactly when we will finish."
    The shuttle approached  the right  dome of the  Hangar and  lights
began to shine at the five  o'clock position on the dome's face.  Upon
closer inspection Richard and Nicole  could see that some small  doors
had opened. "You'll need your suits,"  the Eagle said. "It would  have
been a major engineering feat to have designed this huge place with  a
variable environment."
    Nicole and Richard  dressed while  the shuttle docked  in a  berth
very similar to the one at their transportation center. "Can you  hear
me all right?" the Eagle said, testing the communication system.
    "Roger," Richard  replied from  inside his'helmet.  He and  Nicole
glanced at each  other and laughed  as they remembered  their days  as
Newton cosmonauts.
    The Eagle led  them down a  long, wide corridor.  At the end  they
turned right  through a  door and  came  out on  a broad  balcony  ten
kilometers above a  factory floor  larger than  anyone could  possibly
imagine. Nicole felt  her knees weaken  as she stared  into the  giant
abyss. Despite the weightlessness, waves of vertigo swept through both
Richard and Nicole.  They both turned  away at the  same moment.  They
focused their eyes on each other  while they tried to comprehend  what
they had just seen.
    "It's quite a sight," the Eagle commented.
    What a colossal  understatement, Nicole thought.  She very  slowly
lowered her eyes again to the awesome spectacle. This time she held on
to the rail with both hands to help her equilibrium.
    158 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    The factory below them contained the entire Northern  Hemicylinder
of  Rama,  from  the  port  end  where  they  had  docked  the  Newton
andtentered, down to the end of the Central Plain at the banks of  die
Cylindrical Sea. There was no sea, and no Raman city of New York,  but
there was almost as much real  estate in this one enclosed factory  as
in the entire American state of Rhode Island.
    The crater and bowl of the north end of Rama were still completely
intact, including  the  outer  shell. These  'segments  of  Rama  were
positioned to  the right  of Richard,  Nicole, and  the Eagle,  almost
behind them as they stood on the platform. Mounted in front of them on
the  railings  were  a  dozen   telescopes,  each  with  a   different
resolution, through which  the three  of them could  see the  familiar
ladders and stairways, resembling three ribs of an umbrella, that took
thirty thousand steps to descend (or  ascend) to the Central Plain  of
Rama.
    The rest of  the Northern  Hemicylinder was split  open and  lying
beneath them in parts, not directly  connected to the bowl or to  each
other, but  nevertheless lying  with adjacent  sectors in  the  proper
alignment. Each part was  roughly six to  eight square kilometers  and
its edges rose, due to the curvature, substantially off the floor.
    "It's easier  to do  the early  work in  this configuration,"  the
Eagle explained. "Once we've closed the cylinder it's harder to get in
and out with all the equipment."
    Through the  telescopes  Richard and  Nicole  could see  that  two
different areas of the Central Plain were teeming with activity.  They
could not begin to count the number of robots going to and fro on  the
floor of the factory below them. Nor could they determine exactly what
was being done  in many  cases. It was  engineering on  a scale  never
dreamed of by humans.
    "I brought you up here first  to give you an overview," the  Eagle
said. "Later we will go down on the floor and you can see more of  the
details."
    Richard and Nicole  stared at him  dumbfounded. The Eagle  laughed
and continued. "If you look carefully, and put the pieces together  in
your mind, you will  see that two vast  regions of the Central  Plain,
one near the Cylindrical Sea and another covering an area almost up to
the
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    159
    end of the stairways, have  been completely cleared. That's  where
all the new  construction is going  on. Between these  two areas  Rama
looks exactly  as  it  did  when  you  left  it.  We  have  a  general
engineering guideline here-we only change those regions that are going
to be used on the next mission."
    Richard brightened. "Are  you telling us  that this spacecraft  is
used over and over1? And that  for each mission only required  changes
are made?"
    The Eagle nodded.
    "Then that conglomeration  of skyscrapers we  call New York  might
have been built for some much  earlier mission, and simply left  there
because no changes were required?"
    The Eagle did not say anything in response to Richard's rhetorical
question. He was pointing at the  northern area of the Central  Plain.
"That will be  your habitat,  over there.  We have  just finished  the
infrastructure, what you would call the 'utilities,* including  water,
power, sewer, and top-level environmental  control. There is room  for
design flexibility in  the rest  of the  process. That's  why we  have
brought you over here."
    "What is  that tiny  domed building  south of  the cleared  area?"
Richard asked. He was still staggered by the idea that New York  might
have been a leftover, a remnant from an earlier Raman voyage.
    "That's the  control center,"  the Eagle  replied. "The  equipment
that manages your habitat  will be stored  there. Usually the  control
center is hidden beneath the living area, in the shell of Rama, but in
your case the designers decided to put it on the Plain."
    "What's that large  region over there?"  Nicole said, pointing  at
the cleared area immediately north of where the Cylindrical Sea  would
have been located if Rama had been completely reassembled.
    "I'm not allowed to  tell you what it's  for," the Eagle  replied.
"In fact, I'm surprised that I have even been allowed to show you that
it exists. Ordinarily our return voyagers are totally ignorant of  the
contents of their vehicle outside their own habitat. The nominal  plan
is, of course, for each species to stay within its own module."
    160 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Look at  that mound  or  tower in  the  center," Nicole  said  to
Richard, directing  his attention  to the  other region.  "It must  be
almost two kilometers high."
    "And it's shaped like a doughnut.  I mean, the center is  hollowed
out."
    They could  see that  the outside  walls of  what was  possibly  a
second habitat were already quite advanced. None of its interior would
be visible from the factory floor.
    "Can you give us a hint as to who or what is going to live thereT'
Nicole asked.
    "Come on," the Eagle said firmly, shaking his head. "It's time for
us to descend."
    Richard and Nicole disengaged themselves from the telescopes, took
a quick look at the general layout of their own habitat (which was not
nearly as far along  in construction as the  other one), and  followed
the Eagle back into the corridor.  After five minutes of walking  they
reached what the Eagle told them was an elevator.
    "You must  buckle yourselves  into  these seats  very  carefully,"
their guide said. "This is quite a wild ride."
    The acceleration in  their bizarre oval  capsule was powerful  and
swift. Less  than  two minutes  later,  the deceleration  was  equally
abrupt. They had reached the factory floor. "This thing travels  three
hundred kilometers  an hour?"  Richard asked  after doing  some  quick
mental calculations.
    "Unless it's in a hurry," the Eagle replied.
    Richard and Nicole followed him out onto the factory floor. It was
immense. In many ways it was more staggering than Rama itself, because
almost half of  the giant  spacecraft was  lying on  the floor  around
them. They  both remembered  the overpowering  feelings they  had  had
riding  in  the  chairlifts  in  Rama  and  looking  out  across   the
Cylindrical Sea at the  mysterious horns in  the southern bowl.  Those
feelings of reverence and  awe returned, and  were even amplified,  as
Richard and Nicole stared  at the activity going  on around and  above
them in the factory.
    The elevator had deposited  them at the  floor level just  outside
one of the portions of their habitat.  The shell of Rama was in  front
of them. They  checked its thickness  as they walked  across from  the
elevator exit. "About two
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    161
    hundred meters  thick,"  Richard  noted  to  Nicole,  answering  a
question they had had since their first days in Rama.
    "What will be beneath our habitat, in the shell?" Nicole asked.
    The Eagfe held up three of his four fingers, indicating that  they
were asking for Level HI information. Both the humans laughed.
    "Will you be going with us?" Nicole asked the Eagle a few  moments
later.
    "Back to your solar system? No, I can't," he answered. "But I will
admit that it would be interesting.1'
    The Eagle led them  over to an area  of intense activity.  Several
dozen robots  were working  on a  large, cylindrical  structure  about
sixty meters tall. "This is the main fluid recycling plant," the Eagle
said. "All the liquids that find  their way into the drains or  sewers
in your habitat are eventually sent here. Purified water is piped back
into the colony and the rest  of the chemicals are retained for  other
possible uses.  This plant  will be  sealed and  impregnable. It  uses
technology far beyond your level of development."
    The Eagle then led them up  a ladder and into the habitat  itself.
He gave  them an  exhausting tour.  In each  sector the  Eagle  showed
Richard and Nicole the main features of that particular area and then,
without a break, commandeered  a robot to transport  them to the  next
adjacent sector.
    "What exactly do you  want us to do  here?" Nicole inquired  after
several hours, as  the Eagle prepared  to take them  to still  another
part of their future home.
    "Nothing specific," the  Eagle replied.  "This will  be your  only
visit to Rama itself.  We wanted you  to have a feel  for the size  of
your habitat, in case you needed that to be more comfortable with  the
design process. We have  a one-twentieth percent  scale model back  at
the Habitation Module-all the rest of our work will be done there." He
looked at Richard and Nicole. "We can leave whenever you want."
    Nicole sat down  on a  gray metal box  and gazed  around her.  The
number and variety of the robots were enough to make her dizzy all  by
themselves. She had been overwhelmed  since the moment she walked  out
on the balcony
    162 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    of the factory, and was now absolutely numb. She reached her  hand
out to Richard.
    "I know I should be studying what I'm seeing, darling, but none of
it makes sense anymore. I'm completely saturated."
    "I am  too," Richard  confessed. "I  never would  have thought  it
possible that there  was something more  astonishing and awesome  than
Rama, but this factory certainly is."
    "Have you wondered, since we've been here," Nicole said, "what the
factory must look like that made this place? Better still, imagine the
assembly line for the Node."
    Richard laughed. "We  can continue that  comment into an  infinite
regression. If the Node is indeed a  machine, as it appears to be,  it
assuredly is  a higher  order  machine than  Rama. Rama  was  probably
designed here. It is controlled, I would guess, by the Node. But  what
created and controls the Node? Was  it a creature like us, the  result
of biological evolution? And  does it even still  exist, in any  sense
that we can understand,  or has it become  some other kind of  entity,
content to let its influence be felt by the existence of these amazing
machines that it created?"
    Richard sat down beside  his wife. "It's even  too much for me.  I
guess I've had enough as well. . . . Let's go back to the children."
    Nicole leaned  over and  kissed  him. "You're  a very  smart  man,
Richard Wakefield," she said.  "You know that's one  of the reasons  I
love you."
    A large  robot  resembling  a forklift  trundled  close  by  them,
carrying 'some rolled metal  sheets. Richard again  shook his head  in
wonder. "Thank you, darling," he said after a pause. "You know that  I
love you too."
    They stood up together and signaled the Eagle that they were ready
to leave.
    The next night, back at their apartment in the Habitation  Module,
both Richard and Nicole were  still alert thirty minutes after  making
love. "What is it, dear?" Nicole asked. "Is something wrong?"
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    163
    "I had another foggy spell  today," Richard said. '"It lasted  for
almost three hours."
    "Goodness," Nicole said.  She sat up  in bed. "Are  you all  right
now? Should I get the scanner and see if I can tell anything from your
biometry?"
    "No," Richard  answered, shaking  his head.  "My fogs  have  never
registered on  your  machine. But  this  one really  disturbed  me.  I
realized how incapacitated I am during them. I can barely function  at
all, much less help you  or the children in  any kind of crisis.  They
scare me."
    "Do you remember what started this one?"
    "Absolutely. Like  always.  I was  thinking  of our  trip  to  the
Hangar, especially about that  other habitat. I inadvertently  started
remembering a  few  disconnected  scenes  from  my  odyssey  and  then
suddenly there was the fog. It was total. I'm not certain I would have
even recognized you during the first five minutes of its duration."
    "I'm sorry, darling," Nicole said.
    "It's almost as if something is monitoring my thoughts. And when I
reach into a certain  portion of my memory,  then bam, I'm given  some
kind of warning."
    Richard and Nicole were silent for almost a minute.
    "When I close my eyes," Nicole said, "I still see all those robots
scurrying around inside Rama."
    "Me too."
    "And yet, I still  have great difficulty believing  it was a  real
scene and not something I dreamed  or saw in a movie." Nicole  smiled.
"We have lived an utterly unbelievable life these last fourteen years,
haven't we?"
    "Absolutely," Richard said, turning over on his side in his normal
sleeping posture. "And  who knows?  The most interesting  part may  be
still ahead of us."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    165
    6
    T!
    "he holographic model of New Eden was projected into the center of
the large conference room at a  1/2,000 scale. Inside Rama the  actual
Earth habitat would  occupy an area  of one hundred  and sixty  square
kilometers in the Central Plain, starting just opposite the bottom  of
the long  northern  stairway.  Its enclosed  volume  would  be  twenty
kilometers long in the direction around the cylinder, eight kilometers
wide in the direction parallel to the cylindrical spin axis, and eight
kilometers high from the colony floor to the towering ceiling.
    The New Eden model  at the Habitation  Module, however, which  the
Eagle, Richard, and  Nicole used  for their  design work,  was a  more
manageable size. It  easily fit into  the single large  room, and  the
holographic projections made it easy for the designers to walk through
and  among  the  various  structures.  Changes  were  made  using  the
computer-aided design subroutines that  acted upon the voice  commands
of the Eagle.
    "We've changed  our minds  again,"  Nicole said,  beginning  their
third marathon design discussion with the Eagle
    by encircling,  with her  black "flashlight,"  a concentration  of
buildings in the center of the colony.  "We now think it's a bad  idea
to have everything in one  place, with the people  all on top of  each
other. Richard and  I think  it would make  more sense  if the  living
areas and small  trade shops  were in  four separate  villages at  the
corners of the rectangle. Only the  buildings used by everyone in  the
colony would be in the central complex."
    "Of  course,   our  new   concept  will   completely  change   the
transportation flow you and I discussed yesterday," Richard added, "as
well as the  specific coordinate assignments  for the parks,  Sherwood
Forest, Lake  Shakespeare, and  Mount Olympus.  But all  the  original
elements can still be accommodated in our current design for New Eden-
here, take a look at this sketch  and you can see where we have  moved
everything."
    The Eagle seemed  to grimace as  he stared at  his human  helpers.
After a second he looked at the map in Richard's electronic  notebook.
"I hope this  will be the  last major alteration,"  he commented.  "We
don't make much progress  if every time we  meet we essentially  start
the design all over."
    "We're sorry," Nicole said. "But it has taken us a little while to
grasp the  magnitude  of  our  task.  We  now  understand  that  we're
designing the long-term living situation  for as many as two  thousand
human beings; if it takes several iterations to get it right, then  we
must spend the time."
    "I see you've increased  again the number  of large structures  in
the central  complex," the  Eagle said.  "What's the  purpose of  this
building behind the library and auditorium?"
    "It's a sports and recreation building," Nicole replied. "It  will
have a track,  a baseball diamond,  a soccer field,  tennis courts,  a
gymnasium, and a  swimming pool-plus  enough seating in  each area  to
handle almost all the citizens.  Richard and I imagine that  athletics
will be very important  in New Eden, especially  since so many of  the
routine tasks will be handled by the biots."
    "You've also expanded the sizes of the hospital and the schools-"
    166 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "We were  too  conservative in  our  original allocations  of  the
space," Richard interrupted. "We didn't leave enough unassigned  floor
area for activities that we cannot yet define specifically."
    The first  two design  meetings had  lasted ten  hours each.  Both
Richard and Nicole had marveled initially at how quickly the Eagle was
able to integrate their comments into specific design recommendations.
By the  third meeting  they were  no longer  amazed by  the speed  and
accuracy of  his  synthesis. But  the  alien biot  did  surprise  them
regularly by showing a keen interest in some of the cultural  details.
For example, he queried them at  length about the name the humans  had
given to their new colony. After  Nicole had explained to him that  it
was essential  that the  habitat have  some specific  name, the  Eagle
asked about the meaning and significance of "New Eden."
    "The whole family discussed  the name of the  habitat for most  of
one  evening,"   Richard  explained,   "and  there   were  many   good
suggestions, mostly derived  from the  history and  literature of  our
species. Utopia was a  leading candidate. Arcadia, Elysium,  Paradise,
Concordia, and Beauvois were all seriously considered. But in the  end
we thought New Eden was the best choice."
    "You see," Nicole added, "the  mythological Eden was a  beginning,
the start of what we might call  our modern Western culture. It was  a
lush, verdant paradise, supposedly  designed especially for humans  by
an all-powerful  God  who had  also  created everything  else  in  the
universe. That  first  Eden  was  rich in  life-forms  but  devoid  of
technology.
    "New Eden is also a beginning. But in almost every other way it is
the opposite  of  the ancient  garden.  New Eden  is  a  technological
miracle without any life-forms, at least initially, except a few human
beings."
    Once the general  layout of  the colony was  complete, there  were
still hundreds of details  that had to be  decided. Katie and  Patrick
were given the task  of designing the neighborhood  parks for each  of
the four villages. Even though neither of them had ever seen an actual
blade of
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    167
    grass, a real flower, or a  tall tree, they had watched plenty  of
movies and  seen  many, many  photographs.  They ended  up  with  four
different, tasteful designs for the five acres of open area,  communal
gardens, and peaceful walkways in each village.
    "But where will we  get the grass? And  the flowers?" Katie  asked
the Eagle.
    "They will  be  brought  by  the people  from  Earth,"  the  Eagle
replied.
    "How will they know what to bring?"
    "Someone will tell them."
    It was also Katie who pointed out that the design of New Eden  had
omitted a key element, one that had played a major role in the bedtime
stories her mother  had told her  when she was  a little girl.  '"I've
never seen a zoo," she said. "Can we have one in New Eden?"
    The Eagle altered die master  plan during the next design  session
to include a small zoo at the edge of Sherwood Forest.
    Richard worked with the Eagle on most of the technological details
for New Eden. Nicole's area of speciality was the living  environment.
The Eagle had originally suggested one  kind of house with a  standard
set of furniture for all the  homes in the colony. Nicole had  laughed
out loud.  "You certainly  haven't learned  very much  about us  as  a
species," she  said. "Human  beings must  have variety.  Otherwise  we
become bored. If we  make all the houses  the same, people will  start
changing them immediately."
    Because she  had  only  limited time  (the  Eagle's  requests  for
information were  keeping Richard  and Nicole  working ten  to  twelve
hours a day-luckily Michael  and Simone were happy  to look after  the
children), Nicole decided on eight basic house plans and four  modular
furniture  arrangements.  Altogether,  then,  there  were   thirty-two
different living configurations.  By varying the  external' design  of
the buildings in each of the four villages (details that Nicole worked
out with Richard, after some  useful input from art historian  Michael
O'Toole), Nicole finally
    168 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    achieved her goal of  creating a design  for everyday living  that
was neither uniform nor sterile.
    Richard and the Eagle  agreed on the  New Eden transportation  and
communication systems,  both  external and  internal,  in just  a  few
hours. They had more difficulty with the overall environmental control
and  biot  designs.  The  Eagle's  original  concept,  on  which   the
infrastructure supporting New Eden was based, assumed twelve hours  of
light and twelve  hours of  darkness every day.  Periods of  sunlight,
clouds, and rain were to be  regular and predictable. There was to  be
virtually no variation in the temperature  as a function of place  and
time.
    When Richard requested seasonal changes  in the length of the  day
and more variability in all the weather parameters, the Eagle stressed
that allowing those "significant variations" in the enormous volume of
air in the  habitat would  result in the  use of  much more  "critical
computational resource" than had originally been allocated during  the
infrastructure design. The Eagle also indicated that the major control
algorithms would have to  be restructured and  retested, and that  the
departure date would be delayed as a result. Nicole supported  Richard
on the weather  issue and the  seasons, explaining to  the Eagle  that
true human behavior ("which you and the Nodal Intelligence  apparently
want to observe") was definitely dependent on both these factors.
    In the end a compromise was  reached. The length of day and  night
throughout a year would match a location at thirty degrees latitude on
the Earth.  The  weather  in  New Eden  would  be  allowed  to  evolve
naturally within specified limits,  the master controller only  acting
when conditions  reached  the  edge  of the  "design  box."  Thus  the
temperature,  wind,  and  rainfall   could  freely  fluctuate   inside
tolerances. The  Eagle was  adamant about  two items,  however.  There
could be no lightning and no ice. If either of those conditions  (both
of which introduced "new  complexities" into his computational  model)
were imminent, even if  the rest of the  parameters were still  within
the design box, then the control system would take over  automatically
and regularize the weather.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    169
    It had been the Eagle's original intention to retain the same kind
of biots that had been in the first two.Rama craft. Richard and Nicole
both, however, stressed to  him that the  Raman biots, especially  the
ones like the centipedes,  mantises, crabs, and  spiders, were not  at
all appropriate.
    "The cosmonauts  that have  boarded the  two Rama  craft,"  Nicole
explained, "would not be  considered average humans.  Far from it,  in
fact.  We  were   especially  trained  to   deal  with   sophisticated
machines-and even some of us were  frightened by a few of your  biots.
The more ordinary humans  who will probably form  the bulk of the  New
Eden inhabitants will  not be  at all comfortable  with these  bizarre
mechanical contraptions scurrying all over their realm."
    After several'hours of discussion the Eagle agreed to redesign the
biot maintenance staff.  For example,  garbage would  be collected  by
robots that looked  like typical garbage  trucks on Earth--there  just
wouldn't be any  drivers. Construction work,  when required, would  be
done by  robots whose  shapes  were the  same as  vehicles  performing
similar functions  on  Earth.  Thus  the  strange  machines  would  be
familiar in appearance  to the colonists,  and their xenophobic  fears
should be mitigated.
    "What about the performance of routine, everyday activities?"  the
Eagle asked at the end of one  long meeting. "We had thought we  would
use human biots, voice responsive, deployed in large numbers, to  free
your colonists of  all drudgery. We've  spent considerable time  since
you arrived perfecting the design."
    Richard liked the idea of having robot assistants, but Nicole  was
leery. "It  is  imperative," she  said,  "that these  human  biots  be
absolutely identifiable. There  should be no  chance that anyone,  not
even a small child, could mistake one for a real human being."
    Richard chuckled. "You've read too much science fiction," he said.
    "But this is a real worry," Nicole protested. "I can well  imagine
the quality of the human  biots that would be  made here at the  Node.
We're not talking about those
    170 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    vacant imitations we saw inside Rama. People would be terrified if
they couldn't tell the difference between a human and a machine."
    "So we'll limit the number of varieties," Richard responded.  "And
they'll be easily  classified by primary  function. Does that  satisfy
your concern?  It would  be a  shame  not to  take advantage  of  this
incredible technology."
    "That might work," Nicole said, "providing that one short briefing
could easily familiarize  everyone with the  different types. We  must
absolutely ensure that there are no problems of misidentification."
    After several weeks of intense effort, most of the critical design
decisions had been  made and  the work  load dropped  for Richard  and
Nicole. They were able to resume a  more or less normal life with  the
children and Michael. One  evening the Eagle  dropped by and  informed
the family  that New  Eden was  in its  final test  period,  primarily
verifying the ability of the new algorithms to monitor and control the
environment over the wide range of possible conditions.
    "Incidentally," the Eagle continued, "we've inserted gas  exchange
devices, or GEDs, in all the places-Sherwood Forest, the parks,  along
the shores of  the lake  and the  sides of  the mountain-where  plants
coming from  Earth  wiil eventually  be  growing. The  GEDs  act  like
plants,  absorbing  carbon  dioxide  and  producing  oxygen,  and  are
quantitatively  equivalent  as  well.  They  prevent  the  buildup  of
atmospheric carbon dioxide,  which over  a long period  of time  would
undermine the efficacy of the  weather algorithms. Operating the  GEDs
requires some power, so we've  slightly reduced the wattage  available
for human consumption during  the early days  of the colony.  However,
once the plants are flourishing the GEDs can be removed and there will
be abundant power for any reasonable purpose."
    "Okay, Mr. Eagle," Katie said when  he was finished. "What we  all
want to know is when we are going to depart."
    "I was going  to tell you  on Christmas," the  Eagle replied,  the
small wrinkle that passed for a smile forming
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 71
    at the corner of his mouth, "and that's still two days away."
    "Tell us now, oh, please, Mr. Eagle," Patrick said.
    "Well ... all right," their  alien companion replied. "Our  target
date for finishing with Rama in the Hangar is January 11. We expect to
load you in the shuttle  and depart from the  Node two days later,  on
the morning of January 13."
    That's only three weeks, Nicole thought, her heart skipping a beat
as the reality of their departure sunk  in. There is still so much  to
do. She glanced across the room, where Michael and Simone were sitting
beside each  other on  the  couch. Among  other things,  my  beautiful
daughter, I must prepare you for your wedding.
    "So we'll be married on your birthday, Mama," Simone said.  "We've
always said the  ceremony would  be one week  before the  rest of  the
family left."
    Tears crept involuntarily into Nicole's eyes. She lowered her head
so that the children would  not see. / am  not ready to say  good-bye,
Nicole thought. / cannot  bear to think that  I will never see  Simone
again.
    Nicole had chosen to leave the  family parlor game that was  going
on in the living room. She had given, as her excuse, that she had some
final design  data  to develop  for  the  Eagle, but  in  reality  she
desperately needed  a few  moments alone  to organize  the last  three
weeks of her life at the Node. All during dinner she had been thinking
of all the  things she  needed to  do. She  had been  close to  panic.
Nicole feared that there wasn't enough time, or that she would  forget
something critica! altogether. Once  she had made  a thorough list  of
her remaining tasks, however, along with a timetable for accomplishing
them, Nicole relaxed somewhat. It was not an impossible list.
    One of  the  items  that  Nicole had  entered  in  her  electronic
notebook, in all capital letters, was "BENJY??" As she sat on the side
of her  bed, thinking  about her  retarded eldest  son and  chastising
herself for not  having addressed  the issue earlier,  Nicole heard  a
loud knock on her open door. It was an astonishing coincidence.
    172 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Mom-my," Benjy said  very slowly with  his wide, innocent  smile,
"can I talk to you?" He thought for a moment. "Now?" he added.
    "Of course, darling," Nicole answered. "Come in and sit beside  me
on the bed."
    Benjy came over  next to his  mother and  gave her a  big hug.  He
looked down at his lap and spoke haltingly. His emotional struggle was
obvious. "You and Rich-ard  and the other  chil-dren are go-ing  a-way
soon for a ve-ry long time," he said.
    "That's right," Nicole replied, trying to be cheerful.
    "Dad-dy and Si-mone will stay here and be mar-ried?"
    This was more  of a question.  Benjy had lifted  his head and  was
waiting for  Nicole to  corroborate his  statement. When  she  nodded,
tears rushed instantly  into his  eyes and his  face contorted.  "What
about Ben-jy?" he said. "What will hap-pen to Ben-jy?"
    Nicole pulled his head to her shoulder and cried with her son. His
entire body shook with his sobs.  Nicole was now furious with  herself
for having procrastinated so long. He's known all along, she  thought.
Ever since  that  first conversation.  He's  been waiting.  He  thinks
nobody wants him.
    "You have a choice, darling," Nicole  managed to say when she  had
collected her own emotions. "We would  love to have you come with  us.
And your father and Simone would be delighted if you stayed here  with
them."
    Benjy stared at his  mother as if he  did not believe her.  Nicole
repeated her statements very slowly.  "You are telling me the  truth?"
he asked.
    Nicole nodded vigorously.
    Benjy smiled for a second and then looked away. He was silent  for
a long time. "There will  be no-bo-dy to play  with here," he said  at
length, still staring at  the wall. "And Simone  will need to be  with
Dad-dy."
    Nicole was astonished  at how concisely  Benjy had summarized  his
considerations. He seemed to be  waiting. "Then come with us,"  Nicole
said softly. "Your Uncle Richard and Katie and Patrick and Ellie and I
all love you very much and want to have you with us."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 73
    Benjy turned to look at his mother. Fresh tears were running  down
his cheeks. "I will come with you,  Mommy," he said, and put his  head
on her shoulder.
    He had already  made up  his mind, Nicole  thought, holding  Benjy
against her body. He's smarter than we think. He only came in here  to
make certain he was wanted.
    7
    nd dear Lord, let  me properly cherish  this wonderful young  girl
that I am about  to marry. Let us  share Thy gift of  love and let  us
grow together in our knowledge of Thee. ... I ask these things in  the
name of Thy  son, whom  Thou sent  to Earth to  show Thy  love and  to
redeem us for bur sins. Amen."
    Michael Ryan  O'Toole, seventy-two  years  of age,  unclasped  his
hands and opened his eyes. He was sitting at the desk in his  bedroom.
He checked his watch.  Only two more hours,  he thought, until I  will
marry Simone. Michael glanced briefly at the picture of Jesus and  the
small bust of St. Michael  of Siena in front of  him on his desk.  And
then later tonight, after the meal  that is both wedding feast for  us
and birthday dinner for Nicole, I will hold that angel in my arms.  He
could not stop the next thought from coming. Dear Lord, please do  not
let me disappoint her.
    Michael reached into his desk and pulled out a small Bible. It was
the only real book he owned. All the rest of his reading material  was
in the form of small data cubes
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 75
    that he inserted into his electronic notebook. His Bible was  very
special, a memento of a life once lived on a planet far away.
    During  his  childhood  and   adolescence  that  Bible  had   gone
everywhere with him. As  Michael turned the small  black book over  in
his hands, he was flooded with memories. In his first recollection  he
was a small boy, six or seven years old. His father had come into  his
bedroom at  home. Michael  had been  playing a  baseball game  on  his
personal computer and was somewhat  embarrassed-he always felt ill  at
ease when his serious father found him engaging in play.
    "Michael," his father  had said, "I  want to give  you a  present.
Your very own Bible. It is a  true book, one that you read by  turning
the pages. We've put your name on the cover."
    His father had extended the  book and little Michael had  accepted
it with a soft "Thank you." The cover was leather and felt good to his
touch. "Inside that volume," his father had continued, "is some of the
best teaching that  human beings  will ever know.  Read it  carefully.
Read it often. And govern your life by its wisdom."
    That night I put the Bible under my pillow, Michael recalled.  And
it stayed there. All through  my childhood. Even through high  school.
He remembered his machinations when his high school baseball team  had
won the city championship and was  going to Springfield for the  state
tournament. Michael had taken his Bible  with him, but he didn't  want
his teammates  to see  it. A  Bible wasn't  "cool" for  a high  school
athlete, and  the  young  Michael  O'Toole did  not  yet  have  enough
self-esteem to overcome his fear of  the laughter of his peers. So  he
designed a  special compartment  for  his Bible  in  the side  of  his
toiletry bag and stored the  book there, enclosed in protective  wrap.
In his hotel room in Springfield  he waited until his roommate took  a
bath. Then Michael removed the Bible from its hiding place and put  it
under his pillow.
    / even took it on our honeymoon. Kathleen was so understanding. As
she always was with everything. A  brief memory of the bright sun  and
the white sand outside their suite  in the Cayman Islands was  quickly
followed by a
    176 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    powerful feeling of loss. "How  are you doing, Kathleen?"  Michael
said out loud. "Where  has life taken  you?" He could  see her in  his
mind's  eye,  puttering   around  their   brownstone  condominium   on
Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. Our grandson Matt must be a teenager by
now, he thought. Are there others? How many altogether?
    The heartache deepened  as he imagined  his family- Kathleen,  his
daughter Colleen, his son Stephen, plus all the grandchildren-gathered
around the long table for a Christmas feast without him. In his mental
image a light snow was falling outside on the avenue. / guess  Stephen
would give the family prayer now,  he thought. He was always the  most
religious of the children.
    Michael shook his head, returning  to the present, and opened  the
Bible to  the first  page.  A beautiful  script  writing of  the  word
Milestones appeared at the top of the sheet. The entries were  sparse,
a total of  eight altogether,  the chronicle  of major  events in  his
life.
    7-13-67 Married Kathleen Murphy in Boston, Massachusetts
    1-30-69 Birth of son, Thomas Murphy O'Toole, in Boston
    4-13-70 Birth of daughter, Colleen Gavin O'Toole,
    in Boston
    12-27-71 Birth of son, Stephen Molloy O'Toole, in Boston
    2-14-92 Death of Thomas Murphy O'Toole in Pasadena, Calif.
    Michael's eyes stopped there, at  the death of his first-bom  son,
and they quickly filled with tears. He recalled vividly that  terrible
St. Valentine's Day many  years before. He had  taken Kathleen out  to
dinner at a lovely seafood restaurant on Boston Harbor. They had  been
almost finished with their meal when  they first heard the news.  "I'm
sorry I'm late showing you the desserts," apologized the young man who
was their waiter. "I've been watching  the news in the bar. There  has
just been a devastating earthquake in Southern California."
    Their fear had been immediate. Tommy, their pride and
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 77
    joy, had won a scholarship in physics at Cal Tech after graduating
as the valedictorian at  Holy Cross. The  O'Tooles had abandoned  what
was left of their meal and rushed into the bar. There they had learned
that the earthquake had struck at  5:45 in the evening, Pacific  time.
The giant San Andreas fault had  ripped apart near Cajon Pass and  the
poor people,  cars,  and structures  within  a hundred  miles  of  the
epicenter had  been tossed  about on  the surface  of the  Earth  like
hapless boats at sea during a hurricane.
    Michael and  Kathleen had  listened to  the news  all night  long,
alternately hoping and fearing, as the full magnitude of the  nation's
worst  disaster  of  the  twenty-second  century  had  become   better
understood. The quake had  been a fearsome 8.2  on the Richter  scale.
Twenty million  people  had  been  left  without  water,  electricity,
transportation, and  communications.  Fifty-foot-deep  cracks  in  the
Earth had engulfed  entire shopping centers.  Virtually all the  roads
had become impassable. The damage was worse, and more widespread, than
if the Los Angeles metropolitan area had been hit with several nuclear
bombs.
    Early in  the morning,  before dawn  even, the  Federal  Emergency
Administration had issued  a telephone number  to call for  inquiries.
Kathleen O'Toole gave  the message  machine all  the information  they
knew-the address and phone number  at Tommy's apartment, the name  and
address of the  Mexican restaurant  where he worked  to earn  spending
money, and his girlfriend's address and phone number.
    We waited all  day and  into the night,  Michael remembered.  Then
Cheryl called. She had managed somehow  to drive to her parents'  home
in Poway.
    "The restaurant collapsed, Mr.  O'Toole," Cheryl had said  through
her tears. "Then it caught fire. I talked to one of the other waiters,
one who survived because he was out  on the patio when the quake  hit.
Tommy had been working the closest station to the kitchen-"
    Michael O'Toole took  a deep  breath. This  is wrong,  he said  to
himself, struggling to force the  painful memories of his son's  death
out of his mind. This is wrong,  he repeated. This is a time for  joy,
not sorrow. For Simone's sake I must not think of Tommy now.
    178 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    He closed the Bible and  wiped his eyes. He  stood up at his  desk
and  walked  into   the  bathroom.   First  he   shaved,  slowly   and
deliberately, and then he stepped into the hot shower.
    Fifteen minutes later, when he  opened his Bible again, this  time
with pen in  hand, Michael  O'Toole had  exorcised the  demons of  his
son's death.  With a  flourish he  wrote an  additional entry  on  the
Milestones page, pausing when he was  finished to read the final  four
lines.
    10-31-97 Birth of grandson, Matthew Arnold Rinaldi,
    in Toledo, Ohio 8-27-06 Birth of son, Benjamin Ryan O'Toole, in
    Rama
    3-7-08 Birth of son, Patrick Erin O'Toole, in Rama 1-6-15 Marriage
to Simone Tiasso Wakefield
    You are an old  man, O'Toole, he said  to himself, looking at  his
thin gray hair in the mirror. He had closed his Bible several  minutes
earlier and returned to the bathroom to brush his hair one final time.
Too old to be getting married again. He remembered his first  wedding,
forty-seven years  earlier.  My hair  was  thick and  blond  then,  he
recalled. Kathleen was beautiful. The service was magnificent. I cried
the moment I saw her at the end of the aisle.
    His picture of Kathleen  in her wedding dress,  holding on to  her
father's arm at  the other end  of the aisle  in the cathedral,  faded
into another memory of her, this  one also shrouded in tears. In  this
second image the  tears belonged  to his  wife. She  had been  sitting
beside him in the family room at  Cape Kennedy when the time had  come
for him to check in  for the flight to LEO-3  to join the rest of  the
Newton crew. "Be careful," she  had said, in a surprisingly  emotional
farewell. They.had hugged.  "I'm so  proud of you,  darling," she  had
whispered in his ear. "And I love you very much."
    "Because I love you very much," Simone had also said when  Michael
had asked her if she  really, really wanted to  marry him and, if  so,
why. A soft image of  Simone came into his mind  as his memory of  his
final good-bye
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    1 79
    with Kathleen gently faded away. You are so innocent and trusting,
Simone, Michael  mused, thinking  of his  young bride-to-be.  Back  on
Earth you wouldn't even be dating yet. You'd still be considered  just
a girl.
    The thirteen years in Rama flashed through his mind in an instant.
Michael recalled first the struggle  of Simone's birth, including  the
glorious moment when she had finally cried and he had laid her  gently
on her mother's stomach. His next image was of a very young Simone,  a
serious girl of six or so, earnestly studying her catechism under  his
tutelage. In another picture Simone  was skipping rope with Katie  and
singing a joyous  song. The final  fleeting image was  a scene of  the
family picnicking  beside  the  Cylindrical Sea  in  Rama.  There  was
Simone, standing  proudly beside  Benjy as  if she  were his  guardian
angel.
    She was already a young woman when we arrived at the Node, General
Michael O'Toole thought to himself, his  mind moving to a more  recent
sequence of images.  Extremely devout. Patient  and selfless with  the
younger children. And nobody has ever made Benjy smile like Simone.
    There was  a common  theme to  all these  pictures of  Simone.  In
Michael's mind, they were bathed in the unusual love that he felt  for
his child bride. It was not the kind of love that a man normally feels
for the woman he is going to marry-it was more like an adoration.  But
it was love, nevertheless,  and that love had  forged a powerful  bond
between the unlikely pair.
    I am a very  lucky man, Michael thought  as he finished  adjusting
his clothing. God has seen fit to show me His wonders in many ways.
    In the master suite at the other end of the apartment, Nicole  was
helping Simone  with her  dress. It  was not  a wedding  dress in  the
classical sense, but it was white and full with small straps over  the
shoulders. It was  certainly not  the casual  attire that  all of  the
family were accustomed to wearing on an everyday basis.
    Nicole carefully placed  the combs  in her  daughter's long  black
hair and studied Simone  in the mirror.  "You look beautiful,"  Nicole
said.
    180 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    She glanced at her  watch. They had ten  more minutes. And  Simone
was completely ready  except for  the shoes.  Good. Now  we can  talk,
Nicole  thought  fleetingly.   "Darling,"  she   started,  her   voice
surprisingly catching in her throat.
    "What is it, Mother?" Simone  said pleasantly. She was sitting  on
the bed beside her  mother, carefully putting the  black shoes on  her
feet.
    "When we had that talk last  week about sex," Nicole began  again,
"there were several topics that  we didn't discuss." Simone looked  up
at her mother. Her attention  was so complete that Nicole  momentarily
forgot what she was going to say. "Did you read those books I gave you
. . . ?" she eventually stammered.
    Simone's wrinkled brow revealed her puzzlement. "Yes, of  course,"
she replied. "We discussed that yesterday."
    Nicole took her  daughter's hands. "Michael  is a wonderful  man,"
she said. "Kind, considerate, loving-but he is older. And when men are
older-"
    "I'm  not  sure   I'm  following  you,   Mother,"  Simone   gently
interrupted. "I  thought there  was something  you wanted  to tell  me
about sex."
    "What I'm trying to say," Nicole said after taking a deep  breath,
"is that you may need  to be very patient  and tender with Michael  in
bed. Everything might not work right away."
    Simone stared at  her mother  for a  long time.  "I had  suspected
that," she said quietly, "both from your nervousness about the subject
and some unspoken anxiety  that I have read  in Michael's face.  Don't
worry, Mother, I do not  have unreasonable expectations. In the  first
place,  we  are  not   marrying  because  of   a  desire  for   sexual
gratification. And since I have no experience of any kind, except  for
holding hands occasionally during this last week, whatever pleasure  I
feel will be new and therefore wonderful."
    Nicole smiled at her amazingly mature fourteen-year-old  daughter.
"You are a jewel," she said, her eyes brimming with tears.
    "Thank you," Simone replied,  hugging her mother. "Remember,"  she
added, "my marriage to Michael is
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    181
    blessed by God. Whatever problems we encounter, we will ask God to
help us with. We will be fine."
    A sudden  heartache  devastated Nicole.  One  more week,  a  voice
inside her said, and you will  never see this beloved girl again.  She
continued to embrace Simone until Richard knocked on the door and told
them that everyone was ready for the ceremony.
    8
    G
    Iood morning,'' Simone  said with a  soft smile. The  rest of  the
family were all  seated at  the table  having breakfast  when she  and
Michael walked in, hand in hand.
    "Good  mor-ning,"  Benjy  replied.  His  mouth  was  stuffed  with
buttered toast and jam.  He rose from his  seat, walked slowly  around
the table, and hugged his favorite sister.
    Patrick was right behind  him. "Are you going  to help me with  my
math today?" he asked Simone. "Mother  says that now that we're  going
back I have to be serious about my studies."
    Michael and  Simone sat  down  at the  table  after the  boys  had
returned to their  seats. Simone  reached for the  coffeepot. She  was
like her  mother in  one  respect. She  didn't  function well  in  the
morning until she had had her coffee.
    "Well, is the honeymoon  finally over?" Katie  asked in her  usual
irreverent manner. "After all, it's been three
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    183
    nights and two  days. You  must have  listened to  every piece  of
classical music in the data base."
    Michael laughed easily. "Yes, Katie,"  he said, smiling warmly  at
Simone. "We've taken the DO NOT DISTURB sign off the door. We want  to
do whatever we can to help everyone pack for the voyage."
    "We're actually in pretty good shape," Nicole commented, delighted
to see Michael and  her daughter so  comfortable together after  their
long seclusion. / needn't have  worried, she thought quickly. In  some
ways Simone is more adult than I am.
    "I wish the Eagle  would give us more  specifics about our  return
trip," Richard complained. "He won't tell us how long the journey will
take or whether or not we'll sleep all the way or anything definite."
    "He says  he  doesn't  know  for  certain,"  Nicole  reminded  her
husband. "There are  'uncontrollable' variables that  could result  in
many different scenarios."
    "You always believe  him," Richard  countered. "You  are the  most
trusting-"
    The doorbell  interrupted their  conversation. Katie  went to  the
door and returned a few moments later with the Eagle. "I hope I'm  not
disturbing your breakfast," the birdman apologized, "but we have  much
to accomplish today. 1 will need for Mrs. Wakefield to come with me."
    Nicole took the final sip of her coffee and looked quizzically  at
the Eagle. "Alone?"  she said. She  was aware of  a vague fear  inside
her. She had never left the apartment by herself with the Eagle during
their sixteen-month stay at the Node.
    "Yes," the Eagle replied. "You'll  be coming with me alone.  There
is a special task that only you can perform."
    "Do I have ten minutes to get ready?"
    "Certainly," the Eagle replied.
    While Nicole was out of the room, Richard peppered the Eagle  with
questions. "Okay," Richard said at one juncture, "I understand that as
a result of all these tests, you are confident now that we can  safely
remain asjeep throughout  the acceleration  and deceleration  periods.
But
    184 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    what about during normal cruise? Will we be awake or asleep?"
    "Mostly asleep," the Eagle replied, "because that way we can  both
retard the aging process  and ensure your good  health. But there  are
many uncertainties in the schedule. It may be necessary to awaken  you
several times en route."
    "Why have you not told us this before?"
    "Because it wasn't yet decided.  The scenario for your mission  is
quite complicated  and  the  baseline  plan  has  only  recently  been
defined."
    "I don't want my aging process to 'be retarded,' " Katie said.  "I
want to be a grown woman when we meet other people from the Earth."
    "As I told your  mother and father yesterday,"  the Eagle said  to
Katie, "it is  important that we  have the ability  to slow the  aging
process while you and your family  are asleep. We do not know  exactly
when you will return to  your solar system. If  you were to sleep  for
fifty years, for example-''
    "Whaaat?" Richard interrupted in consternation. "Who said anything
about fifty  years?  We  reached  here  in  twelve  or  thirteen.  Why
wouldn't-"
    "I'll be older than  Mama," Katie said, a  frightened look on  her
face.
    Nicole entered  from the  next room.  "What's this  I heard  about
fifty years? Why  will it take  so long? Are  we going someplace  else
first?"
    "Obviously," Richard said. He was angry. "Why were we not told all
this before  we made  the 'allocation'  decision? We  might have  done
something differently. . .  . My God, if  it take fifty years,  Nicole
and I will be a hundred years old!"
    "No, you won't," the Eagle  replied without emotion. "We  estimate
that you and  Mrs. Wakefield will  only age  one year in  five or  six
while we have  you 'suspended.' For  the children, the  ratio will  be
closer to one year  in two, at least  until their growth subsides.  We
are wary of tampering too much with the growth hormones. And  besides,
the fifty years is an upper bound, what a human engineer would call  a
three-sigma number."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    185
    "Now I'm  completely  confused,"  Katie  said,  walking  over  and
directly confronting the Eagle. "How old will I be when I meet up with
a human being who is not part of my family?"
    "I  can't  answer  that   question  exactly,  because  there   are
statistical uncertainties  involved," their  alien colleague  replied.
"But your body should be at  the equivalent development level of  your
early to  mid-twenties. At  least that's  a most  likely answer."  The
Eagle motioned to  Nicole. "Now that's  all I'm going  to say. I  have
business with your mother. We should return before dinner tonight.''
    "As  usual,"  Richard  grumbled,   "we're  told  almost   nothing.
Sometimes I wish that we had not been so cooperative."
    "You could have been more difficult," the Eagle remarked as he and
Nicole were leaving the room, "and  in fact our predictions, based  on
our observational data, were for less cooperation than we have had. In
the end, though, there  would have been  no substantive difference  in
the outcome. This way it has been more pleasant for you."
    "Good-bye," Nicole said.
    "Good-bye," said Benjy, waving  to his mother  after the door  was
already closed.
    It was a long document. Nicole  calculated that it would take  her
at least ten, maybe fifteen minutes to read the entire text out loud.
    "Are you  almost finished  with your  study?" the  Eagle  inquired
again. "We'd like to begin  the shooting, as you  call it, as soon  as
possible."
    "Explain to me again what happens to this video after I make  it,"
Nicole requested.
    "We broadcast it toward the Earth several years before you  arrive
in your solar system. That gives  your fellow human beings ample  time
to respond."
    "How do  you know  if they  have actually  heard it?"  ' 'We  have
requested a simple return signal acknowledging receipt."
    "And what if you don't ever receive this return signal?"
    "That's what contingency plans are for."
    Nicole had serious misgivings about reading the mes-
    186 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    sage. She  asked  if she  could  have  some time  to  discuss  the
document with Richard and Michael.
    "What is it that you are worried about?" the Eagle asked.
    "Everything," Nicole replied. "It just doesn't seem right. I  feel
as if I'm being used to further  your purpose- and since I don't  know
exactly what your purpose is, I'm  afraid that I'm being a traitor  to
the human species."
    The Eagle brought Nicole a glass of water and sat down beside  her
in the alien studio. "Let's look  at this logically," the Eagle  said.
"We have very clearly told you that our primary objective is to gather
detailed information about spacefaring species in the galaxy. Right?"
    Nicole nodded.
    "We have also constructed a  habitat inside Rama for two  thousand
Earthlings and are sending  you and your family  back to gather  those
humans for an observational voyage. All you're doing, with that video,
is informing  the Earth  that  we are  on our  way  and that  the  two
thousand members of your species, along with the supporting  artifacts
of your culture,  should meet us  in Mars orbit.  What could be  wrong
with that?"
    "The text of  this document,"  Nicole protested,  pointing at  the
electronic notebook the Eagle  had given her,  "is extremely vague.  I
never indicate, for  example, what will  be the eventual  fate of  all
these humans-only that they will be 'cared for' and 'observed'  during
some kind of a journey. There is also no mention of why the humans are
being studied, or anything at all  about the Node and its  controlling
intelligence. In addition,  the tone is  definitely threatening. I  am
telling the people on  Earth who receive this  transmission that if  a
contingent of humans does not rendezvous with Rama in Mars orbit, then
the spaceship  will approach  closer  to the  Earth and  'acquire  its
specimens in  a  less  organized  way.'  That  is  clearly  a  hostile
statement."
    "You may edit the remarks, if you would like, just as long as  the
intent is not changed," the Eagle replied. "But I should tell you that
we have a great  deal of experience with  this type of  communication.
With species similar to
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    187
    yours, we have always  been more successful  when the message  has
not been too specific."
    "But why won't you let me take the document back to the apartment?
I could discuss it with Richard and Michael and we could jointly  edit
it to soften the tone."
    "Because the video must be prepared by you today," the Eagle  said
stubbornly. "We are  open to discussing  modifications to the  content
and will work with you as long as necessary. But the sequence must  be
completed before you return to your family."
    The voice sounded friendly but the meaning was absolutely clear. /
have no choice, Nicole  thought. / am being  ordered to do the  video.
She stared for several seconds at the strange creature sitting  beside
her. This Eagle is just a machine, Nicole said to herself, feeling her
anger rise. He is carrying out  his programmed instructions. . . .  My
quarrel is not with him.
    "No," she said abruptly, astonishing  even herself. She shook  her
head. "I won't do it."
    The Eagle was not prepared for Nicole's response. There was a long
silence. Despite her emotional agitation, Nicole was fascinated by her
companion. What's going on with him now? she wondered. Are complicated
new logic loops being exercised in his equivalent of a brain? Or is he
perhaps receiving signals from somewhere else?
    At length the Eagle  stood up. "Well," he  said, "this is quite  a
surprise. . . . We never expected you to refuse to do the video."
    "Then you haven't been paying attention to what I've been  saying.
... I feel as if you, or  whoever is commanding you, are using me  ...
and purposely telling me as little as  possible. If you want me to  do
something for  you, then  at  least some  of  my questions  should  be
answered."
    "What is it precisely that you want to know?"
    "I've told you already," Nicole replied, her frustration  showing.
"What the hell is really going on in this place? Who or what are  you?
Why do you want  to observe us?  And while you're at  it, how about  a
good explanation of why you need for us to leave a 'reproductive pair'
here? I've never liked the idea of breaking up my family-I
    188 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    should have protested  more forcefully at  the beginning. If  your
technology is  so wonderful  that it  can create  something like  this
incredible Node,  why can't  you  simply take  a  human egg  and  some
sperm-"
    "Calm down, Mrs. Wakefield," the Eagle said. "I've never seen  you
so agitated before. I had you classified as the most stable individual
in your group."
    And most malleable too, I'll  bet, Nicole thought. She waited  for
her anger to subside. Somewhere in  that bizarre brain is doubtless  a
quantitative assessment of the probability that I would meekly  follow
orders. . . . Well, I fooled you this time. . . .
    "Look, Mr.  Eagle," Nicole  said  a few  seconds later,  "I'm  not
stupid. I know who is in control here. I just think we humans  deserve
to be treated  with a  little more  respect. Our  questions are  quite
legitimate."
    "And if we answer them to your satisfaction?"
    "You've been watching me carefully for over a year," Nicole  said.
She smiled. "Have I ever been completely unreasonable?"
    "Where are we going?" Nicole asked.
    "On a short tour," the Eagle replied. "That may be the best way to
deal with your uncertainties."
    The strange vehicle was small and spherical, just large enough for
the Eagle and  Nicole. The  entire front  hemisphere was  transparent.
Behind the window, on  the side where the  alien birdman was  sitting,
was a small control  panel. During the  flight the Eagle  occasionally
touched the  panel,  but most  of  the time  the  craft seemed  to  be
operating on its own.
    Within seconds after  they were seated  inside, the sphere  zipped
down a long  corridor and  through a large  set of  double doors  into
total blackness. Nicole gasped.  She felt as if  she were floating  in
space.
    "Each of the three spherical modules of the Node," the Eagle said,
as Nicole  struggled vainly  to see  anything at  all, "has  a  hollow
center. We have now entered a passageway that leads to the core of the
Habitation Module."
    After almost a  minute some  distant lights appeared  in front  of
their small craft. Soon thereafter the vehicle
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    189
    emerged from the black passageway  and entered the immense  hollow
core. The sphere flipped and turned, disorienting Nicole as it  headed
toward the darkness, away from the many lights on what must have  been
the inside of the main body of the Habitation Module.
    "We observe everything  that occurs  with all  our guest  species,
both temporary and permanent," the Eagle said. "As you have suspected,
we have hundreds of monitoring devices inside your apartment. But  all
your walls are also one-way mirrors-from this core region we can watch
your activities from a wider perspective."
    Nicole had grown accustomed  to the wonders of  the Node, but  the
new sights around her were still staggering. Dozens, maybe hundreds of
tiny blinking lights  moved about in  the vast darkness  of the  core.
They looked  like a  group of  scattered fireflies  on a  dark  summer
night. Some of the  lights were hovering near  the walls; others  were
moving slowly across the void. Some were so far away that they  seemed
to be standing still.
    "We have a major maintenance center here as well," the Eagle said,
pointing in  front of  them at  a dense  collection of  lights in  the
distance. "Every element  of the  module can be  reached very  quickly
from this core,  in case there  are engineering or  any other kind  of
problems."
    "What's going on over there?" Nicole asked, tapping on the window.
About twenty  kilometers  to  the  right  a  group  of  vehicles  were
stationed  just  away  from  a  large,  illuminated  portion  of   the
Habitation Module.
    "That's a special observation session," the Eagle replied,  "using
our most advanced remote sensing monitors. Those particular apartments
house an unusual  species, one that  has characteristics never  before
recorded in this  sector of the  Galaxy. Many of  its individuals  are
dying and we do not understand why. We are trying to figure out how to
save them."
    '' So everything doesn' t always work the way you planned it?"
    "No," replied  the  Eagle. In  the  reflected light  the  creature
seemed to be smiling. "That's why we have so many contingency plans."
    "What would you have done if no humans had ever
    190 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    come to find out about Rama  in the first place?" Nicole  suddenly
asked.
    "We have alternate methods of  accomplishing the same goals,"  the
Eagle answered vaguely.
    The vehicle accelerated  along its chordal  path in the  darkness.
Soon a similar  sphere, slightly larger  than theirs, approached  them
from the left. "Would  you like to  meet a member  of a species  whose
development level is approximately equal to yours?" the Eagle said. He
touched the  control  panel  and  the  interior  of  their  craft  was
illuminated by soft lights.
    Before Nicole could respond, the second vehicle was beside mem. It
also had  a transparent  forward hemisphere.  This second  sphere  was
filled with a colorless liquid, and two creatures were swimming about.
They  looked  like  large  eels  wearing  capes,  and  they  moved  in
undulations through the  liquid. Nicole estimated  that the  creatures
were about three meters long  and twenty centimeters thick. The  black
cape, which spread out like a wing during movement, was about a  meter
wide when fully extended.
    "The one on your right,  without the colored markings," the  Eagle
said, "is an artificial intelligence system. It serves a role  similar
to mine, acting as a host for the aquatic species. The other being  is
a spacefarer from another world.''
    Nicole stared at the alien. It had folded its cape tightly  around
its slightly greenish body  and was sitting  nearly motionless in  the
liquid. The creature had arranged itself in a horseshoe  configuration
with both ends of its  body facing her. A  burst of bubbles came  from
one of its two ends.
    "It says, 'Hello, and wow are you intriguing,' " the Eagle said.
    "How do you know  that?" Nicole replied, unable  to take her  eyes
off the bizarre  being. Its  two ends, one  bright red  and the  other
gray, had now wrapped around each other. Both were pressed against the
window of the craft.
    "My colleague  in  the  other  vehicle  is  translating  and  then
communicating to me. . . .Do you wish to respond?''
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    191
    Nicole's mind was a  blank. What do I  say? she thought, her  eyes
focused on  the  unusual wrinkles  and  protuberances on  the  alien's
extremities. There were half  a dozen separate  features on each  end,
including a pair of white slits on the red "face." None of me markings
looked like  anything that  Nicole had  ever seen  on the  Earth.  She
stared silently,  remembering  the  many conversations  that  she  and
Richard and Michael had had about the questions they would ask if, and
when, they were ever able to communicate directly with an  intelligent
extraterrestrial. But we never imagined a situation like this,  Nicole
thought.
    More bubbles flooded  the window  opposite her.  "Our home  planet
accreted five billion  years ago," the  Eagle said, translating.  "Our
binary stars reached stability a  billion years later. Our system  has
fourteen major planets, on two of which some kind of life evolved. Our
oceanic planet  has three  intelligent species,  but we  are the  only
spacefarers. We  began our  space exploration  slightly more  man  two
thousand years ago.''
    Nicole was now embarrassed  by her silence. "Hello  . . .  hello,"
she said haltingly. "It is a pleasure  to meet you. . . . Our  species
has only been  spacefarers for three  hundred years. We  are the  only
highly intelligent organism on a planet that is two thirds covered  by
water. Our heat and light come  from a solitary, stable, yellow  star.
Our evolution began in the water, three or four billion years ago, but
now we live on the land-"
    Nicole stopped. The other creature,  its two ends still  entwined,
had now brought the rest of its  body over against the window so  that
the details  of its  physical structure  could be  seen more  clearly.
Nicole understood. She stood up next  to the window and turned  around
slowly. Then  she  held her  hands  out, wiggling  her  fingers.  More
bubbles followed.
    "Do you have an alternate  manifestation?" the Eagle translated  a
few seconds later.
    "I don't understand," Nicole replied. The Nodal host in the  other
sphere communicated her message using both body motions and bubbles.
    "We have two manifestations,"  the alien explained. "My  offspring
will have appendages, not unlike yours,
    192 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    and will dwell  mostly on  ocean bottoms, building  our homes  and
factories and spaceships. They in turn will produce another generation
that looks like me."
    "No, no,"  Nicole  replied  eventually. "We  have  only  a  single
manifestation. Our children always resemble their parents."
    The conversation lasted for five more minutes. The two spacefarers
talked mostly about biology. The alien was especially impressed by the
wide thermal range  in which  humans could  function successfully.  It
told Nicole that members of its species were unable to survive if  the
ambient temperature of  the surrounding  liquid was  outside a  narrow
range.
    Nicole was fascinated  by the creature's  description of a  watery
planet whose  surface  was almost  totally  covered by  huge  mats  of
photosynthetic organisms. The caped eels, or whatever they were, lived
in the shallows just below  these hundreds of different organisms  and
used the photo-synthesizers for practically everything-food,  building
materials, even as reproductive aids.
    At length the Eagle  told Nicole that it  was time to depart.  She
waved at the  alien, which was  still pressed against  the window.  It
responded with a final flurry of  bubbles and unwrapped its two  ends.
Seconds later  the  distance  between the  two  capsules  was  already
hundreds of meters.
    It was dark again inside the moving sphere. The Eagle was  silent.
Nicole was exhilarated.  Her mind  continued to  race, still  actively
formulating questions for the alien creature with whom she had had the
brief encounter. Do you have families? she thought. And if so, how  do
dissimilar creatures  live  together?  Can you  communicate  with  the
bottom-dwellers who are your children?
    Another  genre  of  question  intruded  into  Nicole's  stream  of
consciousness and she suddenly felt slightly disappointed in  herself.
/ was much too  clinical, too scientific, she  thought. / should  have
asked about God, life after death, even ethics.
    "It would  have been  virtually impossible  to have  had what  you
would call a philosophical conversation," the Eagle said a few moments
later after Nicole had expressed
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    193
    a lack  of satisfaction  in the  topics that  had been  discussed.
"There was absolutely  no common  ground for such  an exchange.  Until
each of you  knew a few  basic facts  about the other,  there were  no
references for a discussion of values or other meaningful issues."
    Still, Nicole  reflected,  / could  have  tried. Who  knows?  That
horseshoe-shaped alien might have had some answers. . . .
    Nicole was jolted out of her  contemplation by the sound of  human
voices. As she looked  questioningly at the  Eagle, the sphere  turned
completely around and Nicole  saw that they were  hovering only a  few
meters away from her living quarters.
    A light  went on  in the  bedroom that  Michael and  Si-mone  were
sharing. "Is that  Benjy?" Nicole  heard her daughter  whisper to  her
husband of a few days.
    "I think so," Michael replied.
    Nicole watched quietly  as Simone  rose from the  bed, pulled  her
robe about her, and crossed into the hallway. When she switched on the
light in  the living  room, Simone  saw her  retarded younger  brother
curled up on the sofa.
    "What are you doing here, Benjy?" Simone asked kindly. "You should
be in bed-it's  very, very  late." She stroked  her brother's  anxious
brow.
    "I could not sleep,"  Benjy replied with  effort. "I was  wor-ried
a-bout Ma-ma."
    "She'll be home  soon," Simone  said soothingly.  "She'll be  home
soon."
    Nicole felt a lump in  her throat and a  few tears eased into  her
eyes. She looked over at the Eagle, then at the illuminated  apartment
in front of her, and finally  at the firefly vehicles in the  distance
above her  head. She  took a  deep breath.  "All right,"  Nicole  said
slowly, "I'm ready to do die video."
    "I'm jealous,"  Richard said.  "I  really am.  I would  have  been
willing to trade both my arms for a conversation with that creature."
    "It was  amazing,"  Nicole  said.  "Even  now,  I'm  still  having
difficulty believing that it actually happened. . . .
    194 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE -
    It's also amazing that the Eagle somehow knew how I would  respond
to everything."
    "He was just guessing. He really  could not have expected to  have
solved his problem  with you  that easily.  You didn't  even make  him
answer your question about their need for a reproductive couple. ..."
    "Yes, I did," Nicole  replied somewhat defensively. "He  explained
to me  that human  embryology was  such an  astonishingly  complicated
process that even they couldn't possibly know the exact role played by
a human  mother  without  ever  having  watched  a  fetus  mature  and
develop."
    "I'm sorry,  darling," Richard  said quickly.  "I wasn't  implying
that you really had any choice-"
    "I felt as if they were at least trying to satisfy my objections."
Nicole sighed. "Maybe I'm kidding myself. After all, hi the end I  did
make the video, exactly as they had planned."
    Richard put his arms around Nicole. "As I said, you really had  no
choice, darling. Don't be too hard on yourself."
    Nicole kissed Richard  and sat up  in bed. "But  what if they  are
taking this data so  that they can prepare  an efficient invasion,  or
something like that?"
    "We've  discussed  all  this  before,"  Richard  replied.   "Their
technological capabilities are  so advanced they  could take over  the
Earth in minutes if that was their goal. The Eagle himself has pointed
out that if invasion and  subjugation was their objective, they  could
accomplish it with a far less elaborate procedure."
    "Now who's the trusting one?" Nicole said, managing a smile.
    "Not trusting.  Just  realistic.  I'm  certain  that  the  overall
welfare of  the human  species  is not  a  significant factor  in  the
priority queue of the  Nodal Intelligence. But I  do think you  should
stop worrying about being an accomplice in crime with your video.  The
Eagle is right. Most  likely you have  made the 'acquisition  process'
less difficult for the inhabitants of Earth as well."
    They were silent for a few minutes. "Darling," Nicole
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    195
    said at length. "Why do you think we're not going directly
    to the Earth?"
    "My guess is that we must stop somewhere else first.
    Presumably to pick up another species in the same phase
    of the project as we are."
    "And they will  live in  that other module  inside Rama?"  "That's
what I would assume," Richard replied.
    9
    "he day  of  departure was  January  13, 2215,  according  to  the
calendar that had been fastidiously kept by Richard and/or Nicole ever
since Rama had escaped from the  nuclear phalanx. Of course this  date
didn't really mean anything-except to them. Their long trip to  Sirius
at slightly more man  half the speed of  light had slowed time  inside
Rama, at least relative to the Earth, so the date they were using  was
a complete artifice.  Richard estimated  that the actual  date on  the
Earth, at the time of their departure from the Node, was three to four
years later, in 2217 or 2218. It was impossible for him to compute the
Earth date exactly, since  he did not have  an accurate velocity  time
history from  the  years that  they  had traveled  inside  Rama.  Thus
Richard could only approximate the relativistic corrections  necessary
to transform their own  time basis into the  one being experienced  on
the Earth.
    "The date on  Earth right  now really  has no  significance to  us
anyway," Richard explained to Nicole soon after they had awakened  for
their final day at the Node. "Be-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    197
    sides," he  continued,  "it's  almost  certain  that  we  will  be
returning to our  solar system at  extremely high velocities,  meaning
there will be additional  time dilation before  we rendezvous in  Mars
orbit."
    Nicole had  never  really  understood  relativity-it  was  totally
inconsistent with  her intuition-and  she  certainly wasn't  going  to
spend any energy worrying about it  on her last day before  separating
from Simone and  Michael. She  knew mat  the final  partings would  be
extremely difficult, for everybody, and she wanted to concentrate  all
her resources on those last emotional moments.
    "The Eagle said that he would come for us at eleven," Nicole  said
to Richard  while  they  were  dressing.  "I  was  hoping  that  after
breakfast we could  all sit  together in the  living room.  I want  to
encourage the children to express their feelings."
    Breakfast was light, even cheerful, but when the eight members  of
the family gathered  together in  the living room,  each mindful  that
there were less than two hours  remaining before the Eagle arrived  to
take everyone but Michael and Simone away, the conversation was forced
and strained.
    The newlyweds  sat  together on  the  love seat,  facing  Richard,
Nicole, and the other four  children. Katie, as usual, was  completely
frenetic. She talked constantly. She  jumped from subject to  subject,
steering safely away  from any discussion  of the imminent  departure.
Katie was in the middle of a long monologue about a wild dream she had
had the night before  when her story was  interrupted by the sound  of
two voices coming from the entryway to the master suite.
    "Dammit, Sir John," said the  first variation in Richard's  voice,
"this is our last chance. I'm going out there to say good-bye  whether
you're coming or not."
    "These good-byes, my prince, do wrench  my very soul. I'm not  yet
in my cups enough to deaden the  pain. You yourself said the lass  was
the very apparition of an angel. How can I possibly-"
    "Well, then, I'm going  out there without  you," said Prince  Hal.
All the eyes in the family were on Richard's
    198 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    tiny robot prince  as he came  down the hall  to the living  room.
Falstaff staggered after  him, stopping  every four or  five steps  to
take a drink from his flask.
    Hal walked  over in  front  of Simone.  "Dearest lady,"  he  said,
bending down on one knee, "I cannot find the words to express properly
how much I will  miss seeing your smiling  face. Throughout my  entire
realm, there is not one member of the fairer sex who is your equal  in
beauty-''
    "itounds," Falstaff interrupted,  throwing himself  on both  knees
beside his prince. "Mayhap Sir John has made a mistake. Why am I going
with this motley crew  (he waved his arm  at Richard, Nicole, and  the
other children-all of whom were  smiling broadly) when I could  remain
here, in the presence of such magnificent grace, and only this one old
man for competition? I remember Doll Tearsheet ..."
    While the pair of  twenty-centimeter robots were entertaining  the
family, Benjy rose from his  chair and approached Michael and  Simone.
"Si-mone," he said, fighting back his tears, "I am go-ing to miss you.
I love you." Benjy  paused for a moment,  looking first at Simone  and
then at his father. "I hope that you and Dad-dy will be ve-ry hap-py."
    Simone rose from her  seat and put her  arms around her  trembling
little brother. "Oh,  Benjy, thank you,"  she said. "I  will miss  you
too. And I will carry your spirit with me every day."
    Her embrace was too much for the boy. Benjy's body was wracked  by
sobs and  his  soft, sorrowful  moan  brought  tears to  the  eyes  of
everyone else. Within  moments Patrick had  crawled into his  father's
lap. He  buried his  swollen eyes  in Michael's  chest. "Daddy  . .  .
Daddy," he kept saying over and over.
    A choreographer could not have designed a more beautiful dance  of
good-bye. The radiant Simone, looking somehow still serene despite her
tears, waltzed around the room,  saying a meaningful farewell to  each
and every member of  the family. Michael  O'Toole remained sitting  on
the love seat, with Patrick on his lap and Benjy beside
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    199
    him. His  eyes brimmed  repeatedly  as one  by one  the  departing
family members came to him for a final embrace.
    / want to  remember this  moment forever.  There is  so much  love
here, Nicole said to herself as  she glanced around the room.  Michael
was holding little  Ellie in his  arms; Simone was  telling Katie  how
much she would miss their talks  together. For once even Katie was  in
emotional knots-she was  surprisingly silent when  Simone walked  back
across the room to rejoin her husband.
    Michael gently  lifted  Patrick off  his  lap and  took  Si-mone's
extended hand. The two of them turned toward the others and dropped to
their knees, their  hands clasped  in prayer.  "Our heavenly  Father,"
Michael said in a  strong voice. He paused  for several seconds  while
the rest of the family, even  Richard, knelt beside the couple on  the
floor.
    "We thank  Thee for  having allowed  us the  joyful love  of  this
wonderful  family.  We  thank  Thee  also  for  having  shown  us  Thy
miraculous handiwork  throughout  the  universe.  At  this  moment  we
beseech thee, if it be Thy will, to look after each of us as we go our
separate ways. We know not if it is  in Thy plan for us once again  to
share the camaraderie and love that has uplifted all of us. Stay  with
us all, wherever our  paths take us in  Thy amazing creation, and  let
us, O Lord,  someday be  joined together  again-in this  world or  the
next. Amen."
    Seconds later the doorbell rang. The Eagle had arrived.
    Nicole left the house, purposely designed as a smaller version  of
her family villa  at Beauvois in  France, and walked  down the  narrow
lane in the  direction of the  station. She passed  other houses,  all
dark and empty, and tried to imagine  what it would be like when  they
were full  of people.  My life  has been  like a  dream, she  said  to
herself. Surely no human has ever had a more varied experience.
    Some of the houses cast shadows  on the lane as the simulated  Sun
completed  its  arc  in  the  ceiling  far  above  her  head.  Another
remarkable world, Nicole mused, surveying the village in the southeast
corner of New Eden.
    200 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    The Eagle  was correct  when  he said  that the  habitat'would  be
indistinguishable from Earth.
    For a fleeting moment  Nicole thought of  mat blue, oceanic  world
nine light-years away. In her  mental picture she was standing  beside
Janos Tabori,  thirteen years  earlier, as  the Newton  spaceship  had
pulled away from  LEO-3. "That's Budapest,"  Janos had said,  circling
with his fingers a specific feature on the lighted globe shimmering in
the observation window.
    Nicole had men located Beauvois,  or at least the general  region,
by backtracking up  the Loire  River from  where it  emptied into  the
Atlantic. "My home is just about here," she had said to Janos.  "Maybe
my father and daughter are looking in this direction right now."
    Genevieve, Nicole  thought as  the  brief recollection  faded,  my
Genevieve. You  would  be  a  young  woman  now.  Almost  thirty.  She
continued to walk slowly down the lane near her new house in the Earth
habitat inside  Rama.  Thinking  of her  first  daughter  made  Nicole
remember a short  conversation she  had had  with the  Eagle during  a
break in the video recording at the Node.
    "Will I be able to see my daughter Genevieve while we are close to
the Earth?" Nicole had asked.
    "We don't know," the Eagle  had replied after a short  hesitation.
"It depends  entirely  on  how  your fellow  humans  respond  to  your
message. You yourself will stay  inside Rama, even if the  contingency
plans are invoked, but it is  possible that your daughter will be  one
of the two thousand who  come from Earth to live  in New Eden. It  has
happened before, with other spacefarers."
    "And what  about Simone?"  Nicole  had asked  when the  Eagle  was
finished. "Will I ever see her again?"
    "That is more difficult to answer," the Eagle had replied.  "There
are many, many factors involved." The alien creature had stared at his
despondent human friend. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Wakefield," he had said.
    One daughter left on Earth. Another in an alien space world almost
a hundred trillion kilometers away. And I will be somewhere else.  Who
knows where? Nicole was feeling extremely lonely. She stopped her walk
and focused her eyes on the scene around her. She was standing
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    201
    beside a  circular  area in  the  village park.  Inside  the  rock
circumference  was  a  slide,   a  sandbox,  a   jungle  gym,  and   a
merry-go-round-a perfect playground for Earth children. Underneath her
feet, the network of GEDs  was interleaved throughout the portions  of
the park that would eventually contain the grasses brought from Earth.
    Nicole bent down to examine  the individual gas exchange  devices.
They were compact  round objects,  only two  centimeters in  diameter.
There were several thousand of them  arrayed in rows and columns  that
crisscrossed the park. Electronic  plants, Nicole thought.  Converting
carbon dioxide  to  oxygen.  Making  it possible  for  us  animals  to
survive.
    In her mind's eye Nicole could see the park with grass, trees, and
lilies in the small pond, just  as it had appeared in the  holographic
image in the  conference room at  the Node. But  even though she  knew
that Rama was  returning to  the solar  system to  ' 'acquire''  human
beings who would  fill up  this technological paradise,  it was  still
difficult for her to imagine this  park teeming with children. /  have
not seen another human being, except for my family, in almost fourteen
years.
    Nicole left  the  park  and  continued  toward  the  station.  The
residential houses that had lined  the narrow lanes were now  replaced
by row buildings containing what  would eventually be small shops.  Of
course they were all empty,  as was the large, rectangular  structure,
destined to be a supermarket, that was right opposite the station.
    She walked through the gate and  boarded the waiting train in  the
front, just behind the control cab that was manned by a Benita  Garcia
robot. "Almost dark," Nicole said out loud.
    "Eighteen more minutes," the robot replied.
    "How long to the somnarium?" Nicole asked.
    "The ride  to Grand  Central Station  takes ten  minutes,"  Benita
answered as the  train left the  southeast station. "Then  you have  a
two-minute walk."
    Nicole had known the answer to  her question. She had just  wanted
to  hear  another  voice.  This  was  her  second  day  alone,  and  a
conversation with a Garcia robot was better than talking to herself.
    202 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE '
    The train ride took her from the southeast corner of the colony to
its  geographic  center.  Along  the   way,  Nicole  could  see   Lake
Shakespeare on the left-hand side of the train and the slopes of Mount
Olympus (which were covered with  more GEDs) on the right.  Electronic
message monitors  inside the  train  displayed information  about  the
sights that were being passed, the time of day, and the distance  that
had been traveled.
    You and the  Eagle did  a good job  on this  train system,  Nicole
thought, thinking of her  husband Richard, now  asleep along with  all
the other members of her family. Soon I will be joining you in the big
round room.
    The somnarium  was, in  reality,  just an  extension of  the  main
hospital that was located  about two hundred  meters from the  central
train station. After leaving the  train and walking past the  library,
Nicole entered the hospital, walked  through it, and then reached  the
somnarium through  a long  tunnel. The  rest of  her family  were  all
asleep in a large, circular  room on the second  floor. Each was in  a
"berth" along the  wall, a long,  coffinlike contraption  hermetically
sealed against the outside environment. Only their faces were  visible
through the small windows near their heads. As she had been trained to
do by  the Eagle,  Nicole examined  the monitors  containing the  data
about the physical condition  of her husband,  two daughters, and  two
sons.  Everybody  was  fine.  There   were  not  even  any  hints   of
irregularities.
    Nicole stopped and gazed longingly at each of her loved ones. This
was to  be her  last  inspection. According  to the  procedure,  since
everyone's critical parameters were well within tolerances, it was now
time for Nicole to go to sleep herself. It could be many years  before
she saw any of her family again.
    Dear, dear Benjy. Nicole sighed as she studied her retarded son in
repose. Of all of us, this break  in life will be the hardest on  you.
Katie, Patrick, and Elite will catch up quickly. Their minds are quick
and agile.  But you  will miss  the  years that  might have  made  you
independent.
    The berths were  held out from  the circular wall  by what  looked
like wrought-iron metalwork. Hie distance  from the head of one  berth
to the foot of the next was only
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    203
    about a meter and a half. Nicole's empty berth was in the  middle;
Richard and men Katie were behind her head; Patrick, Benjy, and  Ellie
were at her feet.
    She lingered for  several minutes beside  Richard's berth. He  had
been the last to go  to sleep, two days  before. As he had  requested,
Prince Hal and  FalstafT were  lying on  his chest  inside the  sealed
container. Those final three days were wonderful, my love, Nicole said
to herself as she stared at her husband's expressionless face  through
the window. / could not have asked for more.
    They had swum  and even water-skied  in Lake Shakespeare,  climbed
Mount Olympus, and made love whenever  either one of them had had  the
slightest inclination. They had  clung to each  other all through  one
night in the big bed in their new home. Richard and Nicole had checked
on the sleeping children, once each day, but had mostly used the  time
for a thorough exploration of their new realm.
    It had been  an exciting,  emotional time.  Richard's last  words,
before Nicole activated the  system that put him  to sleep, were  "You
are a magnificent woman and I love you very much."
    Now it was Nicole's turn.  She could procrastinate no longer.  She
climbed into her berth, as she  had practiced many times during  their
first week inside New Eden, and  flipped all the switches except  one.
The foam around her was unbelievably comfortable. The top of the berth
closed over her head. She had only  to trip the final switch to  bring
the sleeping gas into her compartment.
    She sighed deeply. As Nicole was lying on her back, she remembered
the dream she had  had about Sleeping Beauty  during one of her  final
tests at the Node. Her mind then plunged backward to her childhood, to
those wonderful weekends she  had spent with  her father watching  the
Sleeping Beauty pageants at the Chateau d'Uss6.
    That's a  nice  way  to  go, she  said  to  herself,  feeling  her
drowsiness as the gas crept into  her berth. Thinking that it will  be
some Prince Charming who will awaken me.
    RENDEZVOUS AT MARS
    1
    M
    irs. Wakefield."  llhe voice  seemed far,  far away.  It  intruded
gently into her consciousness but did not quite awaken her from sleep.
    "Mrs. Wakefield."
    This time it  was louder.  Nicole tried  to recall  where she  was
before opening her eyes. She shifted her body and the foam  reoriented
itself to provide  maximum comfort.  Slowly her memory  began to  send
signals to the remainder of her brain. New Eden. Inside Rama. Back  to
the solar system, she recalled. Is this all just a dream?
    She finally opened  her eyes. Nicole  had difficulty focusing  for
several seconds.  At  length  the figure  bending  over  her  resolved
itself. It was her mother, dressed in a nurse's uniform!
    "Mrs. Wakefield," the voice said. "It  is now time to wake up  and
prepare for the rendezvous."
    For a moment Nicole was in a  state of shock. Where was she?  What
was her  mother  doing here?  Then  she remembered.  The  robots,  she
thought. Mother is one of
    208 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE ,
    the five kinds of human robots. An Anawi Tiasso robot is a  health
and fitness specialist.
    The robot's  helping arm  steadied Nicole  as she  sat up  in  her
berth. The room had not changed during the long time that she had been
asleep. "Where are we?" Nicole asked  as she prepared to climb out  of
the berth.
    "We have completed the major deceleration profile and entered your
solar  system,"  the  jet-black  Anawi  Tiasso  replied.  "Mars  orbit
insertion will be in six months."
    Her muscles did not  seem at all strange.  Before Nicole had  left
the Node,  the  Eagle had  informed  her  that each  of  the  sleeping
compartments included  special electronic  components that  would  not
only regularly exercise  the muscles and  other biological systems  to
preclude any atrophy,  but also monitor  the health of  all the  vital
organs. Nicole stepped down the ladder. When she reached the floor she
stretched.
    "How do you feel?" asked the robot. She was Anawi Tiasso #017. Her
number was prominently displayed on the right shoulder of her uniform.
    "Not bad," answered  Nicole. "Not  bad, 017,"  she repeated  while
examining the robot. It did  look remarkably like her mother.  Richard
and she had seen all the prototypes before they had left the Node, but
only the  Benita Garcias  had been  operational during  the two  weeks
before they went to  sleep. All the  rest of the  New Eden robots  had
been built and tested during the long flight. It really does look just
like mother, Nicole mused, admiring the handiwork of the unknown Raman
artists. They made all the changes to the prototype that / suggested.
    In the distance  she heard  footsteps coming  toward them.  Nicole
turned around.  Approaching  them  was a  second  Anawi  Tiasso,  also
dressed in the white uniform of a nurse. "Number 009 has been assigned
to help with the initialization  procedure as well," the Tiasso  robot
beside her said.
    "Assigned by  whom?"  Nicole  asked, struggling  to  remember  her
discussions with the Eagle about the wake-up procedure.
    "By the preprogrammed mission plan," #017 replied.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    209
    "Once all you  humans are alive  and alert, we  will take all  our
instructions from you."
    Richard woke up more rapidly  but was quite clumsy descending  the
short ladder. It was necessary for  the two Tiassos to support him  to
prevent his falling. Richard  was clearly delighted  to see his  wife.
After a long hug and a kiss, he stared at Nicole for several  seconds.
"You look none  the worse for  wear," he said  jokingly. "The gray  in
your hair has spread, but there are still healthy clutches of black in
isolated spots."
    Nicole smiled. It was great to be talking to Richard again.
    "By the way," he asked a second  later, "how long did we spend  in
those crazy coffins?"
    Nicole shrugged her  shoulders. "I don't  know," she answered.  "I
haven't asked yet. The first thing I did was wake you up."
    Richard turned to  the two Tiassos.  "Do you fine  women know  how
long it has been since we left the Node?"
    "You have slept  for nineteen  years of  traveler's time,"  Tiasso
#009 replied.
    "What does she mean, traveler's time?" Nicole asked.
    Richard smiled. "That's  a relativistic  expression, darling,"  he
said.  "Time  doesn't  mean  anything  unless  you  have  a  frame  of
reference. Inside Rama  nineteen years  have passed,  but those  years
only pertain to-"
    "Don't bother," Nicole interrupted. "I didn't sleep all this  time
to wake up to  a relativity lesson.  You can explain  it to me  later,
over dinner. Meanwhile, we have a more important issue. In what  order
should we awaken the children?"
    "I have a different suggestion," Richard replied after a  moment's
hesitation. "I  know  you're eager  to  see  the children.  So  am  I.
However, why  don't we  let  them sleep  for  several more  hours?  It
certainly won't hurt them. . . . And you and I have a lot to  discuss.
We can begin our preparations for the rendezvous, outline what we  are
going to do about the children's  education, maybe even take a  moment
or two to become reacquainted ourselves."
    Nicole was anxious to talk to the children, but the logi-
    210 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    cal part of her mind could see the merit in Richard's  suggestion.
The family had developed only a rudimentary plan for what would happen
after they  woke up,  primarily because  the Eagle  had insisted  that
there were too many uncertainties  to specify the conditions  exactly.
It would be much easier to  do some planning before the children  were
awake.
    "All right," Nicole said at length, "as long as I know for certain
that everyone is all right." She glanced over at the first Tiasso.
    "All the  monitor  data  indicates  that  each  of  your  children
survived the sleep period without any significant irregularities," the
biot said.
    Nicole turned back to Richard  and carefully studied his face.  It
had aged a little, but not as much as she had expected.
    "Where's your beard?" she blurted out suddenly, realizing that his
face was strangely clean-shaven.
    "We shaved the  men yesterday  while they  were sleeping,"  Tiasso
#009 replied.  "We  also cut  everybody's  hair and  gave  everyone  a
bath-in accordance with the preprogrammed mission plan."
    The men? Nicole thought. She  was momentarily puzzled. Of  course,
she said to herself. Benjy and Patrick are now men!
    She took Richard's hand and they walked quickly over to  Patrick's
berth. The face she saw through the window was astonishing. Her little
Patrick was no longer a boy. His features had lengthened  considerably
and the rounded contours of his face had disappeared. Nicole stared at
her son silently for over a minute.
    "His age equivalence is sixteen or seventeen," Tiasso #017 said in
response to Nicole's questioning glance. "Mr. Benjamin O'Toole remains
a  year  and   a  half  older.   Of  course,  these   ages  are   only
approximations. As the Eagle explained before your departure from  the
Node, we have been  able to retard somewhat  the key aging enzymes  in
each of you-but not all at the same rate. When we say that Mr. Patrick
O'Toole is sixteen  or seventeen  now, we  are referring  only to  his
personal, internal biological
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    21 1
    clock. The age quoted is some  kind of average across his  growth,
maturation, and subsystem aging processes."
    Nicole and Richard stopped at each of the other berths and  stared
for several minutes  through the windows  at their sleeping  children.
Nicole repeatedly  shook  her head  in  bewilderment. "Where  have  my
babies gone?" she said after seeing that even little Ellie had  become
a teenager during the long voyage.
    "We knew this  would happen," Richard  commented without  emotion,
not helping the mother in Nicole cope with the sense of loss that  she
was feeling.
    "Knowing it  is  one  thing,"  said Nicole.  "But  seeing  it  and
experiencing it is another. This is not a case of a typical mother who
suddenly realizes  her boys  and girls  have all  grown up.  What  has
happened to our children is truly staggering. Then- mental and  social
development has been interrupted for the equivalence of ten to  twelve
years. We now have small children walking around in adult bodies.  How
can we prepare them to meet other humans in just six months?"
    Nicole was  overwhelmed. Had  some part  of her  not believed  the
Eagle when he had  described what was going  to happen to her  family?
Perhaps. It was one  more unbelievable event in  a life that had  long
been beyond  comprehension. But  as their  mother, Nicole  thought  to
herself, / have much to do and  almost no time. Why didn't I plan  for
all this before we left the Node?
    While Nicole was struggling  with her powerful emotional  response
to seeing her children  suddenly grown, Richard  chatted with the  two
Tiassos. They  easily answered  all his  questions. He  was  extremely
impressed with their capabilities, both  physical and mental. "Do  all
of you have such a wealth of information stored in your memories?"  he
asked the robots in the middle of their conversation.
    "Only we Tiassos have the detailed historical health data on  your
family," #009 replied.  "But all  the human  biots can  access a  wide
range of basic  facts. However,  a portion  of mat  knowledge will  be
removed at the moment of first contact with other humans. At that time
the mem-
    212 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    ory devices of all biot types will be partially purged. Any  event
or piece of data pertaining to the Eagle, the Node, or any  situations
that transpired before you awakened will not remain in our data  bases
after we rendezvous with the  other humans. Only your personal  health
information will be  available from that  earlier time period-and  mis
data will be localized in the Tiassos."
    Nicole had already been thinking  about the Node before this  last
comment. "Are  you still  in  contact with  the Eagle?"  she  suddenly
asked.
    "No." It was  Tiasso #017 who  replied this time.  "It is safe  to
assume that the Eagle,  or at least some  representative of the  Nodal
Intelligence, is  periodically monitoring  our mission,  but there  is
never any interaction with  Rama once it leaves  the Hangar. You,  we,
Rama-we are on our own until the mission objectives are fulfilled."
    Katie stood in  front of  the full-length mirror  and studied  her
naked body. Even after a month it  was still new to her. She loved  to
touch herself.  She especially  liked to  run her  fingers across  her
breasts and watch her  nipples swell in  response to the  stimulation.
Katie liked it even  more at night when  she was alone underneath  the
sheets. Then she could rub  herself everywhere until waves of  tingles
rolled across her body and she wanted to cry out from pleasure.
    Her mother had explained  the phenomenon to her  but had seemed  a
little uncomfortable when Katie had wanted to discuss it a second  and
a third time. "Masturbation is a very private affair, darling," Nicole
had said in a low voice  one night before dinner, "and generally  only
discussed, if at all, with one's closest friends."
    EUie was  no  help. Katie  had  never seen  her  sister  examining
herself, not  even once.  She probably  doesn't do  it at  all,  Katie
thought. And she certainly doesn't want to talk about it.
    "Are you through in the shower?"  Katie heard Ellie call from  the
next room. Each of the girls had her own bedroom, but they shared  the
bath.
    "Yes," Katie shouted in response.
    Ellie came into the bathroom, modestly wrapped in a
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    213
    towel, and glanced briefly at her sister standing completely naked
in front of the mirror. The younger girl started to say something, but
apparently changed her  mind, for  she dropped the  towel and  stepped
gingerly into the shower.
    Katie watched Ellie through the transparent door. She looked first
at Ellie's  body, and  then  glanced in  the mirror,  comparing  every
possible anatomical feature.  Katie preferred  her own  face and  skin
color-she was by far the lightest member of the family other than  her
father-but Ellie had a superior figure.
    "Why do  I have  such  a boyish  shape?"  Katie asked  Nicole  one
evening two weeks  later after  Katie had finished  reading through  a
data cube containing some ^very old fashion magazines.
    "I can't explain exactly," Nicole replied, looking up from her own
reading. "Genetics  is a  wonderfully  complicated subject,  far  more
complex than Gregor Mendel originally thought.''
    Nicole laughed at herself, realizing immediately that Katie  could
not possibly  have understood  what she  had just  said. "Katie,"  she
continued in  a  less  pedantic  tone,  '  'each  child  is  a  unique
combination  of  the  characteristics   of  her  two  parents.   These
identifying characteristics  are  stored in  molecules  called  genes.
There are literally billions of different ways the genes from one pair
of parents can express themselves.  That's why children from the  same
parents are not all identical."
    Katie's brow furrowed. She had been expecting a different kind  of
answer.  Nicole  quickly  understood.   "Besides,"  she  added  in   a
comforting  tone,  "your  figure  is  really  not  'boyish'  at   all.
'Athletic' would be a more descriptive word."
    "At any rate,"  Katie rejoined,  pointing at her  sister, who  was
studying hard over  in the  corner of  the family  room, "I  certainly
don't look like Ellie. Her  body is really attractive-her breasts  are
even larger and rounder than yours."
    Nicole laughed naturally.  "Ellie does have  an imposing  figure,"
she said. "But yours  is just as  good-it's simply different."  Nicole
returned to her reading, thinking the conversation was over.
    214 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "They don't have many  women with my kind  of figure in these  old
magazines," Katie persisted after a short silence. She was holding  up
her electronic notebook,  but Nicole was  no longer paying  attention.
"You know, Mother," her  daughter then said, "I  think that the  Eagle
made some kind of  mistake with the  controls in my  berth. I think  I
must have received some of the hormones that were meant for Patrick or
Benjy."
    "Katie, darling,"  Nicole  replied,  finally  realizing  that  her
daughter was obsessed with her  figure, "it is virtually certain  that
you have  become  the person  your  genes  were programmed  to  be  at
conception. You are a  lovely, intelligent young  woman. You would  be
happier if  you spent  your time  thinking about  your many  excellent
attributes, instead of finding an imperfection in yourself and wishing
to be somebody different."
    Since  they   had   awakened,  many   of   their   mother-daughter
conversations had had a similar pattern. To Katie, it seemed that  her
mother did not try to understand her and was too ready with a  lecture
and/or an epigram. "There's far more  to life than just feeling  good"
was a regular  refrain that resounded  in Katie's ears.  On the  other
hand, her mother's praise for  Ellie seemed effusive to Katie.  "Ellie
is such a good  student, even though she  started so late," "Ellie  is
always helpful without our asking her," or "Why can't you be a  little
more patient with Benjy, like Ellie is?"
    First Simone and now Ellie, Katie said to herself as she lay naked
in bed late one night after she  and her sister had quarreled and  her
mother had reprimanded only her. I've never had a chance with  Mother.
We're just too different. I might as well stop trying.
    Her fingers  roamed over  her body,  stimulating her  desire,  and
Katie sighed in anticipation.  At least, she  thought, there are  some
things that I don't need Mother for.
    "Richard," Nicole said one evening in bed when they were only  six
weeks away from Mars.
    "Mmmrnm," he responded slowly. He had been almost asleep.
    "I'm concerned about Katie," she said. "I'm happy
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    21 5
    with the progress the other children are making-especially  Benjy,
bless his heart. But I have real worries about Katie."
    "What exactly is it that's bothering you?" Richard said,  propping
himself up on one elbow.
    "Her attitudes,  mostly. Katie  is incredibly  self-centered.  She
also has a quick temper and is impatient with the other children, even
Patrick, who absolutely adores her. She  argues with me all the  time,
often when it's a nonsensical dispute. And I think she spends far  too
many hours alone in her room."
    "She's just bored," Richard replied. "Remember, Nicole, physically
she's a  young woman  in her  early twenties.  She should  be  dating,
asserting her independence. There's really nobody here who is a  peer.
. .  .  And  you  must  admit that  sometimes  we  treat  her  like  a
twelve-year-old."
    Nicole did not say anything.  Richard leaned over and touched  her
arm. "We've always known  that Katie was the  most high-strung of  the
children. Unfortunately, she's a lot like me."
    "But at least you channel  your energy into worthwhile  projects,"
Nicole said. "Katie is as likely to be destructive as constructive.  .
. .  Really, Richard,  I wish  you would  talk to  her. Otherwise  I'm
afraid we're  going  to have  big  problems  when we  meet  the  other
humans."
    "What do you want me to say to her?" Richard replied after a short
silence. "That life is not just one excitement after another? And  why
should I ask  her not to  retreat into  her fantasy world  in her  own
room? It's  probably  more interesting  there.  Unfortunately  there's
nothing very exciting for  a young woman anywhere  in New Eden at  the
present time."
    "I had hoped  you would  be a little  more understanding,"  Nicole
replied, slightly miffed. "I need your  help, Richard . . . and  Katie
responds better to you."
    Again Richard  was  silent. "All  right,"  he said  finally  in  a
frustrated tone.  He  lay back  down  in  the bed.  "I'll  take  Katie
waterskiing tomorrow-she loves that-and  at least ask  her to be  more
considerate of the other members of the family."
    216 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Very good. Excellent," Richard said, finishing his reading of die
material in Patrick's notebook. He switched off the power and  glanced
over at  his son,  who was  sitting somewhat  nervously in  the  chair
opposite  Richard.  "You  have   learned  algebra  quickly,"   Richard
continued. "You are definitely gifted  in mathematics. By the time  we
have other people in New Eden, you will be almost ready for university
courses-at least in mathematics and science."
    "But Mother  says I'm  still way  behind in  my English,"  Patrick
replied. "She says that my compositions are those of a young child."
    Nicole overheard the conversation and walked in from the  kitchen.
"Patrick, darling,  Garcia #041  says  that you  do not  take  writing
seriously. I know that  you cannot learn  everything overnight, but  1
don't want you to be embarrassed when we meet the other humans."
    "But I  like math  and science  better," Patrick  protested.  "Our
Einstein robot  says he  could  teach me  calculus  in three  or  four
weeks-if I didn't have so many other subjects to study.".
    The front door  suddenly opened  and Katie and  Ellie breezed  in.
Katie's face was bright and alive. "Sorry we're late," she said,  "but
we have had  a big  day." She  turned to  Patrick. "I  drove the  boat
across Lake Shakespeare by myself. We left the Garcia on the shore."
    Ellie was  not nearly  as ecstatic  as her  sister. In  fact,  she
looked a little peaked. "Are you all right, dear?" Nicole said quietly
to her  younger daughter  while Katie  was regaling  the rest  of  the
family with her tales of their adventure on the lake.
    Ellie nodded and didn't say anything.
    "What was really exciting," Katie enthused, "was crossing over our
own waves at high speeds. Bam-bam-bam,  we bounced from wave to  wave.
Sometimes I felt as if we were flying."
    "Those boats are not toys," Nicole commented a few moments  later.
She motioned for everyone to come to the dinner table. Benjy, who  had
been in the  kitchen picking at  the salad with  his fingers, was  the
last to sit down.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    21 7
    "What would you have done if the boat had capsized?" Nicole  asked
Katie when everyone was seated.
    "The Garcias would  have rescued us,"  Katie answered  flippantly.
"There were three of them watching us from the shore. . . . After all,
that's what they're for. Besides, we were wearing life vests and I can
swim anyway."
    "But your sister can't," Nicole  replied quickly, a critical  tone
in her voice. "And you know she  would have been terrified if she  had
been thrown into the lake."
    Katie started to  argue, but  Richard interceded  and changed  the
subject before the conflict escalated. In truth, the entire family was
edgy. Rama had gone  into orbit around Mars  a month earlier and  mere
was still no sign of the contingent from Earth mat they were  supposed
to meet. Nicole had  always assumed that  their rendezvous with  their
fellow humans would take place immediately after Mars orbit insertion.
    After dinner, the  family went out  into Richard's small  backyard
observatory to look  at Mars. The  observatory had access  to all  the
external sensors on Rama (but none of the internal ones outside of New
Eden-the Eagle had been very  firm about this particular point  during
their design discussions) and could present a splendid telescopic view
of the Red Planet for part of each Martian day.
    Benjy especially  liked the  observing sessions  with Richard.  He
proudly pointed out  the volcanoes  in the Tharsis  region, the  great
canyon called Valles Marineris,  and the Chryse  area where the  first
Viking spacecraft had  landed over  two hundred years  before. A  dust
storm was just forming  south of Mutch Station,  the hub of the  large
Martian colony that had  been abandoned in  the fitful days  following
the Great Chaos. Richard speculated that the dust might spread  across
the entire  planet since  it was  the proper  season for  such  global
storms.
    "What happens if the other Earthlings don't show up?" Katie  asked
during a  quiet  point in  their  Martian observations.  "And  Mother,
please give  us a  straight answer  this time.  After all,  we're  not
children anymore."
    Nicole ignored  the challenging  tone in  Katie's comment.  "If  I
remember correctly, the baseline plan is for us to
    218 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    wait here in Mars orbit for six months," she replied. "If there is
no rendezvous during that time, Rama will head for Earth." She  paused
for several  seconds.  "Neither  your  father  nor  I  know  what  the
procedure will be from that point  forward. The Eagle told us that  if
any of the contingency plans are invoked, we will be told at the  time
as much as we are required to know."
    The room  was quiet  for  almost a  minute  as images.of  Mars  at
different resolutions appeared on the giant screen on the wall. "Where
is Earth?" Benjy then asked.
    "It's the planet  just inside  Mars, the  next one  closer to  the
Sun," Richard answered. "Remember, I  showed you the planetary  lineup
in the subroutine in my computer."
    "That's not what I meant," Benjy answered very slowly. "I want  to
see Earth."
    It was a simple enough request. It had never occurred to  Richard,
although he  had brought  the family  out to  the observatory  several
times before, that  the children  might be interested  in that  barely
blue light in  the Martian night  sky. "Earth is  not very  impressive
from this  distance," Richard  said, interrogating  his data  base  to
obtain the right sensor  output. "In fact, it  looks pretty much  like
any other bright object, such as Sinus, for example."
    Richard had missed the point. Once he had identified the Earth  in
a specific celestial  frame and  then centered the  image around  that
apparently insignificant reflection, the children all stared with rapt
attention.
    That is  their  home planet.  Nicole  thought, fascinated  by  the
sudden change of mood  in the room. Even  though they have never  been
there. Pictures of the Earth from her memory flooded Nicole as she too
stared at the tiny light in the center of the image. She became  aware
of a profound  homesickness deep within  her, a longing  to return  to
that blessed, oceanic planet rilled with so much beauty. Tears swelled
into her eyes as she moved up closer to her children and put her  arms
around them.
    "Wherever we go in this amazing universe," she said softly,  "both
now and in the future, that blue speck will always be our home."
    2
    N:
    Iai  Buatong  rose  in  the  predawn  dark.  She  slipped  into  a
sleeveless cotton  dress,  stopped  briefly to  pay  respects  to  her
personal Buddha in the family's hawng pro adjacent to the living room,
and then opened  the front door  without disturbing any  of the  other
members of the  family. The  summer air was  soft. In  the breeze  she
could smell flowers mixed with Thai spices-someone was already cooking
breakfast in the neighborhood.
    Her sandals  made no  sound  on the  soft  dirt lane.  Nai  walked
slowly, her head turning  from right to left,  her eyes absorbing  all
the familiar shadows that  would soon be only  memories. My last  day,
she thought. It has finally come.
    After a few minutes, she turned  right onto the paved street  that
led to  the small  Lamphun business  district. An  occasional  bicycle
passed her, but the morning was  mostly quiet. None of the shops  were
yet open.
    As she approached a temple, Nai passed two Buddhist monks, one  on
either side  of  the  road. Each  of  the  monks was  dressed  in  the
customary saffron robe and was car-
    220 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    rying a large metal urn. They were seeking their breakfasts,  just
as they did every  morning throughout Thailand,  and were counting  on
the generosity of the  townspeople of Lamphun. A  woman appeared in  a
shop doorway right in front of Nai and dropped some food in the monk's
urn. No words were exchanged and the monk's expression did not visibly
alter to acknowledge the donation.
    They own nothing, Nai  mused to herself, not  even the robes  upon
their backs.  And yet  they're happy.  She recited  quickly the  basic
tenet, "The cause of suffering is desire," and recalled the incredible
wealth of her new husband's family in the Higashiyama district on  the
edge of Kyoto, Japan. Kenji says his mother has everything but  peace.
It eludes her because she cannot buy it.
    For a moment the recent memory of the grand house of the Watanabes
filled her mind, pushing aside the image of the simple Thai road along
which she was walking. Nai had been overwhelmed by the opulence of the
Kyoto mansion. But it had  not been a friendly  place for her. It  had
been immediately  obvious  that  Kenji's  parents  viewed  her  as  an
interloper, an inferior  foreigner who had  married then- son  without
their support. They had not been unkind, just cold. They had dissected
her with questions  about her family  and educational background  that
had been delivered with emotionless  and logical precision. Kenji  had
later comforted Nai by pointing out that his family would not be  with
them on Mars.
    She stopped in  the street  in Lamphun  and looked  across at  the
temple of  Queen  Chamatevi. It  was  Nai's favorite  place  in  town,
probably her favorite place  in all of Thailand.  Parts of the  temple
were fifteen hundred years old; its silent stone sentinels had seen  a
history so  different from  the present  that it  might as  well  have
occurred on another planet.
    Nai crossed the street and stood in the courtyard, just inside the
temple walls.  It  was an  unusually  clear morning.  Just  above  the
uppermost chedi of  the old Thai  temple a strong  light shone in  the
dark morning  sky. Nai  realized that  the light  was Mars,  her  next
destination. The juxtaposition was  perfect. For all twenty-six  years
of her life (except for the four years she had spent at the University
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    221
    of Chiang Mai) this town of Lamphun had been her home. Within  six
weeks she would be  onboard a giant spaceship  that would take her  to
her living quarters for the next five years, in a space colony on  the
red planet.
    Nai sat down in the lotus position in a comer of the courtyard and
stared fixedly at  that light in  the sky. How  fitting, she  thought,
that Mars is looking down on  me this morning. She began the  rhythmic
breathing that was the prelude for her morning meditation. But as  she
was preparing for the peace and  calm that usually "centered" her  for
the day  ahead,  Nai recognized  that  there were  many  powerful  and
unresolved emotions inside her.
    First  1  must  reflect,  Nai  thought,  deciding  to  forgo   her
meditation temporarily. On  this, my  last day  at home,  I must  make
peace with the events that have changed my life completely.
    Eleven  months  earlier  Nai  Buatong  had  been  sitting  in  the
identical spot,  her French  and English  lesson cubes  neatly  packed
beside her in a carrying case.  Nai had been planning to organize  her
material for the coming school term, determined that she was going  to
be more interesting and energetic as a high school language teacher.
    Before she  had started  working on  her lesson  outlines on  that
fateful day  the previous  year, Nai  had read  the daily  Chiang  Mai
newspaper. Slipping the cube into her reader, she had flipped  quickly
through the pages, scarcely  reading more than  the headlines. On  the
back page there had been a notice, written in English, that had caught
her eye.
    Doctor, Nurse, Teacher, Farmer
    Are you adventurous, multilingual, healthy?
    The  International  Space  Agency   (ISA)  is  mounting  a   major
expedition  to  recolonize  Mars.  Outstanding  individuals  with  the
critical skills defined above are sought for a five-year assignment in
the colony. Personal interviews will be  held in Chiang Mai on  Monday
August 23, 2244. Pay and benefits are exceptional. Applications may be
requested from Thai Telemail #462-62-4930.
    222 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    When she had first submitted her  application to the ISA, Nai  had
not thought that her  chances were very high.  She had been  virtually
certain that  she would  not pass  the first  screening and  therefore
would not  even qualify  for  the personal  interview. Nai  was  quite
surprised, in fact, when six weeks later she received a notice in  her
electronic mailbox that  she had been  provisionally selected for  the
interviews. The  notice  also  informed Nai  that,  according  to  the
procedure, she should ask whatever  personal questions she might  have
by mail first, before the interview.  The ISA stressed that they  only
wanted to interview  those candidates  who intended to  accept, if  an
assignment in the Martian colony were to be offered.
    Nai  responded  by  telemail  with  a  single  question.  Could  a
significant portion of her  earnings while she was  living on Mars  be
directed to a  bank on  Earth? She added  that this  was an  essential
precondition for her acceptance.
    Ten days later another electronic mail notice arrived. It was very
succinct. Yes, the message  said, a portion of  her earnings could  be
regularly sent to a  bank on Earth. However,  it continued, Nai  would
have  to   be   absolutely  certain   about   her  division   of   the
monies-whatever split a colonist decided on could not be changed after
he or she left the Earth.
    Because the cost of living in Lamphun was low, the salary  offered
by the ISA  for a language  teacher in the  Martian colony was  almost
double what Nai needed to handle all her family obligations. The young
woman was heavily burdened with responsibility. She was the only  wage
earner in  a family  of  five mat  included  her invalid  father,  her
mother, and her two younger sisters.
    Her childhood had been  difficult, but her  family had managed  to
survive just above the  poverty line. During Nai's  final year at  the
university, however, disaster had struck.  First her father had had  a
debilitating  stroke.  Then  her  mother,  whose  business  sense  was
nonexistent, had ignored the recommendations of family and friends and
had tried to manage the small family  craft shop on her own. Within  a
year the family had lost everything and Nai was forced not only to use
her personal savings to provide food and clothing for her family,  but
also to abandon her
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    223
    dream of  doing  literary translation  work  for one  of  the  big
publishing houses in Bangkok.
    Nai taught school during the week  and was a tourist guide on  the
weekend. On the Saturday before the ISA interview, Nai was  conducting
a tour in Chiang  Mai, thirty kilometers from  her home. In her  group
were several Japanese, one  of whom was  a handsome, articulate  young
man in his  early thirties who  spoke practically unaccented  English.
His  name  was  Kenji  Watanabe.  He  paid  very  close  attention  to
everything Nai  said,  always  asked intelligent  questions,  and  was
extremely polite.
    Near the end of the tour of the Buddhist holy places in the Chiang
Mai area, the group rode the cable  car up the mountain Doi Suthep  to
visit the famous Buddhist temple on  its summit. Most of the  tourists
were exhausted  from the  day's activities,  but not  Kenji  Watanabe.
First the man insisted  on climbing the long  dragon stairway, like  a
Buddhist pilgrim, rather than riding the funicular from the cable  car
exit to the top. Then he  asked question after question while Nai  was
explaining the wonderful story of the founding of the temple. Finally,
when they had descended and Nai was sitting by herself, having tea  in
the lovely restaurant  at the  foot of  the mountain,  Kenji left  the
other tourists in the souvenir shops and approached her table.
    "Kaw tode  krap,"  he said  in  excellent Thai,  astonishing  Miss
Buatong. "May I sit down? I have a few more questions."
    "Khun pode pasa thai dai mai ka?" Nai asked, still shocked.
    "Pohm kao jai pasa thai dai nitnoy," he answered, indicating  that
he understood  a  little Thai.  "How  about  you? Anata  wa  nihon  go
hanashimasu ka?"
    Nai shook her  head. "Nihon  go hanashimasen."  She smiled.  "Only
English, French, and Thai. Although I can sometimes understand  simple
Japanese if it is spoken very slowly."
    "I was  fascinated," Kenji  said in  English, after  sitting  down
opposite Nai, "by the murals depicting  the founding of the temple  on
Doi Suthep.  It  is  a  wonderful  legend-  a  blend  of  history  and
mysticism-but as a historian, I'm
    224 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    curious about two things. First, couldn't this venerable monk from
Sri Lanka  have known,  from  some religious  sources outside  of  the
kingdom of Lan-na, that there was a relic of the Buddha in that nearby
abandoned pagoda? It seems  unlikely to me that  he would have  risked
his reputation otherwise. Second, it seems too perfect, too much  like
life imitating art, for that white elephant carrying the relic to have
climbed Doi Suthep  by chance and  then to have  expired just when  he
reached the peak. Are there  any non-Buddhist historical sources  from
the fifteenth century that corroborate the story?"
    Nai stared at the  eager Mr. Watanabe  for several seconds  before
replying. "Sir,"  she said  with a  wan  smile, "in  my two  years  of
conducting tours of the Buddhist sites of mis region, I have never had
anybody ask me either one of those questions. I certainly do not  know
the answers myself, but if you are interested, I can give you the name
of a professor at Chiang Mai  University who is extremely well  versed
in the Buddhist history of the kingdom  of Lan-na. He is an expert  on
the entire time period, beginning with King Mengrai-"
    Their conversation  was interrupted  by an  announcement that  the
cable car was now ready to accommodate passengers for the trip back to
the city. Nai rose from her  seat and excused herself. Kenji  rejoined
the rest  of  the  group. As  Nai  watched  him from  afar,  she  kept
recalling the intensity  in his  eyes. They were  incredible, she  was
thinking. / have never seen eyes so clear and so full of curiosity.
    She saw those eyes again the following Monday afternoon, when  she
went to the Dusit Thani Hotel in Chiang Mai for her ISA interview. She
was astonished to see  Kenji sitting behind a  desk with the  official
ISA emblem  on his  shirt. Nai  was initially  flustered. "I  had  not
looked at your documents before  Saturday," Kenji said as an  apology.
"I promise. If I  had known you  were one of  the applicants, I  would
have taken a different tour."
    The  interview  eventually  went  smoothly.  Kenji  was  extremely
complimentary, both about  Nai's outstanding academic  record and  her
volunteer work with the orphanages in Lamphun and Chiang Mai. Nai  was
honest in admitting
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    225
    that she had not always had "an overpowering desire" to travel  in
space, but since she  was basically "adventurous  by nature" and  this
ISA position  would  also  allow  her  to  take  care  of  her  family
obligations, she had applied for the assignment on Mars.
    Toward the  end  of  the  interview  there  was  a  pause  in  the
conversation. "Is that  all?" Nai  asked pleasantly,  rising from  her
chair.
    "One more thing, perhaps," Kenji Watanabe said, suddenly  awkward.
"That is, if you're any good at interpreting dreams."
    Nai smiled and sat back down. "Go on," she said.
    Kenji took a deep breath. "Saturday  night I dreamed I was in  the
jungle, somewhere  near the  foot of  Doi Suthep-I  knew where  I  was
because I could see the golden chedi at the top of my dream screen.  I
was rushing  through  the  trees,  trying  to  find  my  way,  when  I
encountered a huge python sitting on a broad branch beside my head.
    " 'Where are you  going?' the python asked  me. Tm looking for  my
girlfriend,' I answered.
    " 'She's at the top of the mountain,' the python said.
    "I broke free of the jungle, into the sunlight, and looked at  the
summit of  Doi  Suthep. My  childhood  sweetheart Keiko  Murosawa  was
standing there waving down at me. I turned around and glanced back  at
the python.
    " 'Look again,' it said.
    "When I looked up  the mountain the second  time the woman's  face
had changed. It was no longer Keiko-it  was you who was now waving  to
me from the top of Doi Suthep."
    Kenji was silent for  several seconds. "I have  never had such  an
unusual or vivid dream. I thought perhaps-"
    Nai had had goose  bumps on her arms  while Kenji was telling  the
story. She had known  the ending-that she, Nai  Buatong, would be  the
woman waving from the top of the mountain-before he had finished.  Nai
leaned forward in her chair. "Mr. Watanabe," she said slowly, "I  hope
that what I am going to say does not offend you in any way. . . ."
    Nai was  quiet  for  several  seconds.  "We  have  a  famous  Thai
proverb," she said at length, her eyes avoiding his,
    226 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "that says when a snake  talks to you in  a dream, you have  found
the man or woman mat you will marry."
    Six weeks later  I received  the notice, Nai  remembered. She  was
still sitting in  the courtyard  beside Queen  Chama-tevi's temple  in
Lamphun. The package of ISA materials came three days afterward. Along
with the flowers from Kenji.
    Kenji himself had appeared in Lamphun the following weekend.  "I'm
sorry I didn't  call or  anything," he  had apologized,  "but it  just
didn't make  sense to  pursue the  relationship unless  you also  were
going to Mars."
    He had proposed on Sunday afternoon and Nai had quickly  accepted.
They had been married in Kyoto  three months later. The Watanabes  had
graciously paid for  Nai's two  sisters and  three of  her other  Thai
friends to travel to Japan for the wedding. Her mother could not come,
unfortunately, for there was nobody else to look after Nai's father.
    Nai took a  deep bream. Her  review of the  recent changes in  her
life was  now over.  She was  ready to  begin her  meditation.  Thirty
minutes later  she was  quite serene,  happy and  expectant about  the
unknown life in front of her. The  sun had risen and there were  other
people on the temple grounds. She walked slowly around the  perimeter,
trying to savor her last moments in her home village.
    Inside the  main viharn,  after  an offering  and the  burning  of
incense at  the  altar,  Nai  carefully studied  every  panel  of  the
paintings on the walls she had seen so many times before. The pictures
told the life story of Queen Chama-tevi, her one and only heroine ever
since childhood. In the seventh century the many tribes in the Lamphun
area had had different  cultures and had often  been at war with  each
other. All they had in common at that particular epoch was a legend, a
myth that said a  young queen would arrive  from the south, "borne  by
huge elephants,"  and would  unite  all the  diverse tribes  into  the
Haripunchai kingdom.
    Chamatevi had  been  only  twenty-three  when  an  old  soothsayer
identified her to some emissaries from  the north as the future  queen
of the Haripunchai. She was a young
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    227
    and beautiful princess  of the  Mons, the Khmer  people who  would
later construct Angkor Wat. Chamatevi was also extremely  intelligent,
a rare woman  of the era,  and very  much favored by  everyone at  the
royal court.
    The Mons were therefore  stunned when she  announced that she  was
giving up  her life  of leisure  and  plenty and  heading north  on  a
harrowing  six-month  journey  across  seven  hundred  kilometers   of
mountains, jungles, and swamps. When Chamatevi and her retinue, "borne
by huge elephants," reached the  verdant valley in which Lamphun  lay,
her future subjects immediately put aside their factional quarrels and
placed the beautiful young  queen on the throne.  She ruled for  fifty
years in wisdom and justice,  lifting her kingdom from obscurity  into
an age of social progress and artistic accomplishment.
    When she was seventy years old, Chamatevi abdicated her throne and
divided her kingdom in half, each ruled  by one of her twin sons.  The
queen then announced that she was dedicating the remainder of her life
to God. She  entered a  Buddhist monastery and  gave away  all of  her
possessions. She lived a simple, pious life in the monastery, dying at
the age of ninety-nine. By then the golden age of the Haripunchai  was
over.
    On the final wall panel inside  the temple an ascetic and  wizened
woman is carried away to nirvana  in a magnificent chariot. A  younger
Queen Chamatevi, radiantly beautiful beside her Buddha, sits above the
chariot in the splendor of the heavens. Nai Buatong Watanabe,  Martian
colonist-designate, sat  on  her  knees  in  the  temple  in  Lamphun,
Thailand, and offered  a silent prayer  to the spirit  of her  heroine
from the distant past.
    Dear Chamatevi,  she said.  You  have watched  over me  for  these
twenty-six years. Now I am about  to leave for an unknown place,  much
as you did when you came north to find the Haripunchai. Guide me  with
your wisdom and insight as I go to this new and wonderful world.
    3
    Y;
    rukiko was wearing a  black silk shirt, white  pants, and a  black
and white beret. She crossed the  living room to talk to her  brother.
"I wish  you would  come, Kenji,"  she  said. "It's  going to  be  the
largest demonstration for peace that the world has ever seen."
    Kenji smiled at his  younger sister. "I would  like to, Yuki,"  he
replied. "But I only have two more days before I must leave and I want
to spend the time with Mother and Father."
    Their mother entered the room  from the opposite side. She  looked
harried, as usual, and was  carrying a large suitcase. "Everything  is
now packed properly,"  she said. "But  I still wish  you would  change
your mind. Hiroshima is going to be a madhouse. The Asahi Shimbun says
they're expecting  a  million  visitors,  almost  half  of  them  from
abroad."
    "Thank you, Mother," Yukiko said,  reaching for the suitcase.  "As
you know, Satoko  and I will  be at the  Hiroshima Prince Hotel.  Now,
don't worry. We will call every
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    229
    morning, before  the activities  begin. And  I'll be  home  Monday
afternoon."
    The young woman opened the  suitcase and reached inside a  special
compartment, pulling out a diamond  bracelet and a sapphire ring.  She
put them both on.  "Don't you think you  should leave those things  at
home?"  her  mother  fussed.  "Remember,  there  will  be  all   those
foreigners. Your jewelry may be too much temptation for them."
    Yukiko laughed in the uninhibited way that Kenji adored. "Mother,"
she said, "you're such a worrywart. All your ever think about is  what
bad things  might happen.  . .  .  We're going  to Hiroshima  for  the
ceremonies  commemorating  the  three  hundredth  anniversary  of  the
dropping of the atomic bomb. Our prime minister will be mere, as  well
as three of the members of the Central Council of the COG. Many of the
world's most famous musicians will be performing in the evenings. This
will be  what Father  calls an  enriching experience-and  all you  can
think about is who might steal my jewelry."
    "When I  was  young it  was  unheard of  for  two girls,  not  yet
finished at the university, to travel around Japan unchaperoned-"
    "Mother, we've been through  this before," Yuki interrupted.  "I'm
almost twenty-two years old. Next year, after I finish my degree,  I'm
going to  live  away from  home,  on my  own,  maybe even  in  another
country. I'm no longer a child. And Satoko and I are perfectly capable
of looking after one another."
    Yukiko checked  her watch.  "I must  go now,"  she said.  "She  is
probably already waiting for me at the subway station."
    She  strode  gracefully  over  to  her  mother  and  gave  her   a
perfunctory kiss. Yuki shared a longer embrace with her brother.
    "Be well,  ani-san,"  she whispered  in  his ear.  "Take  care  of
yourself and your lovely wife on Mars. We're all very proud of you."
    Kenji had never really known Yukiko very well. He was, after  all,
almost twelve years older than she. Yuki
    230 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    had been only  four when  Mr. Watanabe  had been  assigned to  the
position of  president  of  the  American  division  of  International
Robotics. The family had moved across  the Pacific to a suburb of  San
Francisco. Kenji had not paid much attention to his younger sister  in
those days. In California he had been much more interested in his  new
life, especially after he started at UCLA.
    The elder  Watanabes and  Yukiko had  returned to  Japan hi  2232,
leaving Kenji as a sophomore hi history at the university. He had  had
very little contact with Yuki since then. During his annual visits  to
his home in Kyoto, Kenji always meant to spend some private hours with
Yukiko, but  it never  seemed to  happen. Either  she was  too  deeply
involved in her own life, or his parents had scheduled too many social
functions, or Kenji himself had just not left enough tune.
    Kenji was vaguely sad as he  stood at the door and watched  Yukiko
disappear in the distance.  I'm leaving this  planet, he thought,  and
yet I've never taken the time to know my own sister.
    Mrs. Watanabe was talking in a monotone behind him, expressing her
feeling that her life had been a failure because none of her  children
had any respect for her and they had alt moved away. Now her only son,
who had married  a woman  from Thailand  just to  embarrass them,  was
going off to  live on  Mars and  she wouldn't  see him  for over  five
years. As for her middle daughter,  she and her banker husband had  at
least given her two grandchildren, but they were as dull and boring as
their parents-
    "How is  Fumiko?" Kenji  interrupted his  mother. "Will  I have  a
chance to see her and my nieces before I leave?"
    "They're coming over  from Kobe  for dinner  tomorrow night,"  his
mother replied. "Although I have no idea what I'm going to feed  them.
. . . Did you know that Tatsuo and Fumiko are not even teaching  those
girls how to  use chopsticks? Can  you imagine? A  Japanese child  who
does not know how to use chopsticks? Is nothing sacred? We've given up
our identity to become rich. I was telling your father . . ."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    231
    Kenji excused himself  from his mother's  querulous monologue  and
sought refuge  in his  father's study.  Framed photographs  lined  the
walls of the  room, the archives  of a successful  man's personal  and
professional life. Two of the pictures held special memories for Kenji
as well. In one of the photos, he and his father were each holding  on
to a large  trophy given by  the country  club to the  winners in  the
annual father-son  golf  tournament. In  the  other, the  beaming  Mr.
Watanabe was presenting a large medal  to his son after Kenji had  won
first prize in all Kyoto in the high school academic competition.
    What Kenji had  forgotten until seeing  the photographs again  was
that Toshio  Nakamura, the  son  of his  father's closest  friend  and
business associate, had been the  runner-up in both contests. In  both
pictures the  young Nakamura,  almost a  head taller  than Kenji,  was
wearing an intense, angry frown on his face.
    That was long before all his trouble, Kenji thought. He remembered
the headline,  OSAKA EXECUTIVE  ARRESTED,  which had  proclaimed  four
years  earlier  the  indictment   of  Toshio  Nakamura.  The   article
underneath the headline had  explained that Mr.  Nakamura, who was  at
the time already  a vice president  in the Tomozawa  Hotel Group,  had
been charged  with  very  serious  crimes,  ranging  from  bribery  to
pandering to trafficking in human slavery. Within four months Nakamura
had been convicted and sentenced to several years in detention.  Kenji
had been astonished. What  in the world happened  to Nakamura? he  had
wondered many times in the intervening four years.
    While Kenji was remembering his boyhood rival, he felt very  sorry
for Keiko Murosawa, Nakamura's wife, for whom Kenji himself had had  a
special affection when he was  a sixteen-year-old in Kyoto. Kenji  and
Nakamura had, in fact, vied for the  love of Keiko for almost a  year.
When Keiko had  finally made it  clear that she  preferred Kenji  over
Toshio, young Nakamura had been furious. He had even confronted  Kenji
one morning, near the Ryoanji Tern pie, and threatened him physically.
    / might have married Keiko myself, Kenji thought, if I had  stayed
in Japan. He gazed out the window  at the moss garden. It was  raining
outside. He suddenly had an
    232 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    especially poignant memory of a rainy day during his
    adolescence.
    Kenji had walked over to her house as soon as his father had  told
him the news.  A Chopin concerto  had greeted his  ears the moment  he
turned into the lane leading to her house. Mrs. Murosawa had  answered
the door and had addressed him sternly. "Keiko is practicing now," she
had said to Kenji. "She won't be finished for over an hour.''
    "Please, Mrs. Murosawa," the sixteen-year-old boy had said,  "it's
very important."
    Her mother was about to close  the door when Keiko herself  caught
sight of  Kenji through  the window.  She stopped  playing and  rushed
over, her radiant smile sending a  rush of joy through the young  man.
"Hi, Kenji," she said. "What's up?"
    "Something very important," he replied mysteriously. "Can you come
with me for a walk?"
    Mrs. Murosawa had  grumbled about  the coming  recital, but  Keiko
convinced her mother that  she could afford to  miss practice for  one
day. The girl  grabbed an umbrella  and joined Kenji  in front of  the
house. As soon as they were out  of view of her home, she slipped  her
arm through his, as she always did when they walked together.
    "So, my friend," Keiko  said as they  followed their normal  route
toward the  hills  behind their  section  of Kyoto.  "What's  so  very
important?"
    "I don't want to tell you now," Kenji answered. "Not here, anyway.
I want to wait until we're in the right place."
    Kenji and Keiko  laughed and made  small talk as  they headed  for
Philosopher's Walk, a beautiful path that wound for several kilometers
along the bottom of the eastern hills. The route had been made  famous
by the twentieth  century philosopher Nishida  Kitaro, who  supposedly
took the walk every morning. It  led past some of Kyoto's most  famous
scenic spots, including Ginkaku-ji  (the Silver Pavilion) and  Kenji's
personal favorite, the old Buddhist temple called the Honen-In.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    233
    Behind and to the side of  the Honen-In was a small cemetery  with
about seventy or eighty graves and tombstones. Earlier that year Kenji
and Keiko, while  adventuring on  their own, had  discovered that  the
cemetery housed die remains of some of Kyoto's most prominent citizens
of the twentieth century, including the celebrated novelist  Junichiro
Tanizaki and the doctor/poet Iwao Matsuo. After their discovery, Kenji
and Keiko made  the cemetery  men-regular meeting  place. Once,  after
they had bom read The Makioka Sisters, Tanizaki's masterpiece of Osaka
life in (he 1930s, they had laughingly argued for over an hour-  while
sitting beside  the  author's  tombstone-about which  of  the  Makioka
sisters Keiko resembled the most.
    On the day that  Mr. Watanabe informed Kenji  that the family  was
moving to America, it  had already started to  rain by the time  Kenji
and Keiko reached the Honen-In. There Kenji turned right onto a  small
lane and headed toward an old gate  with a woven straw roof. As  Keiko
expected, they did not enter the temple, but instead climbed the steps
leading to the cemetery. But Kenji did not stop at Tanizaki's tomb. He
climbed up higher, to another grave site.
    "This is where Dr. Iwao Matsuo is buried," Kenji said, pulling out
his electronic notebook. "We are going to read a few of his poems."
    Keiko sat close beside her friend,  the two of them nestled  under
her umbrella in the light rain, while Kenji read three poems. "I  have
one final poem," Kenji then said, "a special haiku written by a friend
of Dr. Matsuo's.
    "One day in the month of June, After a cooling dish of ice  cream,
We bid each other farewell."
    They were both silent for several seconds after Kenji recited  the
haiku from  memory a  second time.  Keiko became  alarmed and  even  a
little frightened when Kenji's serious expression did not waver.  "The
poem talks of a parting," she said softly. "Are you telling me that-"
    "Not by choice, Keiko," Kenji interrupted her. He hes-
    234 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    itated for  several  seconds.  "My father  has  been  assigned  to
America," he continued at length. "We will move there next month."
    Kenji had  never seen  such a  forlorn look  on Keiko's  beautiful
face. When  she looked  up at  him with  those terribly  sad eyes,  he
thought his  heart  would tear  apart.  He  held her  tightly  in  the
afternoon rain, both of them crying, and swore he would love only  her
forever.
    4
    T!
    •he younger waitress, the  one in the light  blue kimono with  the
old-fashioned obi,  pulled back  the sliding  screen and  entered  the
room. She was carrying a tray with beer and sake.
    "Osake onegai shimasu," Kenji's  father said politely, holding  up
his sake cup as the lady poured.
    Kenji took  a drink  of  his cold  beer.  The older  waitress  now
returned, soundlessly, with a  small plate of  hors d'oeuvres. In  the
center was a shellfish of some kind, in a light sauce, but Kenji could
not have identified either the mollusk or the sauce. He had not  eaten
more than a  handful of  these kaiseki  meals in  the seventeen  years
since he had left Kyoto.
    "Campai," Kenji said, clinking his beer glass against his father's
sake cup. "Thank you,  Father. I am honored  to be having dinner  here
with you."
    Kicho was the most famous restaurant in the Kansai region, perhaps
in all of Japan. It was also frighteningly expensive, for it preserved
the full traditions  of personal  service, private  eating rooms,  and
seasonal dishes with
    236 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    only the highest quality ingredients.  Every course was a  delight
to the eye as well  as to the palate.  When Mr. Watanabe had  informed
his son that  they were going  to dine  alone, just the  two of  them,
Kenji had never imagined that it would be at Kicho.
    They had been talking about the  expedition to Mars. "How many  of
the other colonists are Japanese?" Mr. Watanabe asked.
    "Quite a few/' Kenji replied. "Almost three hundred, if I remember
correctly. There were many  top-quality applications from Japan.  Only
America has a larger contingent.''
    "Do you know any of the others from Japan personally?"
    "Two or three. Yasuko Horikawa was briefly in my class in Kyoto in
junior high  school. You  may  remember her.  Very, very  smart.  Buck
teeth. Thick glasses.  She is, or  was, I should  say, a chemist  with
Dai-Nippon."
    Mr. Watanabe smiled. "I  think I do remember  her," he said.  "Did
she come over to the house the night that Keiko played the piano?"
    "Yes, I think so,"  Kenji said easily. He  laughed. "But I have  a
hard time remembering anything other than Keiko from that night."
    Mr. Watanabe emptied his sake cup. The younger attendant, who  was
sitting unobtrusively on her knees in a corner of the tatami mat room,
came to  the table  to  refill it.  "Kenji,  I'm concerned  about  the
criminals," Mr. Watanabe said as the young lady departed.
    "What are you talking about, Father?" Kenji said.
    "I read a long story in a magazine that said die ISA had recruited
several hundred convicts to be part of your Lowell Colony. The article
stressed that all of  the criminals had  perfect records during  their
times of detention,  as well  as outstanding  skills. But  why was  it
necessary to accept convicts at all?"
    Kenji took  a  swallow  from  his beer.  "In  truth,  Father,"  he
replied, "we have  had some difficulty  with the recruitment  process.
First, we had an unrealistic view  of how many people would apply  and
we set up  screening criteria  that were  far too  tough. Second,  the
five-year minimum
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    237
    time requirement was a mistake.  To young people in particular,  a
decision to do  anything for  that long  a period  is an  overwhelming
commitment. Most  importantly,  the  press  seriously  undermined  the
entire staffing process. At the time we were soliciting  applications,
there were myriad articles in  magazines and 'specials' on  television
about the demise of the Martian  colonies a hundred years ago.  People
were frightened that history might repeat itself and they too could be
left permanently abandoned on Mars."
    Kenji paused briefly, but Mr. Watanabe said nothing. "In addition,
as you are well aware, the project has had recurring financial crises.
It was  during a  budget squeeze  last  year that  we first  began  to
consider skilled,  model convicts  as a  way of  solving some  of  our
personnel and budgetary difficulties. Although they would be paid only
modest salaries, there were still  plenty of inducements to cause  the
convicts to  apply.  Selection meant  granting  of full  pardons,  and
therefore freedom, when  they returned  to Earth  after the  five-year
term. In addition, the ex-prisoners  would be full citizens of  Lowell
Colony like everyone else,  and would no longer  have to tolerate  the
onerous monitoring of their every activity-''
    Kenji stopped as two  small pieces of  broiled fish, delicate  and
beautiful and sitting on a bed of variegated leaves, were placed  upon
the table. Mr. Watanabe picked up a piece of fish with his chopsticks.
"Oishii desu," he commented, without glancing at his son.
    Kenji reached  for  his  piece  of fish.  The  discussion  of  the
convicts in Lowell  Colony had apparently  ended. Kenji looked  behind
his father,  where  he could  see  the  lovely garden  for  which  the
restaurant was so famous.  A tiny stream  dropped down polished  steps
and ran beside a half dozen exquisite dwarf trees. The seat facing the
garden was always  the position  of honor for  a traditional  Japanese
meal. Mr. Watanabe had insisted that Kenji should have the garden view
during this last dinner.
    "You were not able to  attract any Chinese colonists?" his  father
asked after they had finished the fish.
    Kenji shook his  head. "Only  a few from  Singapore and  Malaysia.
Both the Chinese and Brazilian  governments forbade their citizens  to
apply. The Brazilian decision was
    238 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    expected-their South American empire is virtually at war with  the
COG-but we had  hoped that  the Chinese  might soften  their stand.  I
guess a hundred years of isolation doesn't die that easily."
    "You can't  really blame  them,"  Mr. Watanabe  commented.  "Their
nation suffered  terribly  during the  Great  Chaos. All  the  foreign
capital  disappeared   overnight   and   their   economy   immediately
collapsed."
    "We did manage to  recruit a few black  Africans, maybe a  hundred
altogether, and a handful of Arabs. But most of the colonists are from
the  countries  that  contribute  significantly  to  the  ISA.  That's
probably to be expected."
    Kenji became suddenly embarrassed.  The entire conversation  since
they had entered the restaurant had been about him and his activities.
During the next few courses Kenji asked his father questions about his
work at International Robotics.  Mr. Watanabe, who  was now the  chief
operating officer of the corporation, always glowed with pride when he
talked about "his" company. It was the world's largest manufacturer of
robots for the factory and the office.  The annual sales of IR, as  it
was always called, placed it among the top fifty manufacturers in  the
world.
    "I'll be sixty-two next year," Mr. Watanabe said, the many cups of
sake making him unusually talkative, "and  I had thought that I  might
retire. But Nakamura says  that would be a  mistake. He says that  the
company still needs me. ..."
    Before  the  fruit  arrived,  Kenji  and  his  father  were  again
discussing the coming Martian expedition. Kenji explained mat Nai  and
most of the  other Asian colonists  who were traveling  on either  the
Pinta or  the Nina  were  already at  the  Japanese training  site  in
southern Kyushu. He would join his wife there as soon as he left Kyoto
and, after  ten  more days  of  training, they  and  the rest  of  the
passengers on  the Pinta  would be  transported to  a LEO  (low  Earth
orbit)  space   station,  where   they  would   undergo  a   week   of
weightlessness training.  The final  leg of  their near-Earth  journey
would be a  ride aboard  a space tug  from LEO  to the  geosynchronous
space station at GEO-4, where the Pinta was currently being  assembled
while undergoing its  final checks  and being outfitted  for the  long
trip to Mars.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    239
    The younger waitress  brought them  two glasses  of cognac.  "That
wife of yours is  really a magnificent  creature," Mr. Watanabe  said,
taking a small  sip of the  liqueur. "I have  always thought that  the
Thai women were the most beautiful in the world."
    "She's also  beautiful  inside,"  Kenji  hastily  added,  suddenly
missing his new bride, "And she is quite intelligent as well."
    "Her English  is  excellent,"  Mr. Watanabe  remarked.  "But  your
mother says her Japanese is awful."
    Kenji bristled. "Nai tried to speak Japanese-which,  incidentally,
she has never studied-because Mother refused to speak English. It  was
deliberately done to make Nai feel ill at ease-"
    Kenji  caught  himself.  His   remarks  defending  Nai  were   not
appropriate for the occasion.
    "Gomen nasai," he said to his father.
    Mr. Watanabe took a long drink from his cognac. "Well, Kenji,"  he
said, "this is the last  time we will be  alone together for at  least
five years. I have very much enjoyed our dinner and our conversation."
He paused. "There is,  however, one more item  that I want to  discuss
with you."
    Kenji shifted  his position  (he  was no  longer used  to  sitting
cross-legged on  the  floor for  four  hours at  a  time) and  sat  up
straight, trying to clear  his mind. He could  tell from his  father's
tone that the "one more item" was a serious one.
    "My interest in the  criminals in your Lowell  Colony is not  just
idle curiosity," Mr. Watanabe began. He paused to gather his  thoughts
before continuing. "Nakamura-san came into  my office late last  week,
at the end  of the business  day, and  told me that  his son's  second
application for Lowell Colony had also  been denied. He asked me if  I
would talk to you about looking into the matter."
    The comment hit Kenji like a  thunderbolt. He had never even  been
told that his boyhood  rival had applied for  Lowell Colony. Now  here
was his father-
    "I have not been involved in the process of selecting the  convict
colonists,"  Kenji  replied  slowly.  "That's  an  entirely  different
division in the project."
    240 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Mr. Watanabe  did  not  say anything  for  several  seconds.  "Our
connections tell  us," he  eventually continued,  after finishing  his
cognac, "that the only  real opposition to  the application is  coming
from a psychiatrist,  a Dr. Ridgemore  from New Zealand,  who has  the
opinion,  despite  Toshio's  excellent  record  during  his  detention
period, that  Naka-mura's son  still does  not recognize  that he  did
anything wrong. ... I believe that you were personally responsible for
recruiting Dr. Ridgemore for the Lowell Colony team."
    Kenji was  staggered. This  was  no idle  request his  father  was
making. He  had done  extensive background  research. But  why?  Kenji
wondered. Why is he so interested?
    "Nakamura-san is a brilliant engineer/' Mr. Watanabe said. "He has
personally been  responsible  for  many  of  the  products  that  have
established us as  leaders in our  field. But his  laboratory has  not
been very innovative lately. In  fact, its productivity began to  drop
around the time of his son's arrest and conviction."
    Mr. Watanabe leaned toward Kenji, resting his elbows on the table.
"Nakamura-san has lost his self-confidence. He and his wife must visit
Toshio in that  detention apartment  once a  month. It  is a  constant
reminder to Nakamura of how his family has been disgraced. If the  son
could go to Mars, then perhaps-"
    Kenji understood too  well what  his father  was asking.  Emotions
that had long been suppressed threatened to erupt. Kenji was angry and
confused. He  was  going to  tell  his  father that  his  request  was
"improper" when the elder Watanabe spoke again.
    "It has been equally  hard on Keiko and  the little girl. Aiko  is
almost seven now. Every other weekend they dutifully ride the train to
Ashiya. ..."
    Try as he might, Kenji could not prevent the tears from forming in
the comers of  his eyes. The  picture of Keiko,  broken and  dejected,
leading her daughter inside the restricted area for the biweekly visit
with her father, was more than he could bear.
    "I talked  to  Keiko myself  last  week," his  father  added,  "at
Nakamura-san's request. She  was very  despondent. But  she seemed  to
perk up when I told  her that I was going  to ask you to intercede  on
her husband's behalf."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    241
    Kenji took a  deep breath  and gazed at  his father's  emotionless
face. He knew what he was going to do. He knew also that it was indeed
"improper"-not wrong, just improper. But  it made no sense to  agonize
over a decision that was a foregone conclusion.
    Kenji finished his cognac. "Tell Nakamura-san that I will call Dr.
Ridgemore tomorrow," he said.
    What if his intuition was wrong? Then I will have wasted an  hour,
ninety minutes at the most, Kenji  thought as he excused himself  from
the family gathering with his sister Fumiko and her daughters and  ran
out into the street.  He turned immediately toward  the hills. It  was
about an hour before sunset. She'll be there, he said to himself. This
will be my only chance to say good-bye.
    Kenji went first to the  small Anraku-Ji temple. He walked  inside
the hondo, expecting to find Keiko  in her favorite spot, in front  of
the side wooden altar commemorating two twelfth century Buddhist nuns,
formerly members of the  court harem, who  had committed suicide  when
Emperor Go-Toba had  ordered them  to repudiate the  teachings of  St.
Honen. Keiko was not  there. Nor was she  outside where the two  women
were buried, just  at the edge  of the bamboo  forest. Kenji began  to
think that he had been mistaken.  Keiko has not come, he thought.  She
feels that she has lost too much face.
    His only other  hope was  that Keiko was  waiting for  him in  the
cemetery beside the  Honen-In, where  seventeen years  earlier he  had
informed her that he was moving away from Japan. Kenji's heart skipped
a beat as  he walked up  the lane leading  to the temple.  Off in  the
distance to his right he could see a woman's figure. She was wearing a
simple black  dress and  was  standing beside  the tomb  of  Junichiro
Tanizaki.
    Although her body was  facing away from him  and he could not  see
clearly in the fading twilight, Kenji  was certain that the woman  was
Keiko. He raced up the steps  and into the cemetery, finally  stopping
about five meters away from the woman in black-
    "Keiko," he said, catching his breath. "I'm so glad-"
    "Watanabe-san," the figure said formally, turning
    242 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    around with her  head low and  her eyes on  the ground. She  bowed
very deeply, as if  she were a servant.  ' 'Domo arrigato  gozaimasu,"
she repeated twice. Finally she rose, but she still did not look up at
Kenji.
    "Keiko/' he said softly. "It's only Kenji. I'm alone. Please  look
at me."
    "I cannot," she  answered in  a voice that  was scarcely  audible.
"But I can thank you  for what you have done  for Aiko and me."  Again
she bowed. "Domo arrigato gozaimasu," she said.
    Kenji bent down impulsively and  put his hand under Keiko's  chin.
He gently raised her head until he could see her face. Keiko was still
beautiful. But  Kenji  was shocked  to  see such  sadness  permanently
carved into those delicate features.
    "Keiko," he murmured, her tears  cutting into his heart like  tiny
knives.
    "I must go,"  she said. "I  wish you happiness."  She pulled  away
from his touch and bowed again. Then she rose, without looking at him,
and walked slowly down the path in the twilight shadows.
    Kenji's eyes followed her until  she disappeared in the  distance.
It was only then  that he realized he  had been leaning on  Tanizaki's
tombstones. He stared for several seconds at the two Kanji characters,
Ku and Jaku,  on the  gray markers. One  of them  said EMPTINESS;  the
other
    SOLITUDE.
    5
    wi
    fhen the message from Rama was relayed to Earth from the  tracking
satellite system in 2241, it caused immediate consternation.  Nicole's
video  was  quickly  classified  top  secret,  of  course,  while  the
International Intelligence  Agency  (IIA),  the security  arm  of  the
Council of Governments (COG), struggled to comprehend what it was  all
about. A dozen of the finest  agents were soon assigned to the  secure
facility in Novosibirsk to  analyze the signal  mat had been  received
from deep space and to develop a master plan for the COG response.
    Once  it  was  ascertained  that  neither  the  Chinese  nor   the
Brazilians  could  have  decoded   the  signal  (their   technological
capabilities were  not yet  on  a par  with  the COG),  the  requested
acknowledgment was  transmitted  in  the direction  of  Rama,  thereby
precluding any future replays of Nicole's video. Then the  superagents
focused on the detailed contents of the message itself.
    They began  by  doing  some historical  research.  It  was  widely
accepted, despite  some suggested  (but discredited)  evidence to  the
contrary, mat the Rama II spacecraft had
    244 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    been destroyed  by the  barrage of  nuclear missiles  in April  of
2200. Nicole des Jardins, the putative  human being in the video,  had
been presumed dead before the Newton science ship had even left  Rama.
Certainly she, or what was left of her, must have been annihilated  in
the nuclear devastation. So the speaker could not actually be she.
    But if the person or thing speaking in the television segment  was
a robot imitation or simulacrum of  Madame des Jardins, it was  vastly
superior  to  any  artificial  intelligence  designs  on  Earth.   The
preliminary conclusion,  therefore,  was  that  the  Earth  was  again
dealing with an advanced civilization of unbelievable capability,  one
that was consistent with the technological levels exhibited by the two
Rama spacecraft.
    There was  no question  about the  implied threat  in the  message
either, about that the superagents were unanimous. If there was indeed
another Rama vehicle on its way to the solar system (although none had
yet been detected by the pair of Excalibur stations), the Earth  could
certainly  not  ignore  the  message.   Of  course,  there  was   some
possibility that the entire thing was an elaborate hoax, concocted  by
the brilliant  Chinese  physicists  (they were  definitely  the  prime
suspects), but until that was a confirmed fact, the COG needed to have
a definitive plan.
    Fortunately a multinational project  had already been approved  to
establish a modest  colony on Mars  in the mid  2240s. During the  two
previous decades,  a  half  dozen exploration  missions  to  Mars  had
rekindled interest in the great idea  of terra forming the red  planet
and making  it habitable  for the  human species.  Already there  were
unmanned  scientific  laboratories  on   Mars  that  were   conducting
experiments that were either too dangerous or too controversial to  be
performed on Earth. The easiest way  to meet the intent of the  Nicole
des Jardins video-and not alarm the populace of the planet Earth-would
be to announce and fund a  considerably larger colony on Mars. If  the
entire affair turned out  subsequently to be a  hoax, men the size  of
the colony could be scaled back to the original proposed size.
    One of the agents, an Indian named Ravi Srinivasan,
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    245
    carefully researched the massive ISA  data archives from the  year
2200 and became convinced that Rama  II had not been destroyed by  the
nuclear phalanx. "It  is possible,"  Mr. Srinivasan  said, "that  this
video is legitimate and that the speaker is really the esteemed Madame
des Jardins."
    "But she would be seventy-seven  years old today," another of  the
agents countered.
    "There is nothing in the video  that indicates when it was  made,"
Mr. Srinivasan argued. "And if  you compare the photographs of  Madame
des Jardins taken during the mission with the pictures of the woman in
the transmission we received, they  are decidedly different. Her  face
is older, maybe by as much as  ten years. If the speaker in the  video
is a hoax or a simulacrum, then it is an amazingly clever one."
    Mr. Srinivasan agreed, however, that the plan eventually developed
by the HA was the  proper one even if  me video was indeed  presenting
the truth. So it was not that important that he convince everyone that
his point  of view  was correct.  What was  absolutely necessary,  the
superagents all agreed, was that a  bare minimum of people know  about
the existence of the video.
    The forty years  since the beginning  of the twenty-third  century
had seen some marked changes on the planet Earth. Following the  Great
Chaos, the Council of  Governments (COG) had  emerged as a  monolithic
organization controlling, or  at least manipulating,  the politics  of
the planet. Only China, which  had retreated into isolation after  its
devastating experience during  the Chaos,  was outside  the sphere  of
influence of  the  COG. But  after  2200,  there were  signs  mat  the
unchallenged power of the COG was beginning to erode.
    First came the Korean elections of  2209, when the people of  that
nation, disgusted with successive  regimes of corrupt politicians  who
had grown  rich at  the expense  of the  populace, actually  voted  to
federate with the Chinese. Of the  major countries of the world,  only
China had  a  significantly  different kind  of  government  from  the
regulated  capitalism  practiced  by  the  wealthy  nations  of  North
America, Asia, and Europe. The Chinese government was
    246 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    a kind of  socialist democracy  based on  the humanist  principles
espoused by the canonized twenty-second century Italian Catholic,  St.
Michael of Siena.
    The COG,  and indeed  the  entire world,  was dumbfounded  by  the
stunning election results  in Korea. By  the time the  HA was able  to
foment a civil war  (2211-2212), the new  Korean government and  their
Chinese allies  had  already captured  the  hearts and  minds  of  the
people. The rebellion was easily quashed and Korea became a  permanent
part of the Chinese federation.
    The Chinese  openly acknowledged  that they  had no  intention  of
exporting their form of government by military action, but the rest of
the world did not accept their word. The COG military and intelligence
budgets doubled between 2210 and 2220 as political tension returned to
the world scene.
    Meanwhile, in 2218, the three hundred and fifty million Brazilians
elected a charismatic  general, Joao  Pereira, to  head their  nation.
General  Pereira  believed  that  South  America  was  mistreated  and
undervalued by the COG (he was  not wrong) and he demanded changes  in
the COG  character  that would  correct  the problems.  When  the  COG
refused, Pereira galvanized South American regionalism by unilaterally
abrogating the  COG  charter.  Brazil seceded,  in  effect,  from  the
Council of Governments, and over the  next decade most of the rest  of
the  South  American  nations,  encouraged  by  the  massive  military
strength in  Brazil that  successfully  opposed the  COG  peacekeeping
forces, followed suit. What  emerged was a third  player in the  world
geopolitical scene, a kind of  Brazilian empire, energetically led  by
General Pereira.
    At first the embargoes by the COG threatened to return Brazil  and
the rest of  South America  to the  destitution that  had ravaged  the
region in the wake of the Great Chaos. But Pereira fought bade.  Since
the advanced nations of North America, Asia, and Europe would not  buy
his legal exports,  he decided  that he  and his  allies would  export
illegal products.  Drugs became  the primary  trade of  the  Brazilian
empire. It was  an immensely successful  policy. By 2240  there was  a
massive flow of all kinds and types of drugs from South America to the
rest of the world.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    247
    It was  in  this political  environment  that Nicole's  video  was
received on  Earth.  Although some  cracks  had appeared  in  the  COG
control of  the  planet,  the organization  still  represented  almost
seventy percent of the  population and ninety  percent of the  Earth's
material wealth.  It was  natural that  the COG  and its  implementing
space agency, the ISA, should take the responsibility for managing the
response. Carefully following the security criteria defined by the HA,
a fivefold increase in the number of  people going to Mars as part  of
the Lowell Colony was announced in February 2242. Earth departure  was
scheduled for the late summer or early autumn of 2245.
    The other four  people in the  room, all blond  and blue-eyed  and
members of the  same family from  Malmo, Sweden, filed  out the  door,
leaving Kenji and Nai  Watanabe alone. She continued  to gaze down  at
the Earth thirty-five thousand kilometers below her. Kenji joined  her
in front of the huge observation window.
    "I never fully realized," Nai said  to her husband, "just what  it
meant to be in geosynchronous orbit. The Earth doesn't move from here.
It looks suspended in space."
    Kenji laughed.  "Actually we're  both  moving-and very  fast.  But
since our orbital period and the Earth's rotation period are the same,
the Earth always presents us with the same picture."
    "It  was  different  at  that  other  space  station,"  Nai  said,
shuffling away from the window in  her slippers. "There the Earth  was
majestic, dynamic, much more impressive."
    "But we were only  three hundred kilometers  from the surface.  Of
course it was-"
    ' 'Shit,'' they  heard a voice  shout from the  other side of  the
observation lounge. A husky young man  in a plaid shut and blue  jeans
was flailing in the air, slightly more than a meter off the floor, and
his frantic motion was causing  him to tumble sideways. Kenji  crossed
over and helped (he newcomer to stand upright on his feet.
    "Thanks," the man said. "I forgot to keep one foot on the floor at
all times. This weightlessness is fucking weird for a farmer."
    He had a heavy southern accent. "Oops, I'm sorry
    248 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    about the  language, ma'am.  I've lived  among cows  and pigs  too
long." He extended his hand to Kenji. "I'm Max Puckett from De  Queen,
Arkansas."
    Kenji introduced himself  and his  wife. Max Puckett  had an  open
face and a quick grin. "You know,"  Max said, "when I signed up to  go
to Mars, I never realized we would be weightless for the whole goddamn
trip. . . . What's going to happen to the poor hens? They'll  probably
never lay another egg."
    Max walked over to the window.  "It's almost noon at my home  down
there on that funny  planet. My brother Clyde  probably just opened  a
bottle of  beer and  his wife  Winona is  making him  a sandwich."  He
paused for several seconds and then turned to the Watanabes. "What are
you two going to do on Mars?"
    "I'm the colony  historian," Kenji  replied. "Or at  least one  of
mem. My wife Nai is an English and French teacher."
    "Shit," said  Max Puckett.  "I  was hoping  you  were one  of  the
farming couples from Vietnam or Laos. I want to learn something  about
rice."
    "Did I hear you say something about hens?" Nai asked after a short
silence. "Are we going to have chickens on the Pinta?"
    "Ma'am," Max  Puckett  replied,  "there are  fifteen  thousand  of
Puckett's finest packed in  cages in a cargo  tug parked at the  other
end of mis station. The ISA paid enough for those chickens that  Clyde
and Winona could rest  for a whole  damn year if  they wanted. ...  If
those hens are  not going  with us,  I'd like  to know  what the  hell
they're going to do with them."
    "Passengers only occupy twenty percent  of the space on the  Pinta
and the Santa Maria,"  Kenji reminded Nai.  "Supplies and other  cargo
elements take up the rest of the  space. We will only have a total  of
three hundred passengers on the Pinta, most of them ISA officials  and
other key personnel necessary to initialize the colony-"
    "E-nish-ul-eyes the colony?" Max interrupted. "Shit, man, you talk
like one of them robots." He grinned at Nai. "After two years with one
of those talking cultiva-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    249
    tors, I threw the son of a bitch away and replaced him with one of
those earlier silent versions."
    Kenji laughed easily. "I guess I do use a lot of ISA jargon. I was
one of the first civilians selected for New Lowell, and I managed  the
recruiting in the Orient."
    Max had put  a cigarette in  his mouth. He  glanced around in  the
observation lounge. "1 don't  see a smoking  sign anywhere," he  said.
"So I guess if  I light up I'll  set off all the  alarms." He put  the
cigarette behind his ear.  "Winona hates it when  me and Clyde  smoke.
She says only fanners and whores smoke anymore."
    Max chuckled. Kenji and Nai laughed  as well. He was a funny  man.
"Speaking of  whores," Max  said with  a twinkle,  "where's all  those
convict women I saw on television? Whoo-eee, some of them were  mighty
fine. Damn sight better looking than my chickens and pigs."
    "All the colonists  who had been  held in detention  on Earth  are
traveling on the  Santa Maria,"  Kenji said. "We'll  arrive about  two
months before them."
    "You know an  awful lot about  this mission," Max  said. "And  you
don't speak garbled English like the Japs I've met in Little Rock  and
Texarkana. Are you somebody special?''
    "No," Kenji replied, unable to  suppress anomer laugh. "As I  told
you, I'm just the lead colony historian."
    Kenji was about to tell Max that he had lived in the United States
for six years-which  explained why  his English was  so good-when  the
door to the lounge opened and a dignified elderly gentleman in a  gray
suit and dark tie entered. "Pardon me," he said to Max, who had  again
placed the unlighted cigarette in his mouth, "have I mistakenly  ended
up in the smoking room?"
    "No, Pops," Max  answered. "This room  is the observation  lounge.
It's much  too  nice to  be  the  smoking area.  Smoking  is  probably
confined to a small room, without windows, near the bathrooms. My  ISA
interviewer told me-"
    The elderly gentleman  was staring  at Max as  if the  man were  a
biologist and Max was a rare  but unpleasant species. "My name,  young
man," he interrupted, "is not 'Pops.' It's Pyotr. Pyotr Mishkin, to be
exact."
    250 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Glad to know you, Peter," Max  said, sticking out his hand.  "I'm
Max. This couple here's the Wabanyabes. They're from Japan."
    "Kenji Watanabe," Kenji said in correction. "This is my wife  Nai,
who is a citizen of Thailand."
    "Mr. Max," Pyotr Mishkin said  formally, "my first name is  Pyotr,
not Peter. It is bad enough that I must speak English for five  years.
Surely I can  ask that my  name at least  retain its original  Russian
sound."
    "Okay, Pee-yot-ur," Max  said, again  grinning. "What  do you  do,
anyway? No, let me guess . . . you're the colony undertaker."
    For a fraction of a second  Kenji was afraid that Mr. Mishkin  was
going to explode in  anger. Instead, however,  the smallest of  smiles
began to  form upon  his face.  "It  is apparent,  Mr. Max,"  he  said
slowly, "that you  have a  certain comic gift.  I can  see where  that
might be a virtue on  a long and boring space  trip." He paused for  a
moment. "For your information, I am not the undertaker. I was  trained
in the law. Until two years ago, when I retired of my own volition  to
seek a 'new adventure,' I was a member of the Soviet Supreme Court."
    "Holy shit," Max Puckett exclaimed. "Now I remember. I read  about
you in Time magazine. .  . . Hey, Judge  Mishkin, I'm sorry. I  didn't
recognize you-"
    "Not at all," Judge Mishkin interrupted, an amused smile spreading
across his face. "It was fascinating to be unknown for a moment and to
be taken for  an undertaker.  Probably the practiced  judge's mien  is
very close to the proper dour expression of the funeral attendant.  By
the way, Mr. ..."
    "Puckett, sir."
    "By the way,  Mr. Puckett,"  Judge Mishkin  continued, "would  you
like to join me in the bar for a drink? A vodka would taste especially
good right about now."
    "So would some tequila," Max replied, walking toward the door with
Judge Mishkin. "Incidentally,  I don't suppose  you know what  happens
when you feed tequila to pigs, do you? ... I thought not. . . .  Well,
me and my brother Clyde ..."
    They disappeared out the door, leaving Kenji and Nai
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    251
    Watanabe alone  again.  The  couple  glanced  at  each  other  and
laughed. "You don't mink," Kenji said, "that those two are going to be
friends, do you?"
    "No  chance,"  Nai  replied  with   a  smile.  "What  a  pair   of
characters."
    "Mishkin is considered  to be  one of  the finest  jurists of  our
century. His  opinions are  required  reading in  all the  Soviet  law
schools. Puckett  was  president  of the  Southwest  Arkansas  Fanners
Cooperative. He has  incredible knowledge of  farming techniques,  and
farm animals as well."
    "Do you know the background of all the people in New Lowell?"
    "No," Kenji replied. "But I have studied the files of everyone  on
the Pinta."
    Nai put her arms  around her husband. "Tell  me about Nai  Buatong
Watanabe," she said.
    "Thai schoolteacher, fluent in English and French, IE equals 2.48,
SC of 91-"
    Nai interrupted Kenji with a kiss. "You forgot the most  important
characteristic," she said.
    "What's that?"
    She kissed him again. "Adoring new bride of Kenji Watanabe, colony
historian."
    6
    M:
    iost of the world  was watching on television  when the Pinta  was
formally dedicated several hours before it was scheduled to depart for
Mars with its passengers and cargo.  The second vice president of  the
COG, a Swiss real estate executive named Heinrich Jenzer, was  present
at GEO-4 for  the dedication ceremonies.  He gave a  short address  to
commemorate both the completion of the three large spacecraft and  the
opening of a "new era of Martian colonization." When he was  finished,
Mr. Jenzer introduced Mr. lan Macmillan, the Scottish commander of the
Pinta.  Macmillan,  a   boring  speaker   who  appeared   to  be   the
quintessential ISA bureaucrat, read a six-minute speech reminding  the
world of the fundamental objectives of the project.
    "These three vehicles," he said  early in his speech, "will  carry
almost two thousand  people on a  hundred-million-kilometer voyage  to
another planet, Mars, where this time a permanent human presence  will
be  established.  Most  of  our  future  Martian  colonists  will   be
transported in the second ship, the Nina, which will depart from here
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    253
    at GEO-4 three  weeks from  today. Our  ship, the  Pinta, and  the
final spacecraft, the Santa Maria, will each carry about three hundred
passengers as  well as  the  thousands of  kilograms of  supplies  and
equipment that will be necessary to sustain the colony."
    Carefully avoiding any mention of the  demise of the first set  of
Martian outposts  in the  previous century,  Commander Macmillan  next
tried to be poetic,  comparing the forthcoming  expedition to that  of
Christopher Columbus  seven  hundred  and  fifty  years  earlier.  The
language of the speech  that had been written  for him was  excellent,
but Macmillan's drab, monotonic delivery transformed words that  would
have been inspirational in the hands of an outstanding speaker into  a
dull and prosaic historical lecture.
    He ended his speech  by characterizing the  colonists as a  group,
citing statistics  about their  ages,  occupations, and  countries  of
origin. "These  men and  women, then,"  Macmillan summarized,  "are  a
representative cross section of the human species in almost every way.
I say almost because there are at least two attributes common to  this
group that would not be found  in a random collection of human  beings
of this  size.  First,  the  future residents  of  Lowell  Colony  are
extremely intelligent-their average IE is slightly above 1.86. Second,
and this goes without  saying, they must be  courageous or they  would
not have applied for and then accepted a long and difficult assignment
in a new and unknown environment."
    When he was finished, Commander Macmillan was handed a tiny bottle
of champagne, which he broke across the 1/100 scale model of the Pinta
that was displayed behind him and  the other dignitaries on the  dais.
Moments later,  as  the colonists  filed  out of  the  auditorium  and
prepared to board the Pinta, Macmillan and Jenzer began the  scheduled
press conference.
    "He's a jerk."
    "He's a marginally competent bureaucrat." "He's a fucking jerk."
    Max Puckett and Judge Mishkin were discussing Commander  Macmillan
in between bites of lunch. "He has no goddamn sense of humor."
    254 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "He is simply  unable to  appreciate things  that are  out of  the
ordinary."
    Max was chafing. He had been  censured by the Pinta command  staff
during an  informal hearing  earlier that  morning. His  friend  Judge
Mishkin had  represented Max  in  the hearing  and had  prevented  the
proceedings from getting out of control.
    "Those assholes have no right to pass judgment on my behavior.' *
    "You  are  most  certainly  correct,  my  friend,"  Judge  Mishkin
replied, "in the general sense. But we have a set of unique conditions
on this spacecraft.  They are the  authority here, at  least until  we
arrive at Lowell Colony and establish  our own government. ... At  any
rate, there's no real harm done. You are not inconvenienced in any way
by their declaration that your actions were 'untenable.' It could have
been much worse."
    Two nights earlier there had been a party celebrating the crossing
of the halfway point in the Pinta's voyage from Earth to Mars. Max had
flirted energetically for over an hour with lovely Angela Rendino, one
of Macmillan's staff assistants. The bland Scotsman had then taken Max
aside and strongly suggested that Max should leave Angela alone.
    "Let her tell me that," Max had said sensibly.
    "She's an inexperienced young woman," Macmillan had replied.  "And
she's too gracious to tell you how repulsive your animal humor is."
    Max had been having  a great time until  then. "What's your  angle
here.  Commander?"  he  had   asked,  after  first  quaffing   another
margarita. "Is she your private punch or something?"
    lan Macmillan had flushed  crimson. "Mr. Puckett," the  spacecraft
officer had replied a  few seconds later, "if  your behavior does  not
improve, I will be forced to confine you to your living quarters."
    The confrontation with Macmillan had ruined Max's evening. He  had
been incensed by the commander's use of his official authority in what
was clearly a personal situation. Max had returned to his room,  which
he shared with another American, a pensive forester from the state
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    255
    of Oregon  named  Dave Denison,  and  quickly finished  an  entire
bottle of tequila. In his drunken state Max had been both homesick and
depressed. He had then decided to  go to the communications center  to
phone his brother Clyde back in Arkansas.
    By this  time  it  was  very late.  To  reach  the  communications
complex, it was necessary  for Max to cross  the entire ship,  passing
first die common lounge where the  party had just ended, and then  the
officers' quarters. In the central wing Max caught a fleeting  glimpse
of lan  Macmillan and  Angela  Rendino, arm  in  arm, going  into  the
commander's private apartment.
    "The son of a bitch," Max said to himself.
    The drunken  Max  paced  outside Macmillan's  door  in  the  hall,
growing angrier and angrier. After five minutes he finally had an idea
that he liked. Remembering his award-winning pig call from his days at
the University  of  Arkansas,  Max  split the  evening  quiet  with  a
horrendous noise.
    "Sooo-eee, pig, pig," Max hollered.
    He repeated the call another time and then disappeared in a flash,
just before every door in  the officers' wing (including  Macmillan's)
opened to see what the  disturbance had been. Commander Macmillan  was
not at  all  happy that  his  entire crew  saw  him, along  with  Miss
Rendino, in a state of undress.
    The cruise  to Mars  was a  second honeymoon  for Kenji  and  Nai.
Neither of  them had  much  work to  do.  The journey  was  relatively
uneventful, at least from the point of view of a historian, and  Nai's
duties were  minimal  since most  of  her high  school  students  were
onboard the other two spaceships.
    The Watanabes spent many  evenings socializing with Judge  Mishkin
and Max Puckett. They played cards often (Max was as good at poker  as
he was  terrible  at bridge),  talked  about their  hopes  for  Lowell
Colony, and discussed the lives they had left behind on Earth.
    When the Pinta was three weeks away from Mars, the staff announced
a coming two-day communications outage and urged everyone to call home
before the radio systems
    256 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    were temporarily  out of  commission. Since  it was  the  year-end
holiday period, it was the perfect time to phone.
    Max hated the time delay and the long one-way conversations. After
listening to a disjointed discussion  of Christmas plans in  Arkansas,
Max informed Clyde  and Winona that  he wasn't going  to call  anymore
because he disliked "waiting fifteen minutes to find out if anyone has
laughed at my jokes."
    It had  snowed  early in  Kyoto.  Kenji's mother  and  father  had
prepared a  video showing  Ginkaku-ji and  the Honen-In  under a  soft
blanket of snow; if Nai  had not been with  him Kenji would have  been
unbearably homesick. In  a brief call  to Thailand, Nai  congratulated
one of her sisters on having won a scholarship to die university.
    Pyotr Mishkin didn't telephone anyone. The old Russian's wife  was
dead and he had no children. "I have wonderful memories," he told Max,
"but there is nothing personal left for me on Earth."
    On the first day  of the planned  communications blackout, it  was
announced that an important  program, required viewing for  everybody,
would be shown at two o'clock in the afternoon. Kenji and Nai  invited
Max and Judge Mishkin to their small apartment to watch.
    "I wonder what  stupid lecture  this is  going to  be," said  Max,
opposed, as always, to official pronouncements, which he considered  a
waste of his time.
    When the video began, the president of the COG and the director of
the ISA were shown sitting together at a large desk. The COG president
underscored the  importance of  the message  that they  were about  to
receive from Werner Koch, the director of the ISA.
    "Passengers on the  Pinta," Dr.  Koch began, "four  years ago  our
satellite  tracking  systems  decoded  a  coherent  signal  that   had
apparently originated in deep  space in the  general direction of  the
star Epsilon Eridani. When properly processed, the signal contained an
amazing video, one  that you will  see in its  entirety in about  five
minutes.
    "As you will hear, the video announces the return to our system of
a Rama spacecraft. In 2130 and 2200, giant cylinders, fifty kilometers
long  and  twenty  kilometers  wide,  created  by  an  unknown   alien
intelligence for a pur-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    257
    pose we still have not fathomed, visited our family of planets  in
orbit around the Sun. The second intruder, usually referred to as Rama
II, made a velocity  correction while inside the  orbit of Venus  that
put it on an impact course with the Earth. A fleet of nuclear missiles
was dispatched to encounter the  alien cylinder and destroy it  before
Rama came close enough to our planet to do any harm.
    "The following video claims that another of these Rama  spacecraft
has now come to our neighborhood with the sole purpose of  'acquiring'
a  representative   sample   of   two  thousand   human   beings   for
'observation.' As bizarre  as this claim  may be, it  is important  to
note that our radar has indeed confirmed that a Rama class vehicle did
enter orbit around Mars less than a month ago.
    "Unfortunately, we  must take  this  fantastic message  from  deep
space seriously.  Therefore,  you colonists  on  the Pinta  have  been
assigned to rendezvous with the new  object in Mars orbit. We  realize
that this news will come as a severe shock to most of you, but we  did
not have many viable options. If, as we suspect, some misguided genius
has planned and orchestrated an elaborate hoax, then, after the  brief
detour, you  will  continue  on  with your  colonization  of  Mars  as
originally conceived. If, however, the video  you are about to see  is
actually telling the truth, then  you and your associates onboard  the
Nina and the Santa  Maria will become the  contingent of human  beings
that the Raman intelligence will observe.
    "You can well imagine mat your mission now has uppermost  priority
among all  COG  activities.  You  can also  understand  the  need  for
secrecy. From this moment forward,  until this Rama issue is  resolved
one way or the other, all  communication between your vehicle and  the
Earth will be strictly controlled. The  UA will monitor all die  voice
loops. Your friends and families will  be told that you are safe,  and
eventually  that  you  have  landed  on  Mars,  but  that  the   Pinta
communication systems have completely failed.
    "You are being  shown the following  video now to  give you  three
weeks to prepare for the  encounter. A baseline plan and  accompanying
procedures for the rendezvous,
    258 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    worked out in  great detail  by the  IIA in  conjunction with  ISA
operations personnel,  have  already  been  transmitted  to  Commander
Macmillan on the high-rate  data stream. Each one  of you will have  a
specific set  of assignments.  Each  of you  also has  a  personalized
document packet that  will provide you  with the necessary  background
information for you to perform your duties.
    "Of course we  wish you well.  Most likely this  Rama affair  will
turn out to be nothing, in which case it will simply have delayed your
initialization of Lowell  Colony. If,  however, this video  is on  the
level, then  you  must  move  quickly to  develop  careful  plans  for
accommodating the arrival of the Nina and the Santa Maria-none of  the
colonists on those other two  spacecraft will have been told  anything
at all about Rama or the change in assignment."
    There was a  momentary silence  in the Watanabe  apartment as  the
video abruptly concluded  and was  replaced on  the screen  by a  text
message, Next video in two minutes. "Well, I'll be goddamned," was Max
Puckett's only comment.
    7
    In the video Nicole was sitting on an ordinary brown
    chair with a featureless wall behind  her. She was dressed in  one
of the ISA flight  suits mat had been  her regular apparel during  the
Newton mission. Nicole  read the message  from an electronic  notebook
that she held in her hands.
    "My fellow Earthlings," she began,  "I am Newton cosmonaut  Nicole
des Jardins, sneaking to  you from billions of  kilometers away. I  am
onboard a  Rama  spacecraft  similar  to  the  two  great  cylindrical
spaceships  that  visited  our  solar  system  during  the  last   two
centuries. This third  Rama vehicle  is also heading  toward our  tiny
region of  the  Galaxy.  Approximately four  years  after  your  first
receipt of this video, Rama III  will go into orbit around the  planet
Mars.
    "Since I  left  the Earth  I  have  learned that  the  Rama  class
vehicles were constructed by an advanced extraterrestrial intelligence
as elements  in a  vast  information-gathering system  whose  ultimate
objective  is  acquiring  and  cataloguing  data  about  life  in  the
universe. It is as part of
    260 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    this goal that this third Rama craft is returning to the  vicinity
of our home planet.
    "Inside  Rama  01  an  Eaithlike  habitat  has  been  designed  to
accommodate two  thousand human  beings, plus  significant numbers  of
other animals and plants from our  home planet. The exact biomass  and
other  general  specifications  for  these  animals  and  plants   are
contained in the first appendix to  this video; however, it should  be
stressed  that  the  plants,  especially  those  that  are   extremely
efficient in the  conversion of carbon  dioxide to oxygen,  are a  key
feature in the basic design of the Earth habitat onboard Rama. Without
the plants,  life  for  the  humans  inside  Rama  will  be  seriously
compromised.
    "What is expected, as a result  of this transmission, is that  the
Earth will  send a  representative group  of its  inhabitants-together
with the ancillary supplies detailed in the second appendix-to make  a
rendezvous with Rama  III in Mars  orbit. The voyagers  will be  taken
inside Rama and carefully observed while they are living in a  habitat
that reproduces the environmental conditions on the Earth.
    "Because of the hostile response  to Rama II which,  incidentally,
resulted in only  minor damage  to the alien  spacecraft, the  nominal
mission plan  for this  Rama  vehicle involves  no approach  to  Earth
closer than Mars orbit. This nominal plan assumes, of course, that the
authorities on Earth will indeed comply with the requests contained in
this transmission. If no human beings are sent to rendezvous with Rama
III in Mars orbit, I have no knowledge of how the spacecraft has  been
programmed  to  respond.  I  can   say,  however,  based  on  my   own
observations, that  it  is  easily  within  the  capabilities  of  the
extraterrestrial intelligence  to  acquire its  desired  observational
data by other, less benign methods.
    "With respect to the  human beings to be  transported to Mars,  it
goes without saying that the  selected individuals should represent  a
broad cross section of humanity,  including both sexes, all ages,  and
as many cultures as can be  reasonably included. The large library  of
information about  the Earth  that  is requested  in the  third  video
appendix  will  provide  significant  additional  data  that  can   be
correlated with the observations taken inside Rama.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    261
    "I myself have no knowledge of  how long the human beings will  be
inside Rama, or exactly where the  spacecraft will take them, or  even
why the  superior  intelligence  that created  the  Rama  vehicles  is
gathering information about life in the universe. I can say,  however,
that the wonders I have witnessed since leaving our solar system  have
given me an entirely new sense of our place in the universe.''
    The total  time  for  the  video, more  than  half  of  which  was
allocated to  the  detailed appendices,  was  just over  ten  minutes.
Throughout the transmission the basic  scene did not change.  Nicole's
delivery was measured and deliberate, punctuated by short pauses  when
her eyes moved from the camera to the notebook in her hands.  Although
there was  some  modulation  in  her  tone,  Nicole's  earnest  facial
expression was  virtually constant.  Only when  she implied  that  the
Ramans might have "other, less benign methods" of obtaining their data
did any strong emotion flash in her dark eyes.
    Kenji Watanabe watched the  first half of  the video with  intense
concentration. During the appendices, however, his mind began to stray
and to start  asking questions.  Who are  these extraterrestrials?  he
wondered. Where did they  come from? Why do  they want to observe  us?
And why have they picked Nicole des Jardins as their spokesperson?
    Kenji laughed  to himself,  realizing that  there was  an  endless
stream of  such  infinite  questions.  He decided  to  focus  on  more
tractable issues.
    If Nicole were  still alive  today, Kenji thought  next, then  she
would be eighty-one years old. The woman on the television screen  had
some gray hair, and many more wrinkles than cosmonaut des Jardins  had
had when the Newton was  launched from the Earth,  but her age in  the
video  was  certainly   nowhere  near  eighty.   Maybe  fifty-two   or
Jifty-three at the very most, Kenji said to himself.
    So did she make this video  thirty years ago? he wondered. Or  has
her aging process been  somehow retarded? It did  not occur to him  to
question whether or not the speaker was really Nicole. Kenji had spent
enough time
    262 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    in the Newton  archives to recognize  immediately Nicole's  facial
expressions and mannerisms. She supposedly  made the video about  four
years ago, Kenji was thinking, but  if so ... He was still  struggling
with the entire  situation when Nicole's  transmission terminated  and
the director of the ISA appeared again on the monitor.
    Dr. Koch explained quickly mat  the video would be replayed  twice
in its entirety on all channels and men would be available to each  of
the passengers and crew at his leisure.
    "What the hell is really going  on here?" Max Puckett demanded  to
know as  soon as  Nicole's  face appeared  on  the monitor  again.  He
directed his question at Kenji.
    "If I have  understood correctly," Kenji  answered after  watching
for several seconds, "we have been  purposely misled by the ISA  about
one of the primary purposes of our endeavor. Apparently, this  message
was first received about four years ago, back when the funding for the
Low-ell Colony  was  still  somewhat uncertain,  and  it  was  decided
then-after  all  efforts  to  prove  the  video  to  be  a  hoax  were
unsuccessful-that the  investigation of  Rama III  would be  a  secret
objective of our project."
    "Shit," said Max  Puckett, shaking his  head vigorously. "Why  the
hell didn't they just tell us the truth?"
    "My mind balks at the idea of supercreatures sending such  awesome
technology just  to gather  data about  us," Judge  Mishkin  commented
after a short  silence. "On  another level,  however, at  least now  I
understand some  of  the  peculiarities  in  the  personnel  selection
process. I  was flabbergasted  when that  group of  homeless  American
teenagers was added to  the colony about eight  months ago. Now I  see
that the selection criteria were based on satisfying the 'broad  cross
section'  requested  by  Madame  des  Jardins;  whether  or  not   our
particular  mix   of   individuals   and  skills   would   produce   a
sociologically viable colony on Mars must have always been a secondary
consideration."
    "I hate lies and liars,"  Max now said. He  had stood up from  his
chair and  was pacing  around  the room.  "All these  politicians  and
government managers are the  same- the bastards  will lie without  any
conscience."
    "But what could they have done, Max?" Judge Mishkin
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    263
    replied. "Almost  certainly  they  didn't really  take  the  video
seriously. At least not until this new craft showed up in Mars  orbit.
And if they had  told the truth from  the beginning, there would  have
been worldwide panic."
    "Look, Judge," Max  said in a  frustrated tone, "I  thought I  was
hired to  be a  fucking  farmer on  a colony  on  Mars. I  don't  know
anything about ETs and, quite frankly, I don't want to know  anything.
It's hard enough for me to deal with chickens, pigs, and people."
    "Especially people," Judge  Mishkin said quickly,  smiling at  his
friend. Despite himself, Max chuckled.
    A few minutes later  Judge Mishkin and Max  said goodbye and  left
Kenji and Nai alone. Soon after their guests were gone, the videophone
rang  in  Kenji  and  Nai's  apartment.  "Watanabe?"  they  heard  lan
Macmillan say.
    "Yes, sir," Kenji replied.
    "Sorry to disturb  you, Watanabe,"  the commander  said. "But  you
have the  first assignment  given to  anyone other  than my  immediate
staff. Your orders are  to brief the entire  Pinta crew on the  Newton
expedition, the Ramas, and  Cosmonaut des Jardins  at 1900 tonight.  I
thought you might want to begin your preparations."
    ". . . All the media reported in 2200 that Rama II was  completely
destroyed, vaporized by  the multiple nuclear  bombs that exploded  in
its vicinity. The missing cosmonauts des Jardins, O'Toole,  Takagishi,
and Wakefield  were of  course all  considered to  be dead.  Actually,
according to both the official documents of the Newton mission and the
very successful books  and television series  distributed by  Hagenest
and Schmidt, Nicole des Jardins presumably died somewhere in New York,
the island city in the middle of the Cylindrical Sea, weeks before the
science ship of the Newton ever left Rama and returned to the Earth."
    Kenji paused  to  look  at his  audience.  Even  though  Commander
Macmillan had  explained  to the  Pinta  passengers and  crew  that  a
videotape of Kenji's presentation would be immediately available, many
of the listeners were taking notes.  Kenji was enjoying his moment  in
the limelight. He glanced at Nai and smiled before continuing.
    264 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Cosmonaut Francesca  Sabatini, the  most famous  survivor of  the
ill-fated Newton expedition,  postulated in her  memoirs that Dr.  des
Jardins might have encountered a hostile biot, or had perhaps  fallen,
somewhere in one of  the blackout regions of  New York. Since the  two
women had been together  for most of the  day-they were searching  for
the  Japanese  scientist  Shigeru  Takagishi,  who  had   mysteriously
disappeared from the Beta  campsite the night before-Signora  Sabatini
was well aware  of the  amount of food  and water  that Cosmonaut  des
Jardins was carrying. 'Even with her consummate knowledge of the human
body,' Sabatini wrote, 'Nicole could  not possibly have survived  more
than a week. And  if, in a  delirious state, she  had tried to  obtain
water from the ice  of the poisonous Cylindrical  Sea, she would  have
died even sooner.'
    "Of the half dozen Newton cosmonauts  who did not return from  the
encounter with  Rama II,  it  is Nicole  des  Jardins who  has  always
attracted the most  interest. Even before  the brilliant  statistician
Roberto Lopez correctly conjectured seven  years ago, on the basis  of
European genome information stored  in The Hague,  that the late  King
Henry XI of England was the father of Nicole's daughter Genevieve, Dr.
des Jardins's reputation had become legendary. Recently the attendance
at her  memorial  near  her  family villa  in  Beauvois,  France,  has
increased markedly,  especially  among  young  females.  People  flock
there, not only to  pay Cosmonaut des Jardins  homage and to view  the
many photographs and  videos commemorating her  outstanding life,  but
also to  see  the two  superb  bronze  statues created  by  the  Greek
sculptor Theo Pappas. In  one the youthful Nicole  is depicted in  her
track singlet and shorts with the Olympic gold medal around her  neck;
in the second she is  shown as a mature  woman, wearing an ISA  flight
suit similar to one you saw in the video."
    Kenji pointed  to  the  back  of  the  room  in  the  small  Pinta
auditorium and the  lights were  extinguished. Moments  later a  slide
show began on one of  the two screens behind  him. "These are the  few
photographs of Nicole des Jardins mat were stored in our Pinta  files.
The reference data base indicates  that many more pictures,  including
historical film
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    265
    clips, are  available in  the reserve  library stored  out in  the
cargo bay, but those data are not accessible during cruise due to  the
limitations of the flight data network. The extra data are not needed,
however, for it  is clear from  these photos that  the individual  who
appeared in  the  transmission this  afternoon  is either  Nicole  des
Jardins, or an absolutely perfect copy of her.''
    A close-up still from the afternoon  video was frozen on the  left
screen and juxtaposed to a head photo taken of Nicole the night of the
New Year's Eve party at the  Villa Adrian! outside Rome. There was  no
question about it. The two pictures were definitely of the same woman.
An appreciative murmur rose from the  audience as Kenji paused in  his
presentation.
    "Nicole des  Jardins  was born,"  Kenji  continued in  a  slightly
subdued tone, "on January 6, 2164. Therefore, if the video we  watched
this afternoon was actually  filmed about four  years ago, she  should
have been seventy-seven years old at  the time. Now, we all know  that
Dr. des  Jardins  was  in  superb physical  condition,  and  that  she
exercised regularly,  but  if the  woman  we saw  this  afternoon  was
seventy-seven, then the ETs who  built Rama must also have  discovered
the fountain of youth."
    Even though it  was late  at night and  Kenji was  very tired,  he
still could not sleep. The events  of the day kept forcing  themselves
into his mind and exciting him again. Next to him in the small  double
bed Nai Buatong  Wata-nabe was very  much aware that  her husband  was
awake.
    "You're absolutely certain mat we were seeing the real Nicole  des
Jardins, aren't you,  dear?" Nai  said softly after  Kenji had  turned
over for the umpteenth time.
    "Yes," said Kenji. "But Macmillan  isn't. He demanded that I  make
that statement  about the  possibility  of a  perfect copy.  He  minks
everything in the video is a fake."
    "After our discussion this afternoon," Nai said following a  short
pause, "I was able  to recall all the  brouhaha about Nicole and  King
Henry from  seven  years  ago.  It was  in  most  of  the  personality
magazines. But I've  forgotten something. How  was it established  for
certain that Henry
    266 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    was Genevieve's father? Wasn't the king already dead? And  doesn't
the royal family in  England keep its  genome information private  and
secret?"
    "Lopez used the genomes belonging  to the parents and siblings  of
people who had married into the  royal family. Then, employing a  data
correlation technique that he himself  had invented, Dr. Lopez  showed
that Henry,  who  was  still  the Prince  of  Wales  during  the  2184
Olympics, was more  than three  times as  likely as  any other  person
present in Los Angeles at the time to have been the father of Nicole's
baby. After Darren  Higgins admitted  on his deathbed  that Henry  and
Nicole had spent  one night  together during the  Olympics, the  royal
family allowed a genetic specialist access to their genome data  base.
The expert  concluded,  beyond any  reasonable  doubt, mat  Henry  was
Genevieve's father."
    "What an amazing woman," Nai said.
    "She was indeed," Kenji  replied. "But what  prompted you to  make
that comment right now?"
    "As a woman," Nai  said, "I admire her  protecting her secret  and
raising her princess  herself as  much or more  man any  of her  other
accomplishments."
    8
    Eponine located Kimberly in the corner of the smoky
    room and  sat down  beside  her. She  accepted the  cigarette  her
friend offered, lit it, and inhaled deeply.
    "Ah, what pleasure," Eponine said softly as she expelled the smoke
in small circles and watched it rise slowly toward the ventilators.
    "As much as  you love tobacco  and nicotine," Kimberly  said in  a
whisper from  beside her,  "I  know that  you would  absolutely  adore
kokomo." The American  girl took a  drag from her  cigarette. "I  know
that you  don't believe  me, Eponine,  but it's  actually better  than
sex."
    "Not for me, mon came" Eponine  replied in a warm, friendly  tone.
"I have enough vices. And I could never, never control something  that
was truly better than sex."
    Kimberiy Henderson laughed heartily, her long blond locks bouncing
on her shoulders. She was twenty-four, a year younger than her  French
colleague. The two of them were sitting in the smoking lounge attached
to the women's shower. It was a tiny square room, no more than four
    268 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    meters on a side, in which  a dozen women were currently  standing
or sitting, all smoking cigarettes.
    "This room reminds me of the  back room at Willie's in  Evergreen,
just outside  of Denver,"  Kimberly  said. "While  a hundred  or  more
cowboys and rednecks would  be dancing and drinking  in the main  bar,
eight or ten of us would retreat into Willie's sacred 'office,' as  he
called it, and fuck ourselves completely up with kokomo."
    Eponine stared through  the haze  at Kimberly. "At  least in  this
lounge we aren't harassed by the men. They are absolutely  impossible,
even worse than the  guys in the detention  village at Bourges.  These
characters must think about nothing but sex all day long."
    "That's understandable,"  Kimberly  replied  with  another  laugh.
"They're not being closely watched for  the first time in years.  When
Toshio's men sabotaged all the hidden monitors, everybody was suddenly
free." She glanced over at Eponine. "But there's a grim side as  well.
There were two  more rapes  today, one  right in  the coed  recreation
area."
    Kimberly finished one cigarette and immediately lit another.  "You
need someone to protect you," she continued, "and I know Walter  would
love the job. Because of Toshio,  the cons have mostly stopped  trying
to hit on me. My main concern now is the ISA guards-they think they're
hot shit.  Only  that gorgeous  Italian  hunk, Marcello  something  or
other, interests me at all. He told me yesterday that he would make me
'moan with pleasure'  if I  would just  join him  in his  room. I  was
sorely tempted  until  I  saw  one  of  Toshio's  thugs  watching  the
conversation."
    Eponine also lit another cigarette. She knew it was ridiculous  to
smoke them one after  another, but the passengers  on the Santa  Maria
were only allowed three  half-hour "breaks" each  day and smoking  was
not permitted  in  the cramped  living  quarters. While  Kimberly  was
momentarily sidetracked by a question from a burly woman in her  early
forties, Eponine thought about the first few days after they had  left
die Earth.  Our  third  day  out, she  recalled,  Naka-mura  sent  his
go-between to see me. I must have been his first choice.
    The huge Japanese man, a sumo wrestler before he be-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    269
    came a bill  collector for  a notorious gambling  ring, had  bowed
formally when  he  had  approached  her  in  the  coed  lounge.  "Miss
Eponine,"  he  had  said  in  heavily  accented  English,  "my  friend
Nakamura-san has  asked  me  to  tell  you  that  he  finds  you  very
beautiful. He  offers you  complete protection  in exchange  for  your
companionship and an occasional favor of pleasure."
    The offer was attractive in some ways, Eponine remembered, and not
unlike what most of the decent-looking  women on the Santa Maria  have
eventually accepted. I knew  at the time that  Nakamura would be  very
powerful. But I  didn't like  his coldness. And  I mistakenly  thought
that I could remain free.
    "Ready?" Kimberly repeated.  Eponine snapped out  of her  reverie.
She stubbed out  her cigarette  and walked  with her  friend into  the
dressing room. While they were taking off their clothes and  preparing
to shower, at least a dozen eyes feasted on their magnificent bodies.
    "Doesn't it bother  you," Eponine  asked when  they were  standing
side by side in  the shower, "to have  these dykes devouring you  with
their eyes?"
    "Nope," Kimberly replied.  "In a  way I enjoy  it. It's  certainly
flattering. There are  not many  women here who  look like  we do.  It
arouses me to have them stare so hungrily at me."
    Eponine rinsed the  soapy lamer  off her full,  firm breasts  and-
leaned over to Kimberly. "Then you  have had sex with another  woman?"
she asked.
    "Of course," Kimberly  replied with another  deep laugh.  "Haven't
you?"
    Without waiting for a response,  the American woman launched  into
one of her stories. "My first dealer in Denver was a dyke. I was  only
eighteen and absolutely perfect from  head to toe. When Loretta  first
saw me naked, she thought  she'd died and gone  to heaven. I had  just
entered nursing school and couldn't afford much dope. So I made a deal
with Loretta. She could fuck me, but only if she kept me supplied with
cocaine. Our affair lasted almost six months. By then I was dealing on
my own and, besides, I had fallen in love with the Magician.
    "Poor Loretta," Kimberly continued as she and Epo-
    270 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    nine dried each other's  backs in the  lavatory that adjoined  the
shower. "She was brokenhearted.  She offered me everything,  including
her client list. Eventually she became  a nuisance, so I undercut  her
and had the Magician force her out of Denver."
    Kimberly saw a  fleeting look of  disapproval on Epo-nine's  face.
"Jesus," she said, "there  you go again, turning  moral on me.  You're
the softest goddamn murderer I have ever met. Sometimes you remind  me
of all the goody two-shoes in my high school graduating class."
    As they were  about to leave  the shower area,  a tiny black  girl
with her hair in braids came up behind them. "You Kimberly Henderson?"
she said.
    "Yes." Kimberly nodded, turning around. "But why-''
    "Is your man the king Jap Nakamura?" the girl interrupted.
    Kimberly did not reply.
    "If so, I need your help," the black girl continued.
    "What do you want?" Kimberly asked in a noncommittal tone.
    The girl suddenly  broke into  tears. "My man  Reuben didn't  mean
nothing. He was drunk on that shit the guards sell. He didn't know  he
was talking to the king Jap."
    Kimberly waited for  the girl  to dry  her tears.  "What have  you
got?" she whispered.
    "Three knives and two joints  of dynamite kokomo," the black  girl
replied in the same soft whisper.
    "Bring them to me," Kimberly said with a smile. "And I'll  arrange
a time for your Reuben to apologize to Mr. Nakamura."
    "You  don't  like  Kimberly,  do  you?"  Eponine  said  to  Walter
Brackeen. He was a huge American  Negro with soft eyes and  absolutely
magical fingers on a keyboard. He was playing a light jazz medley  and
staring at his beautiful lady while  his three roommates were out,  by
agreement, in the common areas.
    "No, I don't," Walter replied slowly. "She's not like us. She  can
be very funny, but underneath I think she's truly bad."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    27J
    "What do you mean?"
    Walter changed to a soft ballad, with an easier melody, and played
for almost a full minute before speaking. "I guess in the eyes of  the
law we're all equal, all murderers. But not in my eyes. I squashed the
life out of a man  who sodomized my baby  brother. You killed a  crazy
bastard who was  ruining your life."  Walter paused for  a moment  and
rolled his  eyes. "But  that friend  of yours  Kimberly, she  and  her
boyfriend offed three people they didn't even know just for drugs  and
money."
    "She was stoned at the time."
    "No matter," Walter said.  "Each of us  is always responsible  for
his behavior. If  I put  shit in  me that  makes me  awful, that's  my
mistake. But I can't cop out of the responsibility for my actions."
    "She had a perfect  record in the detention  center. Every one  of
the doctors who worked with her said she was an excellent nurse."
    Walter stopped  playing his  keyboard and  stared at  Eponine  for
several seconds. "Let's not talk about Kimberly anymore," he said. "We
have little enough  time together.  . . .  Have you  thought about  my
proposition?"
    Eponine sighed. "Yes, I have, Walter. And although I like you, and
enjoy making love with you,  the arrangement you suggested sounds  too
much like a commitment. . . . Besides, I think this is mostly for your
ego. Unless I miss my guess, you prefer Malcolm-"
    "Malcolm has nothing  to do  with us,"  Walter interrupted.  "He's
been my close friend  for years, since the  very first days I  entered
the Georgia detention compound. We  play music together. We share  sex
when we're both lonely. We're soul mates-"
    "I know, I  know. . .  . Malcolm's not  really the central  issue.
It's more the principle of the thing  that bothers me. I do like  you,
Walter, you know  that. But.  . ." Her  voice trailed  off as  Eponine
struggled with her mixed feelings.
    "We're three weeks away from Earth," Walter said, "and we have six
more weeks before we  reach Mars. I  am the largest  man on the  Santa
Maria. If I say that you're my girl, nobody will bother you for  those
six weeks."
    Eponine recalled an unpleasant scene just that morning
    272 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    where two German  inmates had discussed  how easy it  would be  to
commit rape  in the  convict quarters.  They had  known that  she  was
within earshot but had made no effort to lower their voices.
    At length she put herself in Walter's huge arms. "All right,"  she
said softly. "But don't expect too much. . . . I'm sort of a difficult
woman."
    "I think  Walter may  have a  heart problem,"  Eponine said  in  a
whisper. It was the middle of the night and their other two  roommates
were asleep. Kimberly, in the bunk below Eponine, was still stoned  on
the kokomo she had smoked two hours earlier. Sleep would be impossible
for her for several more hours.
    "The rules  on  this  ship are  fucking  stupid,"  Kimberly  said.
"Christ, even  in  the  Pueblo  Detention  Complex  there  were  fewer
regulations. Why the  hell can't  we stay  in the  common areas  after
midnight? What harm are we doing?"
    "He has occasional chest  pains and, if we  have vigorous sex,  he
often complains afterward of shortness of breath. ... Do you think you
could take a look at him?"
    "And how about that Marcello? Huh! What a stupid ass! He tells  me
1 can stay  up all  night if I  want to  come to his  room. While  I'm
sitting there with Toshio. What does he think he's doing? I mean,  not
even the guards can mess  with the king Jap. .  . . What did you  say,
Eponine?"
    Eponine raised herself on an elbow and leaned over the side of the
bed. "Walter  Brackeen, Kirn,"  she said.  "I'm talking  about  Walter
Brackeen. Can you slow yourself down  enough to pay attention to  what
I'm saying?"
    "All right. All right. What about your Walter? What does he  want?
Everybody wants something from the king Jap. I guess that makes me the
queen, at least in a way-"
    "I think Walter has a bad heart," the exasperated Eponine repeated
in a loud voice. "I would like for you to look at him."
    "Shh," Kimberly replied. "They'll come bust us, like they did that
crazy Swedish girl. . . . Shit, Ep,  I'm no doctor. I can tell when  a
heartbeat is irregular, but  that's all. You ought  to take Walter  to
that con doctor who's
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    273
    really a cardiologist, what's  his name, the  super quiet one  who
stays to himself when he's not examining somebody-"
    "Dr. Robert Turner," Eponine interrupted.
    "That's the one  . .  . very professional,  aloof, distant,  never
speaks except in doctorese, hard to believe he blew the heads off  two
men in a courtroom with a shotgun, it just doesn't figure-"
    "How do you know tkalT' Eponine said.
    "Marcello told me. I was curious, we were laughing, he was teasing
me, saying things like 'Does that  Jap make you moan?' and 'How  about
mat quiet heart doctor, can he make you moan?' "
    "Christ, Kim," Eponine said, now alarmed, "have you been going  to
bed with Marcello too?"
    Her roommate laughed. "Only twice.  He talks better man he  fucks.
And what an ego. At least the king Jap is appreciative."
    "Does Nakamura know?"
    "Do you think I'm crazy?" Kimberly replied. "I don't want to  die.
But he may be  suspicious. ... I  won't do it again,  but if that  Dr.
Turner were to so  much as whisper  in my ear I  would cream all  over
myself. ..."
    Kimberly continued her rambling  chatter. Eponine thought  briefly
about Dr. Robert  Turner. He  had examined Eponine  soon after  launch
when she had been having some peculiar spotting. He never even noticed
my body, she remembered. // was a thoroughly professional examination.
    Eponine tuned Kimberly out of her mind and focused on an image  of
the handsome  doctor.  She was  surprised  to discover  that  she  was
feeling a spark of romantic  interest. There was something  definitely
mysterious about the doctor,  for there was nothing  in his manner  or
personality that was the  least bit consistent  with a double  murder.
There must be an interesting story, she thought.
    Eponine was dreaming. It was the same nightmare that she had had a
hundred times since the  murder. Professor Moreau  was lying with  his
eyes closed on  me floor  of his studio,  blood streaming  out of  his
chest. Eponine walked
    274 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    over to the basin, cleaned the large carving knife, and placed  it
back on the  counter. As she  stepped over the  body those hated  eyes
opened. She saw the wild insanity in his eyes. He reached out for  her
with his arms-
    "Nurse Henderson. Nurse Henderson." The  knocking on the door  was
louder. Eponine awakened from her dream and rubbed her eyes.  Kimberly
and another of their roommates reached the door almost simultaneously.
    Walter's friend Malcolm Peabody, a diminutive, effete white man in
his early forties,  was standing  at the  door. He  was frantic.  "Dr.
Turner sent  me  for a  nurse.  Come  quickly. Walter's  had  a  heart
attack."
    As Kimberly began  to dress,  Eponine glided down  from her  bunk.
"How is he, Malcolm?" she asked, pulling on her robe. "Is he dead?"
    Malcolm was  momentarily  confused.  "Oh, hi,  Eponine,"  he  said
meekly. "I had forgotten  that you and  Nurse Henderson .  . . When  I
left he was still breathing, but-"
    Being careful to keep one foot on the floor at all times,  Eponine
hurried out the door, down the corridor, into the central common area,
and then into the  men's living quarters. Alarms  sounded as the  main
monitors followed  her  progress. When  she  reached the  entrance  to
Walter's wing, Eponine paused for a moment to catch her breath.
    A crowd of people was standing in the corridor outside of Walter's
room. His door  was open wide  and the  bottom third of  his body  was
lying outside,  in the  hallway. Eponine  pushed her  way through  the
crowd and into the room.
    Dr.  Robert  Turner  was  kneeling  beside  his  patient,  holding
electronic prods  against Walter's  naked chest.  The big  man's  body
recoiled with each jolt, and then  rose slightly off the floor  before
the doctor pushed it down again against the surface.
    Dr. Turner glanced up when  Eponine arrived. "Are you the  nurse?"
he asked brusquely.
    For a  fleeting moment  Eponine was  speechless. And  embarrassed.
Here her friend was dying  or dead and all  she could think about  was
Dr. Turner's practically perfect blue eyes. "No," she said at  length,
definitely flustered.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    275
    "I'm the girlfriend. . . . Nurse  Henderson is my roommate. . .  .
She should be here any minute."
    Kimberly and two ISA  guard escorts arrived  at that moment.  "His
heart stopped completely forty-five seconds  ago," Dr. Turner said  to
Kimberly. "It's too late  to move him to  the infirmary. I'm going  to
open him up and try to use  the Komori stimulator. Did you bring  your
gloves?"
    While Kimberly pulled on her gloves, Dr. Turner ordered the  crowd
away from his patient.  Eponine didn't move.  When the guards  grabbed
her by the arms, the doctor mumbled something and the guards  released
her.
    Dr. Turner handed  Kimberly his  set of surgical  tools and  then,
working with both incredible speed and skill, cut a deep incision into
Walter's chest. He laid back the folds of the skin, exposing the heart
and rib  cage. "Have  you been  through this  procedure before,  Nurse
Henderson?" he asked.
    "No," Kimberly replied.
    "The Komori stimulator is an electrochemical device that  attaches
to the heart, forcing it  to beat and continue  to pump blood. If  the
pathology is temporary,  like a blood  clot or a  spastic valve,  then
sometimes the problem can be fixed and the patient's heart will  start
functioning again."
    Dr. Turner inserted the  stamp-sized Komori stimulator behind  the
left ventricle of the  heart and applied the  power from the  portable
control system on the floor beside  him. Walter's heart began to  beat
slowly three or four seconds later.  "We have about eight minutes  now
to find the problem," the doctor said to himself.
    He finished his analysis of the organ's primary subsystems in less
than a minute. "No clots," he mumbled, "and no bad vessels or  valves.
... So why did it stop beating?''
    Dr. Turner gingerly  lifted up the  throbbing heart and  inspected
the muscles underneath. The muscular  tissue around the right  auricle
was discolored and soft.  He touched it very  lightly with the end  of
one of his pointed instruments and portions of the tissue flaked off.
    "My God," the doctor said, "what in the world is this?" While  Dr.
Turner was holding the heart up, Walter
    276 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Brackeen's heart  contracted  again  and one  of  the  long  fiber
structures in the middle of die discolored muscular tissue started  to
unravel. "What the-" Turner  blinked twice and put  his right hand  on
his cheek.
    "Look at this, Nurse Henderson," he said quietly. "It's absolutely
amazing. The muscles here have  atrophied completely. I've never  seen
anything like it. We cannot help this man."
    Eponine's eyes filled with tears as Dr. Turner withdrew the Komori
stimulator and Walter's heart stopped beating again. Kimberly  started
to remove the clamps holding back me skin and tissue around the heart,
but the doctor stopped her. "Not  yet," he said. "Let's take him  over
to the infirmary  so I can  perform a  full autopsy. I  want to  learn
whatever I can."
    The guards and two of Walter's roommates eased the large man  onto
a gurney and the  body was removed from  the living quarters.  Malcolm
Peabody sobbed quietly on Walter's  bunk. Eponine walked over to  him.
They shared a  silent hug and  then sat together,  holding hands,  for
most of the rest of the night.
    9
    Y:
    fou'll be in  charge here while  I'm inside," Commander  Macmillan
said to his  deputy, a  handsome young Russian  engineer named  Dmitri
Ulanov. "Under all circumstances,  your primary responsibility is  the
safety of  the  passengers and  crew.  If  you hear  or  see  anything
threatening or even suspicious, blow the pyros and move the Pinta away
from Rama."
    It was the morning  of the first  reconnaissance mission from  the
Pinta into the interior of Rama. The spacecraft from Earth had  docked
the previous day on one of  the circular ends of the huge  cylindrical
spacecraft. The Pinta had been parked right beside the external  seal,
in the same general location as the earlier Raman expeditions in  2130
and 2200.
    As part of the preparations for the initial sortie, Kenji Watanabe
had briefed the scouting  party the night before  on the geography  of
the first two Ramas.  When he had finished  with his comments, he  had
been approached by his friend Max Puckett.
    278 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Do you  think our  Rama will  look like  all those  pictures  you
showed us?" Max had asked.
    "Not exactly," Kenji had replied. "I expect some changes. Remember
that the  video  said  that  an Earth  habitat  had  been  constructed
somewhere inside  Rama.  Nevertheless,  since  the  exterior  of  this
spacecraft is identical  to the  other two, I  don't think  everything
inside will be changed."
    Max had looked  perplexed. "This  is all  way beyond  me," he  had
said, shaking  his head.  "By the  way," he  had added  a few  seconds
later, "you're  sure  you're  not  responsible for  me  being  in  the
scouting party?"
    "As I told you this afternoon," Kenji replied, "none of us onboard
the Pinta had anything to do with the scouting selections. All sixteen
members were chosen by the ISA and HA back on Earth."
    "But why have I been equipped with this goddamn arsenal? I have  a
state-of-the-art laser machine gun, self-guiding grenades, even a  set
of mass-sensitive mines. I have more  firepower now than I had  during
the peacekeeping invasion of Belize."
    Kenji had smiled. "Commander Macmillan, as well as many members of
the military  staff at  COG Headquarters,  still believes  this  whole
affair is  a trap  of  some kind.  Your  designator in  this  scouting
operation is  'soldier.'  My personal  belief  is that  none  of  your
weapons will be necessary."
    Max was  still  grumbling the  next  morning when  Macmillan  left
Dmitri Ulanov in charge of the  Pinta and personally led the  scouting
party into Rama.  Although he was  weightless, the military  equipment
that Max was carrying  on the outside of  his space suit was  unwieldy
and severely restricted his freedom of movement. "This is ridiculous,"
he mumbled to himself. "I'm a farmer, not a goddamn commando."
    The initial surprise came only  minutes after the scouts from  the
Pinta had moved inside the external seal. Following a short walk  down
a broad corridor, the group came  to a circular room from which  three
tunnels led deeper into  the interior of the  alien spaceship, Two  of
the tunnels
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    279
    were blocked with multiple metal gates. Commander Macmillan called
Kenji in for consultation.
    "This is a completely different design," Kenji said in response to
the commander's questions. "We may as well throw out our maps."
    "Then I  presume we  should proceed  down the  unblocked  tunnel?"
Macmillan asked.
    "That's your  call," Kenji  replied, "but  I don't  see any  other
option, except to return to the Pinta."
    The sixteen men trudged slowly down the open tunnel in their space
suits. Every few minutes  they would launch  flares into the  darkness
ahead of them so that they could see where they were going. When  they
were about five hundred meters  into Rama, two small figures  suddenly
appeared at the  other end of  the tunnel. Each  of the four  soldiers
plus Commander Macmillan quickly pulled out his binoculars.
    "They're coming  toward  us,"  said  one  of  the  soldier  scouts
excitedly.
    "Well, I'll be damned," said Max Puckett, a shiver going down  his
spine, "it's Abraham Lincoln!"
    "And a woman," said another, "in some kind of uniform."
    "Prepare to fire," ordered lan Macmillan.
    The four soldier  scouts scurried  to the  head of  the party  and
knelt down,  their  guns  pointed down  the  runnel.  "Halt,"  shouted
Macmillan as the two strange figures drew within two hundred meters of
the scouting party.
    Abraham Lincoln and Benita  Garcia stopped. "State your  purpose,"
they heard the commander shout.
    "We are here to welcome you," Abraham Lincoln said in a loud, deep
voice.
    "And to take you to New Eden," Benita Garcia added.
    Commander Macmillan was thoroughly confused. He did not know  what
to do  next. While  he hesitated,  the others  in the  scouting  party
talked among themselves.
    "It's Abraham Lincoln, come back  as a ghost," the American  Terry
Snyder said.
    "The other one is  Benita Garcia-I saw her  statue in Mexico  City
once."
    280 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Let's get the hell out of here. This place gives me the  creeps,"
another scout said.
    "What would ghosts be doing in orbit around Mars?"
    "Excuse me, Commander,"  'Kenji said  at length  to the  befuddled
Macmillan. "What do you intend to do now?"
    The Scotsman  turned  to  face his  Japanese  Rama  expert.  "It's
difficult to decide on exactly the proper action pattern, of  course,"
he said.  "I  mean, those  two  certainly look  harmless  enough,  but
remember the Trojan horse. Hah! Well, Watanabe, what do you suggest?"
    "Why don't I go forward, perhaps alone, or maybe even with one  of
the soldiers, to talk to them? Then we'll know-''
    "That's certainly brave of you,  Watanabe, but unnecessary. No,  I
think we'll all go forward. Cautiously, of course. Leaving a couple of
men at  the rear  to report  in  case we're  zapped by  a ray  gun  or
something."
    The commander turned on his radio. "Deputy Ulanov, Macmillan here.
We've encountered two beings of some kind. They're either human or  in
human disguise. One looks like Abraham Lincoln and the other like that
famous Mexican cosmonaut. . .  . What's that, Dmitri?  . . . Yes,  you
copy correctly.  Lincoln and  Garcia.  We've encountered  Lincoln  and
Garcia in a tunnel inside Rama. You may report that to the others. . .
. Now, I'm leaving Sny-der and Finzi here while the rest of us advance
toward the strangers."
    The two figures did  not move as the  fourteen explorers from  the
Pinta approached. The soldiers were spread out in front of the  group,
ready to fire at the fist sign of trouble.
    "Welcome to Rama," Abraham Lincoln  said when the first scout  was
only twenty  meters away.  "We are  here  to escort  you to  your  new
homes."
    Commander Macmillan  did  not  respond  immediately.  It  was  the
irrepressible Max Puckett who broke the silence. "Are you a ghost?" he
shouted. "I mean, are you really Abraham Lincoln?"
    "Of course not," the Lincoln replied matter-of-factly. "Bom Benita
Garcia and I are human biots. You will find
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    281
    five categories of  human biots  in New Eden,  each designed  with
specific capabilities to free  humans from tedious, repetitive  tasks.
My areas  of  specialty  arc  clerical  and  legal  work,  accounting,
bookkeeping and housekeeping,  home and office  management, and  other
organizational tasks."
    Max was  dumbfounded. Ignoring  his  commander's order  to  "stand
back," Max walked  up to  within several centimeters  of the  Lincoln.
"This is some fucking robot," he muttered to himself. Oblivious to any
possible danger,  Max next  reached out  and put  his fingers  on  the
Lincoln's face,  first touching  the  skin around  the nose  and  then
feeling the whiskers in  the long black  beard. "Incredible," he  said
out loud. "Absolutely incredible."
    "We have been manufactured with very careful attention to detail,"
the Lincoln now said. "Our skin is chemically similar to yours and our
eyes operate on the same basic optical principles as yours, but we are
not dynamic, constantly  renewing creatures like  you. Our  subsystems
must be maintained and sometimes even replaced by technicians."
    Max's bold move had defused all the tension. By mis time me entire
scouting party, including Commander Macmillan, were poking and probing
the two biots.  Throughout the  examination both the  Lincoln and  the
Garcia answered questions  about their design  and implementation.  At
one point Kenji realized that Max Puckett had withdrawn from the  rest
of the scouting party  and was sitting by  himself against one of  the
walls of the tunnel.
    Kenji walked  over to  his friend.  "What's the  matter, Max?"  he
asked.
    Max shook his head. "What  kind of genius could produce  something
like these  two? It's  positively scary."  He was  silent for  several
seconds. "Maybe I'm  strange, but  those two bi-ots  frighten me  much
more than this huge cylinder.''
    The Lincoln and the Garcia walked with the scouting party to  what
appeared to be the end of the tunnel. Within seconds a door opened  in
the wall and  the biots motioned  for the humans  to go inside.  Under
questioning from Mac-
    282 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    millan, the biots explained that the humans were about to enter  a
"transportation device" that would cany  them to the outskirts of  the
Earth habitat.
    Macmillan communicated what the biots had said to Dmitri Ulanov on
the Pinta and told his Russian deputy to "blast off" if he didn't hear
anything from them within forty-eight hours.
    The tube  ride was  astonishing. It  reminded Max  Puckett of  the
giant  roller  coaster  at  the  state  fair  in  Dallas,  Texas.  The
bullet-shaped vehicle  sped  along  an enclosed,  helical  track  that
dropped all the way from the  bowl-shaped northern end of Rama to  the
Central Plain below. Outside  the tube, which was  encased in a  heavy
transparent plastic of some  kind, Kenji and  the others glimpsed  the
vast  network  of  ladders  and  stairways  that  traversed  the  same
territory as their ride. But they did not see the incomparable  vistas
reported by the previous  Rama explorers-their view  to the south  was
blocked by an extremely tall wall of metallic gray.
    The ride took  less than  five minutes.  It deposited  them in  an
enclosed annulus that completely circumscribed the Earth habitat. When
the Pinta scouts  exited from  the tube, the  weightlessness in  which
they had been living since they had departed from Earth had  vanished.
The gravity was  close to  normal. "The atmosphere  in this  corridor,
like the atmosphere in New Eden,  is just like your home planet,"  the
Lincoln biot said.  "But that  is not  the case  in me  region on  our
right, outside the walls protecting your habitat."
    The annulus surrounding New Eden  was dimly lit, so the  colonists
were not prepared for the bright  sunlight that greeted them when  the
huge door opened and they entered  their new world. On the short  walk
to the nearby train station they carried their space helmets in  their
hands. The men passed empty buildings on both sides of the path- small
structures that could  be houses  or shops, as  well as  a larger  one
("That will be an elementary school," the Benita Garcia informed them)
right opposite the station itself.
    A train was waiting for them  when they arrived. The sleek  subway
car with soft, comfortable seats, and a con-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    283
    stantly updating electronic status board, raced quickly toward the
center  of  New  Eden,  where  they  were  to  have  a  "comprehensive
briefing," according to the  Lincoln biot. The  train ran first  along
the side of  a beautiful,  crystalline lake  ("Lake Shakespeare,"  the
Benita Garcia said), and men turned to the left, heading away from the
light gray walls that enclosed the colony. During the last part of the
ride  a  large,  barren  mountain  dominated  the  landscape  on   the
right-hand side of the train.
    Throughout the ride the entire contingent from the Pinta was  very
quiet. In truth they were all completely overwhelmed. Not even in  the
creative imagination of  Kenji Watanabe  had anything  like what  they
were seeing ever been envisioned. It was all much too large, much more
magnificent than they had pictured.
    The central city, where all  the major buildings had been  located
by the designers of  New Eden, was the  final stunner. The members  of
the party  stood  silently  and  gawked at  the  array  of  large  and
impressive structures that formed  the heart of  the colony. That  the
buildings were still empty only added  to the mystical quality of  the
entire experience. Kenji Watanabe  and Max Puckett  were the last  two
men to enter the edifice where the briefing was to occur.
    "What do you think?" Kenji  asked Max as the  two of mem stood  on
the top of the stairs of the administration building and surveyed  the
astonishing complex around them.
    "I cannot think," answered Max, the awe in his tone quite obvious.
"This whole place  defies thought. It  is heaven, Alice's  wonderland,
and all the fairy  tales of my  boyhood wrapped up  in one package.  I
keep pinching myself to make sure that I'm not dreaming."
    "On the screen  in front of  you," the Lincoln  biot said, "is  an
overview map of New Eden. Each of  you will be given a full packet  of
maps, including all  the roads and  structures in the  colony. We  are
here, in Central  City, which  was designed to  be the  administrative
center of  New Eden.  Residences have  been built,  along with  shops,
small offices, and schools, in the  four corners of the rectangle  mat
is enclosed by the outside wall. Because the naming
    284 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    of these four towns will be left to the inhabitants, we will refer
to them today as the  Northeast., Northwest, Southeast, and  Southwest
villages. In doing this  we are following  the convention, adopted  by
earlier Roman explorers  from the Earth,  of referring to  the end  of
Rama where your spacecraft docked as the north end.
    "Each of the four  sides of New Eden  has an allocated  geographic
function. The freshwater lake along the  south edge of the colony,  as
you have already been  informed, is called  Lake Shakespeare. Most  of
the fish  and water  life that  you have  brought with  you will  live
there, although some of die  specimens may be perfect for  emplacement
in the two rivers that empty into Lake Shakespeare from Mount Olympus,
here on the east side of the  colony, and Sherwood Forest on the  west
side.
    "At present both the slopes of  Mount Olympus and all the  regions
of Sherwood  Forest,  as well  as  the village  parks  and  greenbelts
throughout the colony, are covered with a fine lattice of gas exchange
devices, or GEDs, as we call them. These tiny mechanisms serve but one
function-they convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. In a very true sense
they are mechanical plants.  They are to be  replaced by all the  real
plants that you have brought from
    the Earth,
    "The north side of the  colony, between die villages, is  reserved
for farming. Farm buildings have been constructed here, along the road
that connects the two northern towns. You will grow most of your  food
in mis area. Between the food supplies that you have brought with  you
and the synthetic food stored in  the tall silos three hundred  meters
north of this building, you should be able to feed two thousand humans
for at least  a year,  maybe eighteen  months if  waste is  kept at  a
minimum. After that you are on  your own. It goes without saying  that
farming, including  the aquaculture  that has  been allocated  to  the
eastern shores of Lake Shakespeare, will be an important component  in
your life in New Eden. ..."
    To Kenji, the briefing experience was like drinking out of a  fire
hose. The Lincoln biot kept the information rate exceedingly high  for
ninety mintues, dismissing all ques-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    285
    tions either by saying  "That's outside my  knowledge base" or  by
referring to the page and paragraph numbers in the Basic Guidebook  to
New Eden  mat he  had handed  out. Finally  mere was  a break  in  the
briefing and everyone moved  to an adjacent room,  where a drink  that
tasted like Coca-Cola was served.
    "Whew," said Terry Snyder as he wiped his brow, "am I the only one
who is saturated?"
    "Shit, Snyder," replied Max Puckett with an impish grin. "Are  you
saying you're inferior to  that goddamn robot? He  sure as hell  ain't
tired. 1 bet he could lecture all day."
    "Maybe even all week," mused  Kenji Watanabe. "I wonder how  often
these biots need  to be  serviced. My father's  company makes  robots,
some  of  them  exceedingly  complex,  but  nothing  like  this.   The
information content in that Lincoln must be astronomical."
    "The briefing  will  recommence  in  five  minutes,"  the  Lincoln
announced. "Please be prompt."
    In the second half of the  briefing the various kinds of biots  in
New Eden were introduced and explained. Based on their recent  studies
of the previous Raman expeditions, the colonists were prepared for the
bulldozer and other construction biots.  The five categories of  human
biots, however, elicited a more emotional response.
    "Our designers  decided," the  Lincoln told  them, "to  limit  the
physical appearances of  the human  biots so  that there  could be  no
question of someone mistaking one of us for one of you. I have already
listed my basic functions-all  the other Lincolns,  three of whom  are
now joining us, have been identically programmed. At least originally.
We are, however, capable of some low level of learning that will allow
our data bases to be different as our specific uses evolve."
    "How can we tell one  Lincoln from another?" asked one  bewildered
member of  the scouting  party as  the three  new Lincolns  circulated
around the room.
    "We each have an identification number, engraved both here, on the
shoulder, and again here, on the left buttock.
    286 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    This same system  is employed  for the other  categories of  human
biots. I, for example, am Lincoln 004. The three that just entered are
009, 024, and 071."
    When the Lincoln biots left the briefing room, they were  replaced
by five Benita Garcias. One of the Garcias outlined the specialties of
her  category-police   and  fire   protection,  farming,   sanitation,
transportation, mail handling-and then answered a few questions before
they all departed.
    The Einstein biots  were next.  The scouts  erupted with  laughter
when four of the Einsteins, each a wild, unkempt, white-haired replica
of the  twentieth  century scientific  genius,  walked into  the  room
together. The Einsteins  explained that  they were  the engineers  and
scientists  of  the  colony.  Their  primary  function,  a  vital  one
encompassing many duties, was to  "ensure the satisfactory working  of
the colony infrastructure," including of course the army of biots.
    A group of tall, jet-black  female biots introduced themselves  as
the Tiassos, specializing in health  care. They would be the  doctors,
the nurses, the  health officials,  the ones who  would provide  child
care when the parents were not  available. Just as the Tiasso  portion
of the briefing was ending, a  slight Oriental biot with intense  eyes
walked into the room. He was carrying a lyre and an electronic  easel.
He  introduced  himself  as  a  Yasunari  Kawabata  before  playing  a
beautiful, short piece on the lyre.
    "We Kawabatas  are  creative artists,"  he  said simply.  "We  are
musicians,  actors,  painters,   sculptors,  writers,  and   sometimes
photographers and  cmematographers. We  are few  in number,  but  very
important for the quality of life in New Eden."
    When the official  briefing was finally  over, the scouting  party
was served an excellent dinner in the large hall. About twenty of  the
biots joined the humans at the gathering, although of course they  did
not eat anything. The simulated roast duck was staggeringly authentic,
and even the  wines could have  passed the inspection  of all but  the
most learned enologists on Earth.
    Later in the evening, when  the humans had grown more  comfortable
with their biot companions and were pep-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    287
    pering them with questions, a  solitary female figure appeared  in
the open doorway.  At first  she was  unnoticed But  the room  quieted
quickly after Kenji Watanabe  jumped up from  his seat and  approached
the newcomer with an outstretched hand.
    "Dr. des Jardins, I presume," he said with a smile.
    10
    hespite Nicole's  assurances  that  everything  in  New  Eden  was
completely consistent with her earlier remarks on the video, Commander
Macmillan refused to allow the Pinta passengers and crew to enter Rama
and occupy their new homes until  he was certain there was no  danger.
After returning  to  the  Pinta,  he  conferred  at  length  with  ISA
personnel on Earth and then sent  a small contingent headed by  Dmitri
Ulanov into Rama to obtain  additional information. The chief  medical
officer of the  Pinta, a dour  Dutchman named Darl  van Roos, was  the
most important  member  of  Ulanov's  team.  Kenji  Watanabe  and  two
soldiers from the  first scouting party  also accompanied the  Russian
engineer.
    The doctor's instructions were straightforward. He was to  examine
the Wakefields, all of them, and certify that they were indeed humans.
His second assignment was  to analyze the  biots and categorize  their
nonbiological features. Everything was accomplished without  incident,
although Katie Wakefield  was uncooperative and  sarcastic during  the
examination. At Richard's suggestion, an Ein-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    289
    stein biot took apart one of  the Lincolns and demonstrated, at  a
functional level, how the most sophisticated subsystems worked. Deputy
Ulanov was duly impressed.
    Two days  later the  voyagers from  the Pinta  began moving  their
possessions into  Rama.  A  large  cadre  of  biots  helped  with  the
unloading of the spacecraft and the movement of all the supplies  into
New Eden. The process  took almost three days  to complete. But  where
would everyone settle? In a decision that would later have significant
consequences for the colony, almost all of the three hundred travelers
on the  Pinta elected  to live  in the  Southeast Village,  where  the
Wakefields had made  their home.  Only Max  Puckett and  a handful  of
farmers, who moved directly into the farming region along the northern
perimeter of New Eden, decided to live elsewhere in the colony.
    The Watanabes moved  into a small  house just down  the lane  from
Richard and Nicole. From the very beginning Kenji and Nicole had had a
natural rapport  and  their initial  friendship  had grown  with  each
subsequent interaction. On the first evening that Kenji and Nai  spent
in their new home, they were invited to share a family dinner with the
Wakefields.
    "Why don't  we go  into  the living  room? It's  more  comfortable
there," Nicole said  when the  meal was completed.  "The Lincoln  will
clear the table and take care of the dishes."
    The Watanabes rose from their chairs and followed Richard  through
the entryway at  the end of  the dining room.  The younger  Wakefields
politely waited for Kenji and Nai  to go first, and then joined  their
parents and guests in the cozy living room at the front of the house.
    It had been five days since  the Pinta scouting party had  entered
Rama for the first time. Five  amazing days, Kenji was thinking as  he
sat down in the  Wakefield living room. His  mind quickly scanned  the
kaleidoscope of jumbled impressions mat  were as yet unordered by  his
brain. And in many ways this dinner was the most amazing of all.  What
this family has been through is incredible.
    "The stories you  have told us,"  Nai said to  Richard and  Nicole
when everyone was  seated, "are absolutely  astonishing. There are  so
many questions I want to ask, I
    290 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    don't know where to start. . . . I'm especially fascinated by this
creature you call the Eagle. Was he one of the ETs who built the  Node
and Rama in the first place?"
    "No," said Nicole.  "The Eagle was  a biot also.  At least  that's
what he told  us, and we  have no reason  not to believe  him. He  was
created by  the  governing intelligence  of  the  Node to  give  us  a
specific physical interface."
    "But then who did build the Node?"
    "That's definitely  a Level  III question,"  Richard said  with  a
smile.
    Kenji and  Nai  laughed.  Nicole and  Richard  had  explained  the
Eagle's informational hierarchy  to them  during the  long stories  at
dinner. "I wonder  if it is  even possible," Kenji  mused, "for us  to
conceive of beings so  advanced that their  machines can create  other
machines smarter than we are."
    "I wonder if it is even possible," Katie now interrupted, "for  us
to discuss some more  trivial issues. For example,  where are all  the
young people my age?  So far I  don't mink I have  seen more than  two
colonists between twelve and twenty-five."
    "Most of the younger set  are onboard the Nina," Kenji  responded.
"It should  arrive here  in about  three weeks  with the  bulk of  the
colony population. The passengers on the Pinta were handpicked for the
task of checking out the veracity of the video we received."
    "What's veracity!" Katie asked.
    "Truth and accuracy," Nicole  said. "More or less.  It was one  of
your grandfather's  favorite  words.  .  .  .  And  speaking  of  your
grandfather, he was  also a  great believer that  young people  should
always be  permitted  to listen  to  adult conversation,  but  not  to
interrupt it. ...  We have  many things  to discuss  tonight with  the
Watanabes. The four of you don't have to stay."
    "I want to go out and see the lights," Benjy said. "Will you  come
with me, please, Ellie?"
    Ellie Wakefield stood up  and took Benjy by  the hand. The two  of
them said good night politely and were followed out the door by  Katie
and Patrick. "We're going to see  if we can find anything exciting  to
do," Katie said
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    291
    as they departed.  "Good night,  Mr. and  Mrs. Watariabe.  Mother,
we'll be back in a couple of hours or so."
    Nicole shook her head as the last of her children left the  house.
"Katie has been  so frenetic  since the  Pinta arrived,"  she said  in
explanation, "she is barely even sleeping at night. She wants to  meet
and talk to everybody."
    The Lincoln biot, who had  now finished cleaning the kitchen,  was
standing unobtrusively by  the door behind  Benjy's chair. "Would  you
like something to drink?" Nicole asked Kenji and Nai, motioning in the
direction of the  biot. "We don't  have anything as  delicious as  the
fresh fruit drinks that you brought  from Earth, but Line can whip  up
some interesting synthetic concoctions."
    "I'm fine," Kenji said, shaking his head. "But I just realized  we
have spent the entire evening  talking about your incredible  odyssey.
Certainly you must have questions for us. After all, forty-five  years
have passed on Earth since the Newton was launched."
    Forty-five years, Nicole suddenly  thought. Is that possible?  Can
Genevieve really be almost sixty years old?
    Nicole remembered clearly the  last time she  had seen her  father
and daughter on Earth. Pierre and Genevieve had accompanied her to the
airport in Paris. Her  daughter had hugged  Nicole fiercely until  the
last call for boarding and then  looked up at her mother with  intense
love and pride. The girl's eyes had been full of tears. Genevieve  had
been unable  to say  anything-  And during  that forty-five  years  my
father has died. Genevieve  has become an  older woman, a  grandmother
even, Kenji said. While I have been wandering in time and space. In  a
wonderland.
    The memories were too powerful for Nicole. She took a deep  breath
and steadied herself. There  was still quiet  in the Wakefield  living
room as she returned to the present.
    "Is everything all right?" Kenji asked sensitively. Nicole  nodded
and stared at the soft, open eyes of her new friend. She imagined  for
a brief moment  that she was  talking to her  fellow Newton  cosmonaut
Shigeru Takagi-shi. This man is full of curiosity, as Shig was. I  can
trust him. And he has talked to Genevieve only a few years ago.
    292 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Most of the general  Earth history has been  explained to us,  in
bits and snippets, during our many conversations with other passengers
from the Pinta," Nicole said after a protracted silence. "But we  know
absolutely nothing about our families except what you told us  briefly
that first night.  Both Richard  and I would  like to  know if  you've
remembered any additional details that might have been omitted in  our
first conversations."
    "As a  matter  of fact,"  Kenji  said,  "I went  back  through  my
journals this afternoon and read again  the entries I made when I  was
doing the preliminary  research for my  book on the  Newton. The  most
important thing that I neglected to mention in our earlier  discussion
was how much your Genevieve looks  like her father, at least from  the
lips down.  King  Henry's  face  was  striking,  as  I'm  certain  you
remember. As  an  adult  Genevieve's  face  lengthened  and  began  to
resemble his quite markedly. . . .  Here, look at these, I managed  to
find a couple of photographs from my three days at Beauvois stored  in
my data base."
    Seeing the pictures of Genevieve overwhelmed Nicole. Tears  rushed
immediately into her eyes  and overflowed onto  her cheeks. Her  hands
trembled as she held the two photographs of Genevieve and her  husband
Louis Gaston. Oh, Genevieve, she cried  to herself, How I have  missed
you. How I would love to hold you in my arms for just a moment.
    Richard leaned over her shoulder to see the pictures. As he did so
he caressed Nicole gently. "She does look something like the  prince,"
he commented  softly,  "but I  think  she  looks much  more  like  her
mother."
    "Genevieve was  also  extremely courteous,"  Kenji  added,  "which
surprised me  considering how  much she  had suffered  during all  the
media uproar in 2238. She answered my questions very patiently. I  had
intended to make her one of the centerpieces of the Newton book  until
my editor dissuaded me from the project altogether."
    "How many  of  the Newton  cosmonauts  are still  alive?"  Richard
asked, keeping the conversation going  while Nicole continued to  gaze
at the two photographs.
    "Only Sabatini, Tabori, and Yamanaka," Kenji replied.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    293
    "Dr. David Brown had  a massive stroke, and  then died six  months
later under  somewhat unusual  circumstances. I  believe that  was  in
2208. Admiral Heilmann died of cancer  in 2214 or so. Irina  Turgenyev
suffered a complete mental  breakdown, a victim  of 'Return to  Earth*
syndrome identified among some of the twenty-first century cosmonauts,
and eventually committed suicide in 2211."
    Nicole was still struggling with her emotions. "Until three nights
ago," she said to the Watanabes when the room was again silent, "I had
never even told  Richard or  the children that  Henry was  Genevieve's
father. While I was  living on Earth, only  my father knew the  truth.
Henry may have suspected, but he  didn't know for certain. Then,  when
you told me about Genevieve,  I realized that I  should be the one  to
tell my family. I ..."
    Nicole's voice trailed off  and more tears  appeared in her  eyes.
She wiped  her face  with one  of  the tissues  Nai handed  her.  "I'm
sorry," Nicole said, "I'm never like  this. It's just such a shock  to
see a picture and to recall so many things. ..."
    "When we were  living in Rama  II and then  at the Node,"  Richard
said, "Nicole was a model of stability. She was a rock. No matter what
we encountered,  no  matter  how bizarre,  she  was  unflappable.  The
children and Michael O'Toole and I all depended on her. It's very rare
to see her-"
    "Enough," Nicole  exclaimed after  wiping her  face. She  put  the
photographs aside. "Let's go  on to other  subjects. Let's talk  about
die Newton cosmonauts, Francesca Sabatini  in particular. Did she  get
what she wanted? Fame and riches beyond compare?"
    "Pretty much," Kenji said.  "I wasn't alive  during her heyday  in
the first  decade of  the century,  but  even now  she is  still  very
famous. She was one of  the people interviewed on television  recently
about the significance of re-colonizing Mars."
    Nicole leaned forward in her chair. "I didn't tell you this during
dinner, but I'm  certain Francesca and  Brown drugged Borzov,  causing
his appendicitis symptoms. And she purposely left' me at the bottom of
that pit in New York. The woman was totally without scruples."
    294 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Kenji was silent for several  seconds. "Back in 2208, just  before
Dr. Brown  died, he  had  occasional lucid  periods in  his  generally
incoherent state. During one such period he gave a fantastic interview
to a magazine  reporter in which  he confessed partial  responsibility
for Borzov's  death and  implicated Francesca  in your  disappearance.
Si-gnora Sabatini  said  the  entire story  was  'poppycock-die  crazy
outpourings of  a diseased  brain,* sued  the magazine  for a  hundred
million marks, and then settled comfortably out of court. The magazine
fired the reporter and formally apologized to her."
    "Francesca always wins in the end," Nicole remarked.
    "I almost  resurrected the  whole story  three years  ago,"  Kenji
continued, "when I was  doing the research for  my book. Since it  had
been more than twenty-five years, all the data from the Newton mission
was in the public domain and  therefore available to anyone who  asked
for it. I found the contents of your personal computer, including  the
data cube that must  have come from Henry  ^ scattered throughout  the
trickle telemetry. I became convinced  that Dr. Brown's interview  had
indeed contained some truth."
    "So what happened?"
    "I went to  interview Francesca  at her palace  in Sorrento.  Soon
thereafter I stopped working on the book-"
    Kenji hesitated for an instant. Should I say more? he wondered. He
glanced over at his loving wife. No,  he said to himself, this is  not
the time or the place.
    "I'm sorry, Richard."
    He was almost asleep  when he heard his  wife's soft voice in  the
bedroom.
    "Huh?" he said. "Did you say something, dear?"
    "I'm sorry,"  Nicole repeated.  She rolled  over next  to him  and
found his hand with  hers underneath the covers.  "I should have  told
you about Henry years ago. . . . Are you still angry?"
    "I was never  angry," Richard  said. "Surprised,  yes, maybe  even
flabbergasted. But  not angry.  You had  your reasons  for keeping  it
secret." He squeezed  her hand.  "Besides, it  was back  on Earth,  in
another life. If  you had told  me when  we first met,  it might  have
mattered. I
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    295
    might have  been jealous,  and almost  certainly would  have  felt
inadequate. But not now."
    Nicole leaned  over and  gave him  a kiss.  "I love  you,  Richard
Wakefield," she said.
    "And I love you too," he responded.
    Kenji and Nai made love for die first time since they had left the
Pinta and she  fell asleep immediately.  Kenji was still  surprisingly
alert. He  lay awake  in  bed, thinking  about  the evening  with  the
Wakefields. For some reason an  image of Francesca Sabatini came  into
his mind. The most beautiful seventy-year-old woman I have ever  seen,
was his first thought. And what a fantastic life.
    Kenji remembered clearly the summer  afternoon when his train  had
pulled into the station  at Sorrento. The driver  of the electric  cab
had recognized the address immediately. "Capisco," he had said, waving
his hands and then heading in the direction of "il palazzo Sabatini."
    Francesca lived  in  a  converted hotel  overlooking  the  Bay  of
Naples. It was  a twenty-room structure  that had once  belonged to  a
seventeenth century prince.  From the  office where  Kenji waited  for
Signora Sabatini to appear, he could see a funicular carrying swimmers
down a steep precipice to die dark blue bay below.
    La signora was half an hour late and then quickly became impatient
for the interview to be over. Twice Francesca informed Kenji that  she
had only agreed to talk to him  at all because her publisher had  told
her he was an "outstanding young  writer." "Frankly," she said in  her
excellent English, "at this stage I find all discussion of the  Newton
extremely boring."
    Her interest in die conversation picked up considerably when Kenji
told her  about his  "new data,"  the files  from Nicole  *s  personal
computer that had been telemetered down to Earth in the "trickle mode"
during the final  few weeks  of the mission.  Francesca became  quiet,
even pensive, as  Kenji compared  the internal notes  that Nicole  had
made with the "confession"  given by Dr. David  Brown to the  magazine
reporter in 2208.
    "I underestimated you,"  Francesca said with  a smile, when  Kenji
asked if she didn't think it was a "remarkable
    296 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    coincidence"  that  Nicole's  Newton   diary  and  David   Brown's
confession had so  many points  of agreement. She  never answered  his
questions directly. Instead she stood up in the office, insisted  that
he stay for the  evening, and told  Kenji that she  would talk to  him
later.
    Near dusk  a  note came  to  Kenji's room  in  Francesca's  palace
telling him that  dinner would be  at eight-thirty and  mat he  should
wear a coat and a tie. A  robot arrived at the appointed time and  led
him to a  magnificent dining  room with  walls covered  in murals  and
tapestries, glittering chandeliers  hanging from  the higii  ceilings,
and delicate carvings on all the moldings. The table was set for  ten.
Francesca was already there, standing near a small robot server off to
one side of the enormous room.
    "Kon ban  wa, Watanabe-san,"  Francesca said  in Japanese  as  she
offered him a  glass of  champagne. "I'm renovating  the main  sitting
areas, so I'm afraid  we're having our cocktails  here. It's all  very
gauche, as the French would say, but it will have to do."
    Francesca looked  magnificent. Her  blond hair  was only  slightly
tinged by gray. It  was stacked on  top of her head,  held by a  large
carved comb. A choker of diamonds was around her throat and an immense
solitary sapphire dangled  from an understated  diamond necklace.  Her
strapless gown was white, with  folds and pleats that accentuated  the
curves of her still  youthful body. Kenji could  not believe that  she
was seventy years old.
    She took him by  the hand, after explaining  that she had  quickly
put together a  dinner party in  his honor,  and led him  over to  the
tapestries against the far  wall. "Do you know  Aubusson at all?"  she
asked. When he shook his head, Francesca launched into a discussion of
the history of European tapestries.
    Half an hour  later, Francesca took  her seat at  the head of  the
table. A  music professor  from  Naples and  his wife  (supposedly  an
actress), two  handsome,  swarthy  professional  soccer  players,  the
curator of  the  Pompeii  ruins  (a  man  in  his  early  fifties),  a
middle-aged Italian poetess,  and two young  women in their  twenties,
each stunningly  attractive, occupied  the  other places.  After  some
consulta-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    297
    tion with Francesca, one of the two young women sat opposite Kenji
and the other beside him.
    At first the armchair  opposite Francesca, at the  far end of  the
table, was  empty. Francesca  whispered something  to her  headwaiter,
however, and five minutes later a very old man, halt and almost blind,
was led into the room. Kenji recognized him immediately. It was  Janos
Tabori.
    The meal was wonderful, the conversation lively. The food was  all
served by  waiters,  not  by the  robots  used  in all  but  the  most
fashionable restaurants, and each course  was enhanced by a  different
Italian wine. And what a  remarkable group! Everyone, even the  soccer
players, spoke passable English. They were also both interested in and
knowledgeable of space  history. The  young woman  opposite Kenji  had
even read his most popular book  on the early exploration of Mars.  As
the evening wore on, Kenji, who was a bachelor of thirty at the  time,
became less inhibited.  He was  aroused by  everything-the women,  the
wine, the discussions of history and poetry and music.
    Only once during the two hours at the table was there any  mention
of the afternoon interview.  During a lull  in the conversation  after
dessert and  before the  cognac, Francesca  nearly shouted  at  Janos.
"This young Japanese man-he's very  brilliant, you know-thinks he  has
found evidence from Nicole's personal computer that corroborates those
awful lies David told before he died."
    Janos did not comment. His  facial expression did not change.  But
after the meal  he handed Kenji  a note and  then disappeared. "  'You
know nothing but the truth and have no tenderness,' " the note said. "
"Thus you judge  unjustly.' Aglaya  Yepanchin to  Prince Myshkin.  The
Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky."
    Kenji had only been in his room for five or ten minutes when there
was a knock on his  door. When he opened it  he saw the young  Italian
woman who had been sitting opposite  him at dinner. She was wearing  a
tiny bikini that revealed most of  her exceptional body. She was  also
holding a man's bathing suit in her hand.
    "Mr. Watanabe," she said with a sexy smile, "please join us for  a
swim. This suit ought to fit you."
    298 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Kenji felt an immediate  and enormous surge of  lust that did  not
quickly abate. Slightly embarrassed, he  waited a minute or two  after
dressing before he joined the woman in the hall.
    Three years later, even lying in his  bed in New Eden next to  the
woman he loved, it was impossible for Kenji not to recall with  sexual
longing the night  he spent  in Francesca's  palace. Six  of them  had
taken the funicular down to the bay and swum in the moonlight. At  the
cabana next  to the  water,  they had  drunk  and danced  and  laughed
together. It had been a dream night.
    Within an hour, Kenji remembered,  we were all happily naked.  The
game plan was clear.  The two soccer players  were for Francesca.  The
two Madonnas for me.
    Kenji squirmed  in his  bed recalling  both the  intensity of  his
pleasure and Francesca's  free laughter  when she  found him  entwined
with the  two young  women at  dawn  in one  of the  oversized  chaise
lounges beside the bay.
    When I reached New York four days later my editor told me that  he
thought I should abandon the Newton project. I didn't argue with  him.
I probably would have suggested it myself.
    11
    Ellie was fascinated by the porcelain figures. She picked
    one up, a  little girl dressed  in a light  blue ballet gown,  and
turned it over in her  hands. "Look at this,  Benjy," she said to  her
brother. "Someone made this-all by himself.' *
    "That one is actually a  copy," the Spanish shopkeeper said,  "but
an artist did make  the original from which  the computer imprint  was
taken. The  reproduction process  is  now so  accurate that  even  the
experts have a hard time telling which ones are the copies."
    "And you collected all these back on Earth?" Ellie waved her  hand
at the hundred  or so  figures on  the table  and in  the small  glass
cases.
    "Yes," Mr. Murillo said proudly.  "Although I was a civil  servant
in Seville-building permits and Slat sort of tiling-my wife and 1 also
owned a small shop. We fell in love with porcelain art about ten years
ago and have been avid collectors ever since."
    Mrs. Murillo, also in  her late forties, came  out of a back  room
where she was still unpacking merchandise.
    300 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "We decided,"  she  said, "long  before  we learned  that  we  had
actually been selected  as colonists by  the ISA, that  no matter  how
restrictive our baggage requirements were for the voyage on die  Nina,
we would bring our entire collection of porcelain with us."
    Benjy was holding the dancing girl only a few centimeters from his
face. "Beau-ti-ful," he said with a broad smile.
    "Thank  you,"  Mr.  Murillo  said.  "We  had  hoped  to  start   a
collectors' society in Lowell Colony," he added. "Three or four of the
other passengers on the Nina brought several pieces as well."
    "May we look at them?" Ellie asked. "We'll be very careful.' *
    "Help yourself," Mrs. Murillo  said. "Eventually, once  everything
settles down, we will sell or baiter some of the objects-certainly the
duplicates. Right now they're just on display to be appreciated."
    While Ellie  and Benjy  were  examining the  porcelain  creations,
several other people entered  the shop. The  Mu-rillos had opened  for
business only a few days before. They sold candles, fancy napkins, and
other small household adornments.
    "You certainly didn't  waste any time,  Carlos," a burly  American
said to Mr. Murillo several  minutes later. From bis initial  greeting
it was obvious that he had been a fellow passenger on the Nina.
    "It was  easier for  us, Travis,"  Mr. Murillo  said. "We  had  no
family and needed only a small place to live."
    "We haven't even  settled into  a house  yet," Travis  complained.
"We're definitely going to live in  this village, but Chelsea and  the
kids cannot find a  house they all like.  Chelsea is still spooked  by
the whole arrangement. She doesn't believe  the ISA is telling us  the
truth even now."
    "I admit mat  it is extremely  difficult to accept  mat mis  space
station was built by  aliens just so  they can observe  us ... and  it
would certainly  be easier  to believe  the ISA  story if  there  were
pictures from mat Node place. But why would they lie to us?"
    "They have lied before. Nobody  even mentioned this place until  a
day before the rendezvous. . . . Chelsea be-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    301
    lieves that we  are part of  an ISA space  colony experiment.  She
says that we will stay  here for a while,  and then be transferred  to
the surface  of  Mars,  so  mat  the two  types  of  colonies  can  be
compared."
    Mr. Murillo laughed. "I see  Chelsea hasn't changed since we  left
the Nina." He became  more serious. "You know,  Juanita and I had  our
doubts too, especially after the first week passed and nobody had seen
any sign  of the  aliens. We  spent two  full days  wandering  around,
talking   to   other   people-we   essentially   conducted   our   own
investigation. We finally concluded that  the ISA story must be  true.
First of all,  it's just too  preposterous to be  a lie. Second,  that
Wakefield woman was very convincing. In her open meeting she  answered
questions for almost two  hours and neither Juanita  nor I detected  a
single inconsistency."
    "It's hard for me  to imagine anyone  sleeping for twelve  years,"
Travis said, shaking his head.
    "Of course. It  was for  us too.  But we  actually inspected  that
somnarium where the Wakefield family supposedly slept. Everything  was
exactly as  Nicole  had  described  it in  the  meeting.  The  overall
building, incidentally, is immense. There are enough berths and  rooms
to house  everyone  in the  colony,  if necessary.  ...  It  certainly
doesn't make sense that the ISA would have built such a huge  facility
to support a lie."
    "Maybe you're right."
    "Anyway, we've decided to  make the best of  it. At least for  the
time  being.  And  we  certainly  can't  complain  about  our   living
conditions. All the housing is first rate. Juanita and I even have our
own Lincoln  robot to  give us  a hand  both at  home and  around  the
store."
    Ellie was following  the discussion very  closely. She  remembered
what her mother had told  her the night before  when she had asked  if
she and  Benjy could  go  for a  walk in  the  village. "I  guess  so,
darling," Nicole  had  said,  "but  if  anyone  recognizes  you  as  a
Wakefield and starts to question you,  don't talk to them. Be  polite,
and then come home as quickly as you can. Mr. Macmillan does not  want
us talking to any non-ISA personnel about our experiences just yet.''
    302 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    While Ellie  was  admiring  the porcelain  figures  and  listening
intently to the  conversation between  Mr. Murillo and  the man  named
Travis, Benjy wandered off on his own. When Ellie realized he was  not
beside her, she started to panic.
    "What are you staring  at, buddy?" Ellie heard  a h^sh male  voice
say on the other side of the shop.
    "Her hair is ve-ry  pret-ty," Benjy replied.  He was blocking  the
aisle, preventing the man and his wife from moving forward. He  smiled
and reached out  his hand  toward the woman's  magnificent long  blond
hair. "May I touch it?" he asked.
    "Are you crazy? Of course not. Now get out of - "
    "Jason, I think he's retarded,"  the woman said quietly,  catching
her husband's arm before he pushed Benjy.
    At Jhat moment Ellie  walked up beside  her brother. She  realized
that the man was angry,  but she did not know  what to do. She  nudged
Benjy gently on  the shoulder. "Look,  Ellie," he exclaimed,  slurring
his words in excitement, "look at her pret-ty yel-low hair."
    "Is this goon a friend of yours?" the tall man asked Ellie.
    "Benjy is my brother," Ellie answered with difficulty.
    "Well, get him out of here. He's bothering my wife."
    "Sir," Ellie said after summoning her courage, "my brother doesn't
mean any harm. He's never seen long blond hair up close before."
    The man's  face wrinkled  in anger  and puzzlement.  "Whaaat?"  he
said. He glanced at  his wife. "What's with  these two? One's a  dummy
and the other - "
    "Aren't you  two of  the Wakefieid  children?" a  pleasant  female
voice behind Ellie interrupted.
    The distraught Ellie turned  around. Mrs. Murillo stepped  between
the teenagers and the couple. She and her husband had crossed the shop
as soon as they had heard the raised voices. "Yes, ma'am," Ellie  said
softly. "Yes, we are."
    "You mean  these are  two  of the  children  who came  from  outer
space?" the man named Jason asked.
    Ellie managed to pull Benjy quickly over to the door of
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    303
    the shop.  "We're very  sorry," Ellie  said before  she and  Benjy
departed. "We didn't mean to cause any trouble." "Freaks!" Ellie heard
somebody say as the door closed behind her.
    It had been  another exhausting  day. Nicole was  very tired.  She
stood in front of the mirror and finished washing her face. "Ellie and
Benjy had some  kind of  unpleasant experience down  in the  village,"
Richard said from the bedroom. "They wouldn't tell me much about it."
    Nicole had spent thirteen long  hours that day helping to  process
the Nina passengers. No matter how hard she and Kenji Walanabe and the
others had worked, it seemed as if nobody was ever satisfied and there
were always  more  tasks that  needed  to be  done.  Many of  the  new
colonists had been downright petulant when Nicole had tried to explain
to mem the procedures that the ISA had established for the  allocation
of food, living quarters, and working areas.
    She had been too many days without enough sleep. Nicole looked  at
the bags under her eyes. But we must finish with this group before the
Santa Maria  arrives, she  said  to herself.  They  will be  far  more
difficult.
    Nicole wiped her face with a  towel and crossed into the  bedroom,
where Richard was sitting up in  his pajamas. "How was your day?"  she
asked.
    "Not bad. . . . Fairly interesting, in fact. Slowly but surely the
human engineers are becoming more comfortable with the Einsteins."  He
paused. "Did you hear what I said about Ellie and Benjy?"
    Nicote sighed. From the tone in Richard's voice she understood his
real message. Despite  her fatigue,  she exited from  the bedroom  and
headed down the hall.
    Ellie was already asleep, but Benjy was still awake in the room he
shared with Patrick. Nicole sat down  beside Benjy and took his  hand.
"Hel-lo, Ma-ma," the boy said.
    "Uncle Richard mentioned that you and Ellie went into the  village
this afternoon," Nicole said to her eldest son.
    An expression of pain creased the boy's face for a few seconds and
then disappeared. "Yes, Ma-ma," he said.
    304 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Ellie told me that they were  recognized and that one of the  new
colonists called them some names," Patrick said from the opposite side
of the room.
    "Is that right,  darling?" Nicole asked  Benjy, still holding  and
stroking his hands.
    The boy made a barely perceptible affirmative motion with his head
and then stared  silently at his  mother. "What's a  goon, Ma-ma?"  he
said suddenly, his eyes filling with tears.
    Nicole put her  arms around Benjy.  "Did someone call  you a  goon
today?" she asked softly.
    Benjy nodded. "The word doesn't  have a specific meaning,"  Nicole
answered. "Anyone who is different, or perhaps objectionable, might be
called a goon." She caressed Benjy again. "People use words like  that
when they  aren't thinking.  Whoever called  you a  goon was  probably
confused, or upset, by  other events in his  life, and he just  lashed
out at you because he didn't understand you. . . . Did you do anything
to bother him?"
    "No, Ma-ma.  I just  told him  mat I  liked the  wo-man*s  yel-low
hair."
    It took several minutes, but Nicole eventually learned the gist of
what had occurred in the porcelain  shop. When she thought that  Benjy
was all right,  Nicole walked  across the  room to  kiss Patrick  good
night. "And how about you?" she said. "Was your day all right?"
    "Mostly," Patrick  said. "I  only had  one disaster-  down at  the
park." He  tried  to  smile.  "Some  of  the  new  boys  were  playing
basketball and invited me to join them. ... I was absolutely terrible.
A couple of them laughed at me."
    Nicole gave  Patrick a  long and  tender hug.  Patrick is  strong,
Nicole said to herself when  she was out in  the hall, headed back  to
her bedroom. But even he needs support.  She took a deep breath. Am  I
doing the right thing? she asked herself for the umpteenth time  since
she had become deeply involved in all aspects of the planning for  the
colony. / feel so responsible for everything here. I want New Eden  to
begin properly. . . . But my children still need more of my time. .  .
. Will I ever achieve the right balance?
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    305
    Richard was still awake  when Nicole snuggled  in beside him.  She
shared Benjy's story  with her husband.  "I'm sorry I  wasn't able  to
help him,"  Richard said.  "There are  just some  things that  only  a
mother ..."
    Nicole was so exhausted that she was falling asleep before Richard
even finished  his  sentence.  He  touched  her  firmly  on  the  arm.
"Nicole," he  said,  "mere  is  something else  we  must  talk  about.
Unfortunately it can't wait-we  may not have any  private time in  the
morning."
    She rolled over  and looked  at Richard  quizzically. "It's  about
Katie," he said. "I really  need your help. .  . . There's another  of
those youth get-acquainted dances tomorrow night-you remember we  told
Katie last week she could  go, but only if  Patrick went with her  and
she came home at a reasonable  hour. Well, tonight I just happened  to
see her standing in front of her  mirror in a new dress. It was  short
and very revealing. When  I asked her about  the dress, and then  told
her that it didn't seem like an appropriate outfit for a casual dance,
she flew into a rage. She insisted  that 1 was spying on her and  then
informed me that I was 'hopelessly ignorant' about fashion."
    "What did you say?"
    "I reprimanded  her. She  glared at  me coldly  and said  nothing.
Several minutes later she  left the house without  saying a word.  The
rest of the children and  I ate dinner without her.  . . . Katie  came
home only thirty minutes or so before you did. She smelled of  tobacco
and beer. When I  tried to talk  to her, she  just said 'Don't  bother
me,' and then went to her room and slammed the door."
    / have been  afraid of  this, Nicole thought  as she  lay next  to
Richard in silence.  All the  signs have been  there since  she was  a
little  girl.  Katie  is  brilliant,  but  she  is  also  selfish  and
impetuous.
    "I was going  to tell Katie  that she  could not go  to the  dance
tomorrow night," Richard was saying, "but then I realized that by  any
normal definition she is an adult. After all, her registry card at the
administration office gives  her age as  twenty-four. We really  can't
treat her like a child."
    But she's maybe fourteen emotionally, Nicole thought, squirming as
Richard began reciting all  the difficulties they  had had with  Katie
since the first other humans had entered
    306 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Rama. Nothing matters to her but adventure and excitement.
    Nicole remembered  the  day  she  had  spent  with  Katie  at  the
hospital. It had been  a week before the  colonists from the Nina  had
arrived. Katie had  been fascinated by  all the sophisticated  medical
equipment and genuinely  interested in  how it  worked; however,  when
Nicole had suggested  that Katie might  want to work  at the  hospital
until the university  opened, the  young woman had  laughed. "Are  you
kidding?" her  daughter  had  said. "I  can't  imagine  anything  more
boring. Especially when there will be hundreds of new people to meet."
    There's not  much either  Richard  or I  can  do, Nicole  said  to
herself with a sigh. We  can ache for Katie,  and offer her our  love,
but she has already decided that  ail our knowledge and experience  is
irrelevant.
    There was silence in the  bedroom. Nicole reached over and  kissed
Richard. "I will talk  to Katie tomorrow about  the dress," she  said,
"but I doubt if it will do much good."
    Patrick was sitting by himself in a folding chair against the wall
of the school gymnasium. He  took a sip from  his soda and glanced  at
his watch as the slow music ended  and a dozen couples dancing on  the
large floor slowed  to a  stop. Katie and  Olaf Larsen,  a tall  Swede
whose father was  a member  of Commander Macmillan's  staff, shared  a
brief kiss before walking, arm in arm, in Patrick's direction.
    "Olaf and I are going outside for a cigarette and another shot  of
whiskey," Katie said  when the  pair reached Patrick.  "Why don't  you
come with us?"
    "We're already late, Katie," Patrick replied. "We said we would be
home by twelve-thirty."
    The Swede gave Patrick a condescending pat on the back. "Come  on,
boy," he said. "Loosen up. Your sister and I are having a good time."
    Olaf was  already  drunk.  His  fan* face  was  flushed  from  the
drinking and dancing. He pointed across  the room. "You see that  girl
with the red hair, white  dress, and big boobs?  Her name is Beth  and
she's a hot number. She's
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    307
    been waiting all night for you to ask her to dance. Would you like
for me to introduce you?"
    Patrick shook his  head. "Look, Katie,"  he said. "I  want to  go.
I've been sitting here patiently-"
    "Half an hour  more, baby  brother," Katie  interrupted. "I'll  go
outside for a  little while, then  come back for  a couple of  dances.
After that we'll leave. Okay?"
    She kissed Patrick  on the cheek  and moved toward  the door  with
Olaf. A  fast  dance began  playing  on the  gymnasium  sound  system.
Patrick watched in fascination as the young couples moved in tune with
the heavy beat of the music.
    "You don't  dance?"  a  young  man  who  was  walking  around  the
perimeter of the dance floor asked him.
    "No," said Patrick. "I've never tried."
    The young man  gave Patrick a  strange look. Then  he stopped  and
smiled. "Of course," he said, "you're  one of the Wakefields. ...  Hi,
my name  is Brian  Walsh. I'm  from Wisconsin,  in the  middle of  the
United States.  My  parents  are  the ones  who  are  supposed  to  be
organizing the university."
    Patrick had not exchanged more than a couple of words with  anyone
except Katie  since  they  had  arrived at  the  dance  several  hours
earlier. He gladly shook hands with  Brian Walsh and the two of.  them
chatted amiably for a few minutes.  Brian, who had been half  finished
with his undergraduate degree in computer engineering when his  family
had been selected for Lowell Colony, was twenty and an only child.  He
was also extremely curious about his companion's experiences.
    "Tell  me,"  he  said  to  Patrick  when  they  had  become   more
comfortable with each other, "does  this place called the Node  really
exist? Or is it part of some cockamamy story dreamed up by the ISA?"
    "No," said Patrick, forgetting that he was not supposed to discuss
such things. "The  Node is definitely  there. My father  says it's  an
extraterrestrial processing station."
    Brian laughed easily. "So somewhere out near Sirius is a  gigantic
triangle built by an unknown superspecies? And its purpose is to  help
them study other creatures who travel  in space? Wow. That's the  most
fantastic tale I have ever
    308 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    heard. In fact, almost everything your mother told us at that open
meeting was  unbelievable.  I  will,  however,  admit  that  both  the
existence of this  space station  and the technological  level of  the
robots do make her story more plausible."
    "Everything my mother said was  true," Patrick said. "And some  of
the most incredible stories were  purposely left out. For example,  my
mother had a  conversation with  a caped  eel who  talked in  bubbles.
Also-" Patrick stopped himself, remembering Nicole's admonitions.
    Brian was fascinated. "A  caped eel?" he said.  "How did she  know
what it was saying?"
    Patrick looked at his watch. "Excuse me, Brian," he said abruptly,
"but I'm here with  my sister and  I'm supposed to meet  her in a  few
minutes."
    "Is she the one with the little red dress cut really low?"
    Patrick  nodded.  Brian  put  his  arm  around  his  new  friend's
shoulder. "Let me give you some  advice," he said. "Somebody needs  to
talk to your sister. The way she acts around all the guys makes people
think she's an easy lay."
    "That's just Katie," Patrick  said defensively. "She's never  been
around anyone except the family."
    "Sorry," Brian  said  with a  shrug.  "It's none  of  my  business
anyway. . . . Say, why don't you give me a call sometime? I've enjoyed
our conversation very much."
    Patrick said  good-bye to  Brian and  started walking  toward  the
door. Where was Katie? Why had she not come back inside the gymnasium?
    He heard her loud laugh within seconds after he was outside. Katie
was standing on the  playground with three men,  one of whom was  Olaf
Larsen. They were all smoking and laughing and drinking from a  bottle
that was being passed around.
    "So what  position do  you like  best?" a  dark young  man with  a
mustache asked.
    "Oh, I prefer to be on top,"  Katie said with a laugh. She took  a
gulp from the bottle. "That way I'm in control."
    "Sounds good to me," the man,  whose name was Andrew, replied.  He
chuckled and placed his hand sugges-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    309
    lively on  her  bottom.  Katie pushed  it  away,  still  laughing.
Seconds later she saw Patrick approaching.
    "Come over here,  baby brother," Katie  shouted. "This shit  we're
drinking is dynamite."
    The three men,  who had been  drawn in close  around Katie,  moved
slightly away from her as Patrick walked toward them. Although he  was
still quite skinny and  undeveloped, his height  made him an  imposing
figure in the dim light.
    "I'm going home  now, Katie,"  Patrick said,  refusing the  bottle
when he was beside her, "and I think you should go with me."
    Andrew laughed. "Some party girl  you have here, Larsen," he  said
sarcastically, "with a teenage brother as a chaperon."
    Katie's eyes flared  with anger.  She took another  swig from  the
bottle and handed it to Olaf.  Then she grabbed Andrew and kissed  him
wildly on the lips, pressing her body tightly against his.
    Patrick was  embarrassed.  Olaf  and the  third  man  cheered  and
whistled as Andrew returned Katie's kiss. After almost a minute  Katie
pulled away. "Let's go now, Patrick," she said with a smile, her  eyes
still fixed on the man she had kissed. "I think that's enough for  one
night."
    12
    Eponine stared out the second story window at the
    gently rolling  slope. The  GEDs covered  the hillside,  then-fine
gridwork pattern almost obscuring the brown soil underneath.
    "So, Ep, what do you think?" Kimberly asked. "It's certainly  nice
enough. And once the forest is planted, we'll have trees and grass and
maybe even a squirrel or two  outside our window. That's definitely  a
plus."
    "I don't know," a distracted Eponine replied after a few  seconds.
"It's a little smaller than die one I liked yesterday in Positano. And
I have a few misgivings about living here, in Hakone. I haven't  known
mat many Orientals. ..."
    "Look, roomie, we can't wait forever. I told you yesterday that we
should have made backup  choices. There were  seven pairs that  wanted
the apartment in  Positano-not surprising since  there were only  four
units left in the whole village-and we just weren't lucky. All  that's
left now,  except for  those tiny  flats over  the shops  on the  main
street in Beauvois-and I don't want to live there because there's
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    31 1
    absolutely no privacy-is either here or in San Miguel. And all the
blacks and browns are living in San Miguel."
    Eponine sat down  in one of  the chairs. They  were in the  living
room of the  small two-bedroom apartment.  It was furnished  modestly,
but adequately, with two  chairs and a large  sofa that were the  same
brown color as the rectangular coffee table. Altogether the apartment,
which had a single large bathroom  and a small kitchen in addition  to
the living room and two bedrooms,  was slightly more than one  hundred
square meters.
    Kimberly Henderson  paced  around the  room  impatiently.  "Kirn,"
Eponine  said  slowly,  "I'm  sorry,  but  I'm  having  a  hard   time
concentrating on selecting an apartment  when so much is happening  to
us. What is  this place?  Where are  we? Why  are we  here?" Her  mind
Mashed back quickly  to the  incredible briefing  three days  earlier,
when Commander Macmillan  had informed  them that they  were inside  a
spaceship built and equipped by extraterrestrials "for the purpose  of
observing Earthlings."
    Kimberly  Henderson  lit  a  cigarette  and  expelled  the   smoke
forcefully into the air. She  shrugged. "Shit, Eponine," she said,  "I
don't know the answers to any of  those questions. But I do know  that
if we don't pick an apartment we'll be left with whatever nobody  else
has wanted."
    Eponine looked at her friend for several seconds and then  sighed.
"I don't think this process has been very fair," she complained.  "The
passengers from the  Pinta and the  Nina were all  able to pick  their
homes before we even arrived. We are being forced to choose among  the
rejects."
    "What did you  expect?" Kimberly  replied quickly.  "Our ship  was
carrying convicts-of  course we  got  the dregs.  But at  least  we're
finally free."
    "So I guess you want to  live in this apartment?" Eponine said  at
length.
    "Yes," replied Kimberly. "And I also want  to put in a bid on  the
other two apartments we saw this  morning, near the Hakone market,  in
case we are aced  out of this  one. If we don't  have a definite  home
after the drawing tonight, I'm afraid we'll really be in bad shape."
    312 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    This was a mistake. Hponine  was thinking as she watched  Kimberly
walking around  the  room.  /  never should  have  agreed  to  be  her
roommate. But what choices did I have? The living accommodations  that
are left for single people are abysmal.
    Eponine was not accustomed  to rapid changes  in her life.  Unlike
Kimberly Henderson, who  had had  an enormous  variety of  experiences
before she was convicted of murder at the age of nineteen, Eponine had
lived a relatively sheltered childhood and adolescence. She had  grown
up in an orphanage outside Limoges, France, and until Professor Moreau
took her to Paris to see the great museums when Eponine was seventeen,
she had never  even been outside  her native province.  It had been  a
very difficult decision for  her to sign up  for the Lowell Colony  in
the first place.  But Eponine was  facing a lifetime  of detention  in
Bourges, and she  was offered a  chance for freedom  on Mars. After  a
long  deliberation  she  had   courageously  decided  to  submit   her
application to the ISA.
    Eponine had  been  selected  as  a colonist  because  she  had  an
outstanding academic record, especially in all the arts, was fluent in
English, and had been a perfect prisoner. Her dossier in the ISA files
had identified  her most  likely  placement in  the Lowell  Colony  as
"drama and/or  art  teacher in  the  secondary schools."  Despite  the
difficulties associated with  the cruise  phase of  the mission  after
leaving the Earth, Eponine had felt a palpable rush of adrenaline  and
excitement when Mars had first  appeared in the observation window  of
the Santa Maria. It would be a new life on a new world.
    Two days before the scheduled  encounter, however, the ISA  guards
had announced that the spacecraft was not going to deploy its  landing
shuttles as planned.  Instead, they had  told the convict  passengers,
the Santa Maria was  going to take a  "temporary detour to  rendezvous
with a space station orbiting Mars." Eponine had been bom confused and
concerned by the announcement. Unlike most of her associates, she  bad
read carefully all  the ISA  material for  the colonists  and she  had
never seen any mention of an orbiting space station around Mars.
    It bad not been until the Santa Maria was completely
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    313
    unloaded and all the people and supplies were inside New Eden that
anyone had  really  told  Eponine  and the  other  convicts  what  was
happening. And even  after the  Macmil-lan briefing, very  few of  the
convicts believed  they were  being told  the truth.  "Come on,  now,"
Willis Meeker had  said, "does he  really think we're  that stupid?  A
bunch of ETs built this place  and all those crazy robots? This  whole
thing is a setup. We're just testing some new kind of prison concept."
    "But Willis," Malcolm  Peabody had  replied, "what  about all  the
others, the ones who came  on the Pinta and  the Nina? I've talked  to
some of them. They're normal  people-I mean, they aren't convicts.  If
your theory is right, what are they doing here?"
    "How the hell should I know, fag? I'm no genius. I just know  that
Macmillan dude is not giving us the straight shit."
    Eponine did not let her uncertainties about the Macmillan briefing
deter her from going with Kimberly to Central City to submit  requests
for the three apartments in Hakone. They were fortunate in the drawing
this time and were allocated their first choice. The two women spent a
day moving into the apartment on  the edge of Sherwood Forest and  men
reported to the  employment office in  the administrative complex  for
processing.
    Because the other two spacecraft had arrived well before the Santa
Maria, the procedures to integrate the  convicts into the life in  New
Eden were quite carefully defined. It took virtually no time to assign
Kimberly, who really did  have an outstanding  nursing record, to  the
central hospital.
    Eponine interviewed with the school superintendent and four  other
teachers before accepting  an assignment at  Central High School.  Her
new job required  a short  commute by  train, whereas  she could  have
walked each day if she had  decided to teach at Hakone Middle  School.
But Eponine thought it would be worth the trouble. She very much liked
the principal and staff members who were teaching at the high school.
    At first  the other  seven doctors  working at  the hospital  were
leery of the two convict physicians, especially Dr.
    314 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Robert Turner,  whose  dossier cryptically  mentioned  his  brutal
murders without detailing  any of the  extenuating circumstances.  But
after a  week  or  so,  during which  time  his  extraordinary  skill,
knowledge, and professionalism became apparent to everyone, the  staff
unanimous!? selected  him to  be  the director  of the  hospital.  Dr.
Turner was quite astonished by his  selection and pledged, in a  brief
acceptance speech, to  dedicate himself completely  to the welfare  of
the colony.
    His  first  official  act  was  to  propose  to  the   provisional
government that a full physical examination be given to every  citizen
of New Eden so that all  the personal medical files could be  updated.
When his  proposal  was  accepted, Dr.  Turner  deployed  the  Tiassos
throughout the  colony  as paramedics.  The  biots performed  all  the
routine examinations and  gathered data  for the  doctors to  analyze.
Simultaneously,  remembering  the  excellent  data  network  that  had
existed among all the hospitals  in the Dallas metropolitan area,  the
indefatigable Dr. Turner began working  with several of the  Einsteins
to design a fully computerized system  for tracking the health of  the
colonists.
    One evening during the third full  week after the Santa Maria  had
docked  with  Rama,  Eponine  was  home  alone,  as  usual   (Kimberly
Henderson's daily  pattern  had  already  become  established-she  was
almost never in the apartment. If she wasn't at work at the  hospital,
then she  was out  with Toshio  Nakamura and  his cronies),  when  her
videophone sounded. It was Malcolm Peabody's face that appeared on the
monitor. "Eponine," he said shyly, "I have a favor to ask."
    "What is it, Malcolm?"
    "I received a call  from a Dr. Turner  at the hospital about  five
minutes ago. He  says there  were some 'irregularities'  in my  health
data taken by one of  those robots last week. He  wants me to come  in
for a more detailed examination."
    Eponine waited patiently for  several seconds. "I'm not  following
you," she said at length. "What's the favor?"
    Malcolm took a deep breath. "It must be serious, Eponine. He wants
to see me now. . . . Will you come with me?"
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    315
    "Now?" said Eponine,  glancing at her  watch. "It's almost  eleven
o'clock at  night."  In  a flash  she  remembered  Kimberly  Henderson
complaining that Dr. Turner was a  "workaholic, as bad as those  black
robot nurses." Eponine also recalled the amazing blue of his eyes.
    "All right," she said to Malcolm. "I'll meet you at the station in
ten minutes."
    Eponine had  not  been  out  much at  night.  Since  her  teaching
appointment, she had spent most of her evenings working on her  lesson
plans. On one Saturday  night she had gone  out with Kimberly,  Toshio
Nakamura, and several other people  to a Japanese restaurant that  had
just opened. But the  food was strange,  the company mostly  Oriental,
and several of the men, after drinking too much, made pathetic  passes
at her. Kimberly  chided her  for being "picky  and standoffish,"  but
Eponine refused her roommate's later invitations to socialize.
    Eponine reached the station before Malcolm. While she was  waiting
for him to arrive, she marveled at how completely the village had been
transformed by the presence  of humans. Let's  see, she was  thinking,
the Pinta arrived  here four  months ago,  the Nina  five weeks  after
that. Already there are shops everywhere, both around the station  and
in the village  itself. The  accoutrements of human  existence. If  we
stay here a  year or two  this colony will  be indistinguishable  from
Earth.
    Malcolm was quite  nervous and  talkative during  the short  train
ride. "I know  it's my  heart, Eponine,"  he said.  "I've been  having
sharp pains, here, ever since Walter  died. At first I thought it  was
all in my mind."
    "Don't worry," Eponine  responded, comforting her  friend. "I  bet
it's nothing really serious."
    Eponine was having difficulty keeping her eyes open. ft was  after
three o'clock in the morning. Malcolm  was asleep on the bench  beside
her. What's that doctor  doing? she wondered. He  said he wouldn't  be
long.
    Soon after their arrival, Dr.  Turner had examined Malcolm with  a
computerized  stethoscope  and  then,  telling  him  he  needed  "more
comprehensive tests,"  bad  taken him  into  a separate  part  of  the
hospital. Malcolm had
    316 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    returned to the waiting  room an hour  later. Eponine herself  had
seen the doctor  only briefly,  when he  had admitted  Malcolm to  his
office at the beginning of the examination.
    "Are you Mr. Peabody  *s friend?" a  voice suddenly said.  Eponine
must have been  dozing. When her  vision was in  focus, the  beautiful
blue eyes  were staring  at her  from only  a meter  away. The  doctor
looked tired and upset.
    "Yes," Eponine said softly, trying not to disturb the man sleeping
on her shoulder.
    "He's going to die very soon,"  Dr. Turner said. "Possibly in  the
next two weeks."
    Eponine felt  her  blood surge  through  her body.  Am  I  hearing
correctly? she thought.  Did He say  Malcolm was going  to die in  the
next two weeks? Eponine was stunned.
    "He will need a lot of support," the doctor was saying. He  paused
for a moment, staring at Eponine.  Was he trying to remember where  he
had seen her before? "Will you be able to help him?" Dr. Turner asked.
    "I ... I hope so," Eponine answered.
    Malcolm began to stir. "We must wake him up now," the doctor said.
    There was  no emotion  detectable  in Dr.  Turner's eyes.  He  had
delivered his diagnosis-no, his  assertion-without a hint of  feeling.
Kirn is right,  Eponine thought. He's  as much an  automaton as  those
Tiasso robots.
    At the  doctor's suggestion,  Eponine accompanied  Malcolm down  a
corridor and into  a room  filled with  medical instruments.  "Someone
intelligent," Dr. Turner  said to Malcolm,  "chose the equipment  that
was brought here  from Earth. Although  we are limited  in staff,  our
diagnostic apparatus is first rate."
    The three of  them walked  over to  a transparent  cube about  one
meter on a side. "This amazing device," Dr. Turner said, "is called an
organ projector. It  can reconstruct, with  detailed fidelity,  almost
all the major organs of the human  body. What we are seeing now,  when
we look inside, is  a computer graphic  representation of your  heart,
Mr. Peabody, just as  it appeared ninety mintues  ago when I  injected
the tracer material into your blood vessels."
    Dr.  Turner  pointed  at  an  adjacent  room,  where  Malcolm  had
apparently undergone the tests. "While you were sit-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    317
    ting on that  table," he  continued, "you were  scanned a  million
times a second by the machine with the big lens. From the location  of
the tracer  material and  those billions  of instantaneous  scans,  an
extremely  accurate,  three-dimensional  image   of  your  heart   was
constructed. That is what you are seeing inside the cube."
    Dr. Turner stopped- a moment,  looked away quickly, and men  fixed
his eyes on Malcolm.  "I'm not trying  to make it  harder on you,  Mr.
Peabody," he said quietly, "but I wanted  to explain how I am able  to
know what's wrong with you. So that you will understand there has been
no mistake."
    Malcolm's eyes were wild with fright.  The doctor took him by  the
hand and led him to a  specific position beside the cube. "Look  right
there, on the back of the heart, near the top. Do you see the  strange
webbing and s trial ion in  the tissues? Those are your heart  muscles
and they have undergone irreparable decay."
    Malcolm stared inside the  cube for what  seemed like an  eternity
and then  lowered his  head. "Am  I going  to die,  Doctor?" he  asked
meekly.
    Robert Turner  wok  his  patient's  other  hand.  "Yes,  you  are,
Malcolm. On  Earth, we  could possibly  wait for  a heart  transplant;
here, however, it  is out of  the question since  we have neither  the
right equipment nor a proper donor. ... If you would like, I can  open
you up and  take a firsthand  look at your  heart. But it's  extremely
unlikely that I would see anything that would change the prognosis."
    Malcolm shook  his  head. Tears  began  to run  down  his  cheeks.
Eponine put her arms around the little man and began to weep as  well.
"I'm sorry it took  me so long to  complete my diagnosis," Dr.  Turner
said, "but in a case this serious I needed to be absolutely certain."
    A few moments later  Malcolm and Eponine  walked toward the  door.
Malcolm turned around. "What do I do now?" he asked the doctor.
    "Whatever you enjoy," Dr. Turner replied.
    When they  were gone  Dr.  Turner returned  to his  office,  where
hardcopy printouts of Malcolm Peabody's charts
    318 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    and files  lay  strewn across  his  desk. The  doctor  was  deeply
worried. He was virtually certain-he  could not know definitely  until
he had completed the autopsy-that Pea-body's heart was suffering  from
the same kind of malady that  had killed Walter Brackeen on the  Santa
Maria. The two of them had been close friends for several years, going
all the way back to the beginning of their detention terms in Georgia.
It was unlikely that they had both coinciden-tally contracted the same
heart disease. But if it was not a coincidence, then the pathogen must
be communicable.
    Robert Turner shook his  head. Any disease  that struck the  heart
was alarming. But one that could be passed from one person to another?
The specter was terrifying.
    He was very tired.  Before putting his head  down on his desk  Dr.
Turner made a list of the  references on heart viruses that he  wanted
to obtain from the data base. Then he fell quickly asleep.
    Fifteen minutes later the phone aroused him suddenly. A Tiasso was
on the other end, calling from  the Emergency Room. "Two Garcias  have
found a human body out in Sherwood  Forest," it said, "and are on  the
way here now. From the images  they have transmitted, I can tell  that
mis case will require your personal involvement."
    Dr. Turner scrubbed his hands, put on his gown again, and  reached
the Emergency Room just before the two Garcias arrived with the  body.
As experienced  as  he was,  Dr.  Turner had  to  turn away  from  the
horribly mutilated corpse. The head had been almost completely severed
from the body-it was hanging by  only a thin strand of muscle-and  the
face had been hacked and  disfigured beyond recognition. In  addition,
in the genital area of the trousers there was a bloody, gaping hole.
    A pair of Tiassos immediately went to work, cleaning up the  blood
and preparing the body  for autopsy. Dr. Turner  sat on a chair,  away
from the scene, and filled out the first death report in New Eden.
    "What was his name?" he asked the biots.
    One of the Tiassos rustled through what was left of the dead man's
clothing and found his ISA identification card.
    "Danni," the biot replied. "Marcello Danni."
    EPITHALAMION
    1
    Tl
    •he train from Positano was full. It stopped at the small  station
on the shores of Lake Shakespeare, halfway to Beauvois, and  disgorged
its mixture of humans  and biots. Many were  carrying baskets of  food
and blankets and folding  chairs. Some of  the smaller children  raced
from the station out onto  the thick, freshly mowed grass  surrounding
the lake. They laughed and tumbled down the gentle slope that  covered
the hundred and fifty meters between  the station and the edge of  the
water.
    For those who did not want to sit on the grass, wooden stands  had
been erected just opposite the narrow pier that extended fifty  meters
into the water  before spreading  out into a  rectangular platform.  A
microphone, rostrum, and several chairs  were set up on the  platform;
it was there that Governor  Watanabe would deliver the Settlement  Day
address after the fireworks were finished.
    Forty meters to  the left  of the  stands the  Wakefields and  the
Watanabes had placed a long table covered with a blue and white cloth.
Finger foods were tastefully arranged on the table. Coolers underneath
were filled with drinks.
    322 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Their families and friends had gathered in the immediate area  and
were either eating, playing some kind of game, or engaged in  animated
conversation. Two Lincoln biots were moving around the group, offering
drinks and canapes to those who were  too far away from the table  and
the coolers.
    It was a hot afternoon. Too hot, in fact, the third  exceptionally
warm day in a row. But as the artificial sun completed its mini-arc in
the dome far above their heads and the light began to slowly dim,  the
expectant crowd  on the  banks of  Lake Shakespeare  forgot about  the
heat.
    A final train  arrived only minutes  before the light  disappeared
completely. This one came from the Central City station to the  north,
bringing colonists who lived in Ha-kone or San Miguel. There were  not
many latecomers. Most of the people had arrived early to set up  their
picnics on  the  grass.  Eponine  was  on  the  last  train.  She  had
originally planned  not to  attend  the celebration  at all,  but  had
changed her mind at the last minute.
    Eponine was  contused when  she stepped  onto the  grass from  the
station platform. There were so many  people! All of New Eden must  be
here, she thought.  For a  moment she wished  that she  had not  come.
Everyone was with friends and family, and she was all alone.
    Ellie Wakefield  was playing  horseshoes with  Benjy when  Eponine
stepped off the train. She  quickly recognized her teacher, even  from
the distance,  because  of  her bright  red  armband.  "It's  Eponine,
Mother," Ellie said, running  over to Nicole. "May  I ask her to  join
us?"
    "Of course," Nicole replied.
    A voice on the public  address system interrupted the music  being
played by a small band to  announce that the fireworks would begin  in
ten minutes. There was scattered applause.
    "Eponine," Ellie shouted. "Over here." Ellie waved her arms.
    Eponine heard her name being called but could not see very clearly
in the  dim  light.  After  several seconds  she  started  in  Ellie's
direction. Along the way she  inadvertently bumped into a toddler  who
was roaming by himself
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    323
    in the grass. "Kevin," a mother shrieked, "stay away from her!"
    In an instant a  burly blond man grabbed  the little boy and  held
him away from  Eponine. "You shouldn't  be here," the  man said.  "Not
with decent people."
    A little shaken, Eponine continued  toward Ellie, who was  walking
in her direction across  me grass. "Go home,  Forty-one!" a woman  who
had watched the earlier incident shouted. A fat ten-year-old boy  with
a bulbous nose  pointed his finger  at Eponine and  made an  inaudible
comment to his younger sister.
    "I'm so glad to see you," Ellie said when she reached her teacher.
"Will you come have something to eat?"
    Eponine nodded. "I'm sorry for all these people," Ellie said in  a
voice loud enough for everyone around her to hear. "It's a shame  they
are so ignorant."
    Ellie led  Eponine  back to  the  big  table and  made  a  general
introduction. "Hey, everybody, for  those of you  who don't know  her,
this is my teacher and friend Eponine. She has no last name, so  don't
ask her what it is."
    Eponine and Nicole  had met several  times before. They  exchanged
pleasantries now while Lincoln  offered Eponine some vegetable  sticks
and a soda. Nai Watanabe pointedly  brought her twin sons, Kepler  and
Galileo, who had just had their second birthday the week before,  over
to meet  the new  arrival.  A large  nearby  group of  colonists  from
Positano was staring as Eponine  lifted Kepler in her arms.  "Pretty,"
the little boy said, pointing at Eponine's face.
    "It must  be very  difficult,"  Nicole said  in French,  her  head
nodding in the direction of the gawking bystanders.
    "0Hi,"  Eponine  replied.  Difficult?  she  thought.  That's   the
understatement of the year. How about absolutely impossible? It's  not
bad enough that I have some  horrible disease that will probably  kill
me. No. I must  also wear an  armband so that others  can avoid me  if
they choose.
    Max Puckett glanced  up from the  chessboard and noticed  Eponine.
"Hello, hello," he said. "You must  be the teacher I've heard so  much
about."
    "That's Max," Ellie said, bringing Eponine over in his  direction.
"He's a flirt, but he's harmless. And the older
    324 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    man who's ignoring us is Judge Pyotr  Mishkin. . . . Did I say  it
correctly, Judge?"
    "Yes, of course, young lady," Judge Mishkin replied, his eyes  not
leaving the chessboard. "Dammit,  Puckett, what in  the world are  you
trying to do with that knight? As usual, your play is either stupid or
brilliant and I can't decide which."
    The judge eventually  looked up,  saw Eponine's  red armband,  and
scrambled to his feet. "I'm sorry,  miss, truly sorry," he said.  "You
are forced to endure enough without  having to bear slights from  this
selfish old codger."
    A minute or two before the fireworks began, a large yacht could be
seen approaching the picnic  area from the western  side of the  lake.
Brightly colored lights and pretty girls decorated its long deck.  The
name Nakamura was emblazoned on the  side of the boat. Above the  main
deck, Eponine  recognized Kimberly  Henderson standing  beside  Toshio
Nakamura at the helm.
    The party on the yacht waved  at the people on the shore.  Patrick
WakefieM ran excitedly  over to  the table. "Look,  Mother," he  said,
"there's Katie on the boat."
    Nicole put on  her glasses for  a better look.  It was indeed  her
daughter in a bikini bathing suit, waving from the deck of the  yacht.
"That's just what we need," Nicole mumbled to herself, as the first of
the fireworks exploded above them, filling the dark sky with color and
light.
    "Three years  ago  today," Kenji  Watanabe  began his  speech,  "a
scouting party from the Pinta first  set foot in this new world.  None
of us knew what to expect.  All of us wondered, especially during  the
two long months that we spent  eight hours each day in the  somnarium,
if anything resembling a  normal life would ever  be possible here  in
New Eden.
    "Our early fears have not  materialized. Our alien hosts,  whoever
they might be, have  never once interfered with  our lives. It may  be
true, as Nicole  Wakefield and  others have suggested,  that they  are
continually observing us,  but we do  not feel their  presence in  any
way. Outside our colony the Rama spacecraft is rushing toward the star
we call Tau Ceti at an unbelievable speed. Inside, our daily
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    325
    activities are  barely  influenced by  these  remarkable  external
conditions of our existence.
    "Before the days in  the somnarium, while  we were still  voyagers
inside the planetary  system that  revolves around our  home star  the
Sun, many of us  thought our 'observation period'  would be short.  We
believed that after a few months or so we would be returned to  Earth,
or maybe even our original destination Mars, and that this third  Rama
spacecraft would disappear in  the distant reaches  of space like  its
two predecessors. As I stand before you today, however, our navigators
tell me that we are  still moving away from our  sun, as we have  been
for more than two and a half years, at approximately half the speed of
light. If, indeed, it  will be our good  fortune someday to return  to
our own solar system, that day will  be at least several years in  the
future.
    "These  factors  dictate  the  primary  theme  of  this,  my  last
Settlement Day address. The theme is simple: Fellow colonists, we must
take full responsibility  for our  own destiny. We  cannot expect  the
awesome powers that created our worldlet  in the beginning to save  us
from our mistakes. We must manage New  Eden as if we and our  children
will be here forever. It  is lip to us to  ensure the quality of  life
here, both now and for our future generations.
    "At present there are  a number of  challenges facing the  colony.
Notice that I call them challenges, not problems. If we work  together
we can  meet these  challenges. If  we carefully  weigh the  long-term
consequences of our actions, we will make the right decisions. But  if
we are unable  to understand the  concepts of 'delayed  gratification'
and 'for the good of all,' then the future of New Eden will be bleak.
    "Let me take an example to illustrate my point. Richard  Wakefield
has explained, both on television and  in public fora, how the  master
scheme that controls our weather is based on certain assumptions about
the atmospheric  conditions  inside  our  habitat.  Specifically,  our
weather control algorithm assumes that both the carbon dioxide  levels
and the  concentration  of  smoke  particles are  less  than  a  given
magnitude. Without understanding exactly how the mathe-
    326 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    matics works, you can  appreciate that the computations  governing
the external  inputs  to  our  habitat will  not  be  correct  if  the
underlying assumptions are not accurate.
    "It is not my  intent today to give  a scientific lecture about  a
very complex subject.  What I  really want  to talk  about is  policy.
Since most of our scientists believe that our unusual weather the last
four months is a  result of unduly high  levels of carbon dioxide  and
smoke particles in  the atmosphere,  my government  has made  specific
proposals to deal with these  issues. All of our recommendations  have
been rejected by the Senate.
    "And why? Our proposal to impose a gradual ban on fireplaces-which
are totally unnecessary in  New Eden in the  first place-was called  a
'restriction   on   personal   freedom.'   Our   carefully    detailed
recommendation to reconstitute part  of the GED  network, so that  the
loss of  plant cover  resulting from  the development  of portions  of
Sherwood Forest and the northern grasslands could be offset, was voted
down as well. The reason? The opposition argued that the colony cannot
afford the task and, in addition,  that the power consumed by the  new
segments of  the  GED  network would  result  in  painfully  stringent
electricity conservation measures.
    "Ladies and gentlemen, it is ridiculous  for us to bury our  heads
in the sand and hope that  these environmental problems will go  away.
Each time  that  we  postpone taking  positive  action  means  greater
hardships for the colony in the future. I cannot believe that so  many
of you accept the opposition's wishful thinking, that somehow we  will
be able to figure out how  the alien weather algorithms actually  work
and tune them to perform property under conditions with higher  levels
of carbon dioxide and smoke particles. What colossal hubris! ..."
    Nicole and Nai were both  watching the reaction to Kenji's  speech
very carefully. Several of  his supporters had urged  Kenji to give  a
light, optimistic talk, without any  discussion of me crucial  issues.
The governor, however, had  been firm in his  determination to make  a
meaningful speech.
    "He's lost  them," Nai  leaned over  to whisper  to Nicole.  "He's
being too pedantic."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    327
    There  was  definitely   a  restiveness  in   the  stands,   where
approximately half the audience was now sitting. The Na-kamura  yacht,
which had  been  anchored  just offshore  during  the  fireworks,  had
pointedly departed soon after Governor Watanabe began to speak.
    Kenji switched  topics from  the  environment to  the  retro-virus
RV-41. Since this  was an issue  that aroused strong  passions in  the
colony, the  audience's  attention increased  markedly.  The  governor
explained how the New Eden medical staff, under the leadership of  Dr.
Robert Turner, had  made heroic strides  in understanding the  disease
but still needed to perform  more extensive research to determine  how
to treat it. He then decried the hysteria that had forced the  passage
of a bill,  even over  his veto,  requiring all  those colonists  with
RV-41 antibodies in their system to wear red armbands at all times.
    "Boo," shouted a large group of mostly Oriental picnickers on  the
other side of the stands from Nicole and Nai.
    ". . . These  poor, unfortunate people  face enough anguish.  ..."
Kenji was saying.
    "They're  whores  and   fags,"  a  man   cried  from  behind   the
Wakefield-Watanabe party. The people around him laughed and applauded.
    ". . . Dr. Turner has repeatedly affirmed that this disease,  like
most retroviruses, cannot  be transmitted except  by blood and  semen.
..."
    The crowd was becoming unruly. Nicole hoped that Kenji was  paying
attention and would cut his comments short. He had intended to discuss
also the wisdom (or lack thereof) of expanding the exploration of Rama
outside of New Eden, but he could tell that he had lost his audience.
    Governor Watanabe paused a second and then issued an  earsplitting
whistle  into  the  microphone.  That  temporarily  quieted  all   the
listeners. "I have only a few more remarks," he said, "and they should
not offend anyone. . . .
    "As you know, my wife  Nai and I have twin  sons. We feel that  we
are richly blessed. On this Settlement Day I ask each of you to  think
about your children and envision another Settlement Day, a hundred  or
maybe even a thou-
    328 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    329
    sand years into the future. Imagine that you are face-to-face with
those whom you have begotten, your children's children's children.  As
you talk to them, and hold them in your arms, will you be able to  say
that you did everything reasonably possible  to leave them a world  in
which th^y had a good chance of finding happiness?"
    Patrick was excited again. Just as the picnic was ending, Max  had
invited him to spend the night and  the next day at the Puckett  farm.
"The new term at  the university doesn't  start until Wednesday,"  the
young man told his mother. "May I go? Please?"
    Nicole was  still disturbed  by the  crowd's reaction  to  Kenji's
speech and did not understand at first what her son was asking.  After
asking him to repeat his request she glanced at Max. "You'll take good
care of my son?"
    Max Puckett grinned and  nodded his head.  Max and Patrick  waited
until the biots had finished cleaning up all the trash from the picnic
and then headed  for the train  station together. Half  an hour  later
they were in the Central City station waiting for the infrequent train
that served  the farming  region directly.  Across the  platform  from
them, a group of Patrick's college classmates were entering the  train
to Hakone. "You should come," one of the young men yelled to  Patrick.
"Free drinks for everybody all night long."
    Max watched  Patrick's eyes  follow his  friends onto  the  train.
"Have you ever been to Vegas?" Max asked.
    "No, sir," he answered. "My mother and father-"
    "Would you like to go?"
    Patrick's hesitation was all Max needed. A few seconds later  they
boarded the  train  to  Hakone  with all  the  merrymakers.  "I'm  not
terribly fond of the place myself," Max commented as they were riding.
"It seems too false, too superficial.  . . . But it's certainly  worth
seeing and it's not a  bad place to go  for amusement when you're  all
alone."
    Slightly more than two and a  half years earlier, very soon  after
the  daily  accelerations   ended,  Toshio   Nakamura  had   correctly
calculated that the colonists were likely to stay in New Eden and Rama
for a long time. Before even  the first meeting of the  constitutional
committee and its
    selection of Nicole des Jardins Wakefield as provisional governor,
Nakamura had  decided mat  he was  going to  be the  richest and  most
powerful person in the colony. Build-1 ing on the convict support base
he had established during the cruise  from Earth to Mars on the  Santa
Maria, he expanded  his personal  contacts and  was able,  as soon  as
banks and currency had been created  in the colony, to begin  building
his empire.
    Nakamura was convinced that the best products to sell in New  Eden
were those that provided pleasure and excitement. His first venture, a
small gambling casino, was an  immediate success. Next he bought  some
of the farmland  on the  east side of  Hakone and  built the  colony's
initial hotel, along with a second, larger casino just off the  lobby.
He added a small, intimate club, with female hostesses trained in  the
Japanese manner, and then a more raucous , girlie club. Everything  he
did was successful, Parlaying  his investments shrewdly, Nakamura  was
in a  position, soon  after Kenji  Watanabe was  elected governor,  to
offer to buy  one fifth of  Sherwood Forest from  the government.  His
offer  allowed  the  Senate  to  forestall  higher  taxes  that  would
otherwise have been required to pay for the initial RV-41 research.
    Part of  the  burgeoning  forest was  cleared  and  replaced  with
Nakamura's personal palace as well as a new, glittering  hotel/casino,
an entertainment  arena,  a  restaurant complex,  and  several  clubs.
Consolidating  his   monopoly,   Nakamura   lobbied   intensely   (and
successfully) for legislation that would limit gambling to the  region
around Hakone. His thugs then convinced all prospective  entrepreneurs
that  nobody  really  wanted  to   enter  the  gambling  business   in
competition with the "king Jap."
    When  his  power  was   beyond  attack,  Nakamura  permitted   his
associates to branch out into prostitution and drugs, neither of which
were illegal in the New Eden  society. Toward the end of the  Watanabe
term, when government policies began to conflict increasingly with his
personal agenda,  Nakamura decided  he should  control the  government
also. But he didn't want to be saddled with the boring job himself. He
needed a dupe. So he recruited lan Macmillan, the hapless ex-commander
of the Pinta who
    330 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    had been an also-ran  in the first  gubernatorial election won  by
Kenji  Watanabe.  Nakamura  offered  Macmillan  the  governorship   in
exchange for the Scotsman's fealty.
    There was nothing even  remotely like Vegas  anywhere else in  the
colony. The basic New Eden architecture designed by the Wakefields and
the Eagle had all been spare,  functional in the extreme, with  simple
geometries  and   plain   facades.   Vegas   was   overdone,   garish,
inconsistent-  a  mishmash  of   architectural  styles.  But  it   was
interesting, and young  Patrick OToole was  visibly impressed when  he
and Max Puckett entered the outside gates of the compound.
    "Wow," he  said,  staring at  the  huge blinking  sign  above  the
portal.
    "I don't  want to  diminish your  appreciation any,  my boy,"  Max
said, lighting a cigarette,  "but the power  required to operate  that
one sign would drive almost a square kilometer of GEDs."
    "You sound like my mother and father," Patrick replied.
    Before entering the casino or any of the clubs, each person had to
sign the master register. Nakamura missed  no bets. He had a  complete
file on  what every  Vegas visitor  had done  every time  he had  come
inside. That way Nakamura knew  which portions of his business  should
be expanded and, more  importantly, the special  and favored vice  (or
vices) of each of his customers.
    Max and Patrick went into the casino. While they were standing  by
one of the two craps tables, Max tried to explain to the young man how
the game worked.  Patrick, however, could  not keep his  eyes off  the
cocktail waitresses in their scanty outfits.
    "Ever been laid, boy?" Max asked.
    "Excuse me, sir?" Patrick replied.
    "Have you ever had sex-you know, intercourse with a woman?"
    "No, sir," the young man answered.
    A  voice  inside  Max's  head  told  him  that  it  was  not   his
responsibility to usher the young man into the world of pleasure.  The
same voice also reminded Max that this was New Eden, and not Arkansas,
or otherwise he would have
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    331
    taken Patrick over to the Xanadu and treated him to his first sex.
    There were more than a hundred people in the casino, a huge  crowd
considering the size of the colony,  and everyone seemed to be  having
fun. The waitresses were indeed dispensing free drinks just as fast as
they could- Max grabbed a margarita and handed one to Patrick.
    "I don't see any biots," Patrick commented.
    "There aren't any in the  casino," Max replied. "Not even  working
the tables, where they would be  more efficient than humans. The  king
Jap believes their  presence inhibits  the gambling  instinct. But  he
uses them exclusively in all the restaurants."
    "Max Puckett. Well, I do declare."
    Max and Patrick turned around. A beautiful young woman in a  soft,
pink dress was approaching them. "I  haven't seen you in months,"  she
said.
    "Hello,  Samantha,"  Max  said  after  being  uncharacteristically
tongue-tied for several seconds.
    "And who is this handsome  young man?" Samantha said, batting  her
long eyelashes at Patrick.
    "This is Patrick OToole," Max answered. "He is-"
    "Oh, my goodness," Samantha exclaimed. "I've never met one of  the
o-rig-inal colonists before."  She studied Patrick  for a few  seconds
before continuing. "Tell  me, Mr.  O'Toole," she said,  "is it  really
true that you went to sleep for year.??"
    Patrick nodded shyly.
    "My friend Goldie says that the whole story is bullshit, that  you
and your family  are really all  agents for the  HA. She doesn't  even
believe we have ever left Mars orbit. Goldie says all that dreary time
in the tanks was also part of the hoax."
    "I assure you, ma'am," Patrick politely responded, "that my family
did indeed sleep for years. I was  only six years old when my  parents
put me in a berth. I looked almost like I do now the next time I  woke
up."
    "Well, 1 find ityiw-cinatin', even if I don't know what to make of
it all. . . .  So, Max, what are  you up to? And  by the way, are  you
going to officially introduce me?"
    "I'm sorry. Patrick, this is Miss Samantha Porter
    332 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    from the great state of Mississippi. She works at the Xanadu-''
    "I'm a prostitute, Mr. O'Toole. One of  the very best. . . .  Have
you ever met a prostitute before?"
    Patrick blushed. "No, ma'am," he said.
    Samantha put a  ringer under his  chin. "He's cute,"  she said  to
Max. "Bring him over. If he's a virgin, I might do him for free."  She
gave Patrick  a small  kiss on  the lips  and then  turned around  and
departed.
    Max couldn't think of anything  appropriate to say after  Samantha
left. He thought  about apologizing but  decided it wasn't  necessary.
Max put his arm around Patrick and  the two of them walked toward  the
back of the casino, where the higher stakes tables were cordoned off.
    "All right, now,  yo," cried a  young woman with  her back  toward
them. "Five and six makes a yo."
    Patrick glanced  over at  Max with  surprise. "That's  Katie,"  he
said, hastening his step in her direction.
    Katie was completely absorbed in the  game. She took a quick  drag
from a cigarette, belted down the drink she was handed by the  swarthy
man on her right, and then held the dice high above her head. "All the
numbers,"  she   said,  handing   chips  to   the  croupier.   "Here's
twenty-six-plus five marks  on the hard  eight. . .  . Now, be  there,
forty-four," she said, flinging the  dice against the opposite end  of
the table with a flick of her wrist. . "Forty-four,'' the crowd around
the table shouted in unison.
    Katie jumped  up and  down in  her  place, gave  her date  a  hug,
quaffed another  drink, and  took  a long,  languorous pull  from  her
cigarette.
    "Katie," Patrick said  just as  she was  about to  throw the  dice
again.
    She stopped in midthrow and turned around with a quizzical look on
her face. "Well, I'll be damned," she said. "It's my baby brother."
    Katie stumbled  over  to greet  him  as the  croupiers  and  other
players at the table yelled for her to continue the game.
    "You're drunk, Katie," Patrick said  quietly while he was  holding
her in his arms.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA 333
    "No, Patrick," Katie replied, jerking herself backward toward  the
table. "I am flying. I am on my own personal shuttle to the stars."
    She turned back to the craps table and raised her right arm  high.
"All right, now, yo. Are you in there, yo?" she shouted.
    2
    Ai
    kgain the dreams came in the  early morning hours. Nicole woke  up
and tried to remember  what she had been  dreaming, but all she  could
recall was an isolated image  here and there. Omeh's disembodied  face
had been in one of her dreams. Her Senoufo great-grandfather had  been
warning  her  about  something,  but  Nicole  had  not  been  able  to
understand what he  was saying.  In another dream  Nicole had  watched
Richard walk into a  quiet ocean just before  a devastating wave  came
rushing toward the shore.
    Nicole nibbed  her eyes  and glanced  at the  clock. It  was  just
before four o'clock. Almost the same time every morning this week, she
thought. What  do  they  mean?  She stood  up  and  crossed  into  the
bathroom.
    Moments later  she was  in  the kitchen  dressed in  her  exercise
domes. She drank a  glass of water. An  Abraham Lincoln biot, who  had
been resting  immobile against  the wall  at the  end of  the  kitchen
counter, activated and approached Nicole.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    335
    "Would you like some coffee, Mrs. Wakefield?" he asked, taking the
empty water glass from her.
    "No, Line," she answered. "I'm going  out now. If anyone wakes  up
tell them I'll be back before six."
    Nicole walked down the hallway toward the door. Before leaving the
house she passed  the study on  the right-hand side  of the  corridor.
Papers were strewn all over Richard's desk, both beside arid on top of
the new computer he had designed and constructed himself. Richard  was
extremely proud of  his new computer,  which Nicole had  urged him  to
build, even  though it  was  unlikely that  it would  ever  completely
replace his favorite electronic toy, the standard ISA pocket computer.
Richard had religiously carried the  little portable since before  the
launch of the Newton.
    Nicoie recognized Richard's  writing on some  of the paper  sheets
but could not read any of his symbolic computer language. He has spent
many long hours in  here recently, Nicole thought,  feeling a pang  of
guilt. Even though he believes that what he's doing is wrong.
    At first  Richard had  refused  to participate  in the  effort  to
decode the algorithm  that governed  the weather in  New Eden.  Nicole
recalled their discussions clearly. "We have agreed to participate  in
this democracy," she had  argued. "If you and  I choose to ignore  its
laws, then we set a dangerous example for the others-"
    "This is not  a law," Richard  had interrupted her.  "It's only  a
resolution. And you know as well as I do that it's an incredibly  dumb
idea. You and Kenji  both fought against it.  And besides, aren't  you
the one who  told me  once that  we have  a duty  to protest  majority
stupidity?"
    "Please, Richard," Nicole had replied. "You may of course  explain
to everyone why you think the resolution is wrong. But this  algorithm
effort has now become a campaign issue. All the colonists know that we
are close to the Watanabes. If you ignore the resolution it will  look
as if Kenji is purposely trying to undermine ..."
    While Nicole  was remembering  her earlier  conversation with  her
husband, her  eyes roamed  idly  around the  study. She  was  somewhat
surprised, when her mind again fo-
    336 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    cused on the present, to find that she was staring at three little
figures on an open shelf  above Richard's desk. Prince Hal,  Falstaff,
TB, she thought.  How long has  it been since  Richard entertained  us
with you?
    Nicole thought back  to the  long and monotonous  weeks after  her
family had awakened from their years of sleep. While (hey were waiting
for the  arrival of  the other  colonists, Richard's  robots had  been
their primary source of  amusement. In her  memory Nicole could  still
hear the children's mirthful laughter and see her husband smiling with
delight. Those were simpler,  easier times, she  said to herself.  She
closed the door to the study and continued down the hall. Before  life
became too  complicated for  play. Now  your little  friends just  sit
silently on the shelf.
    Out in the lane, underneath the streetlight, Nicole stopped for  a
moment beside the bicycle rack. She hesitated, looking at her bicycle,
and then turned around and headed for the backyard. A minute later she
had crossed the grassy area behind the house and was on the path  that
wound up Mount Olympus.
    Nicole walked briskly. She  was very deep in  thought. For a  long
time she paid no attention to her surroundings. Her mind jumped around
from subject to subject, from the problems besetting New Eden, to  her
strange  dream  patterns,  to   her  anxieties  about  her   children,
especially Katie.
    She arrived  at  a  fork  in the  path.  A  small,  tasteful  sign
explained that the  path to  the left led  to the  cable car  station,
eighty meters away, where one could ride to the top of Mount  Olympus.
Nicole's presence at the fork was electronically detected and prompted
a Garcia biot to approach from the direction of the cable car.
    "Don't bother," Nicole shouted. "I'm going to walk."
    The view became more and more spectacular as the switchbacks wound
up the side of the mountain that faced die rest of the colony.  Nicole
paused at one of the viewpoints,  five hundred meters in altitude  and
just under three kilometers walking distance from the Wakefield  home,
and looked out across New Eden. It had been a clear night, with little
or no moisture in the air.
    No rain  today,  Nicole thought,  noting  that the  mornings  were
always damp with water vapor on the days that show-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    337
    ers fell. Just below  her was the  village of Beauvois-the  lights
from the new  furniture factory allowed  her to identify  most of  the
familiar buildings  of her  region, even  from this  distance. To  the
north the village of San Miguel was hidden behind the bulky  mountain.
But out across the colony, far on the other side of a darkened Central
City,  Nicole  could  discern  the  splashes  of  light  that   marked
Na-kamura's Vegas.
    She was instantly plunged into a  bad mood. That damn place  stays
open all  night  long, she  grumbled  silently, using  critical  power
resources and offering unsavory amusements.
    It was impossible for Nicole not to think of Katie when she looked
at Vegas.  Such natural  talent, Nicole  remarked to  herself, a  dull
heartache accompanying the image of  her daughter. She could not  help
wondering if Katie was still awake  in the glittering fantasy life  on
the other  side of  the  colony. And  such  a colossal  waste,  Nicole
thought, shaking her head.
    Richard and she  had discussed  Katie often. There  were only  two
subjects about which they fought-Katie  and New Eden politics. And  it
wasn't entirely accurate  to say they  fought about politics.  Richard
basically felt that  all politicians,  except Nicole  and maybe  Kenji
Watanabe,  were  essentially   without  principles.   His  method   of
discussion was  to  make  sweeping pronouncements  about  the  insipid
goings-on in the Senate, or even  in Nicole's own courtroom, and  then
to refuse to consider the subject anymore.
    Katie was another  issue. Richard  always argued  that Nicole  was
much too hard on Katie. He also blames me, Nicole thought as she gazed
at the  faraway lights,  for not  spending enough  time with  her.  He
contends my jumping into colony politics left the children with only a
part-time mother at the most critical period of their lives.
    Katie was almost never  at home anymore. She  still had a room  in
the Wakefield house, but she  spent most of her  nights in one of  the
fancy apartments that Nakamura had built inside the Vegas compound.
    "How do  you pay  the rent?"  Nicole had  asked her  daughter  one
night, just before the usual unpleasantness.
    338 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "How do you think, Mother?"  Katie had answered belligerently.  "I
work. I have  plenty of  time. I'm only  taking three  courses at  the
university."
    "What kind of work do you do?" Nicole had asked.
    "I'm a  hostess,  an entertainer  .  .  . you  know,  whatever  is
needed," Katie had answered vaguely.
    Nicole turned away from the lights  of Vegas. Of course, she  said
to, herself, it is entirely understandable that Katie is confused. She
never had any adolescence. But still,  she doesn't seem to be  getting
any better.  . .  . Nicole  started walking  briskly up  the  mountain
again, trying to dispel her mounting gloom.
    Between five  hundred  and  a thousand  meters  in  altitude,  the
mountain was covered with  thick trees that  were already five  meters
high. Here the  path to the  summit ran between  the mountain and  the
outside wall of the  colony in an extremely  dark stretch that  lasted
for more than a kilometer. There was one break in the blackness,  near
the end, at a lookout point facing north.
    Nicole had reached the highest point in her ascent. She stopped at
the lookout and stared across at  San Miguel. There is the proof,  she
thought, shaking  her head,  that we  have failed  here in  New  Eden.
Despite everything, there is poverty and despair in paradise.
    She had seen the problem coming, had even accurately predicted  it
toward  the  end  of  her  one-year  term  as  provisional   governor.
Ironically, the  process  that  had produced  San  Miguel,  where  the
standard of living was only  half what it was  in the other three  New
Eden villages, had  begun soon after  the arrival of  the Pinta.  That
first group of colonists had mostly settled in the Southeast  Village,
which would  later  become  Beauvois, setting  a  precedent  that  was
accentuated after the Nina reached  Rama. As the free settlement  plan
was implemented, almost all the Orientals decided to live together  in
Hakone; the Europeans, white Americans, and middle Asians chose either
Positano or what was left of Beauvois. The Mexicans, other  Hispanics,
black Americans, and Africans all gravitated toward San Miguel.
    As governor, Nicole had tried to resolve the de facto  segregation
in the colony with a Utopian resettlement plan
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    339
    that would  have allocated  to each  of the  four villages  racial
percentages that mirrored the  colony as a  whole. Her proposal  might
have been  accepted very  early in  the colony's  history,  especially
right after the days in the somnarium, when most of the other citizens
viewed Nicole as  a goddess. But  it was  too late after  more than  a
year. Free enterprise had already created gaps in both personal wealth
and real estate  values. Even Nicole's  most loyal followers  realized
the impracticality of her resettlement concept at that point.
    After Nicole's  term as  governor was  completed, the  Senate  had
resoundingly approved  Kenji's appointment  of Nicole  as one  of  New
Eden's five permanent  judges. Nevertheless, her  image in the  colony
suffered considerably when the remarks she had made in defense of  the
aborted resettlement plan became widely circulated. Nicole had  argued
that it was essential for the  colonists to live in small,  integrated
neighborhoods to develop any real appreciation of racial and  cultural
differences. Her critics had thought  that her views were  "hopelessly
naive."
    Nicole stared at the  twinkling lights of  San Miguel for  several
more minutes  as she  warmed  down from  her  strenuous climb  up  the
mountain. Just before  she turned  around and headed  back toward  her
home in  Beauvois,  she suddenly  recalled  another set  of  twinkling
lights, from the  town of Davos,  in Switzerland, back  on the  planet
Earth. During  Nicole's  last  ski  vacation,  she  and  her  daughter
Genevieve had  had  dinner on  the  mountain above  Davos  and,  after
eating, had  held hands  in the  bracing cold  out on  the  restaurant
balcony.  The  lights  of  Davos  had  shone  like  tiny  jewels  many
kilometers below them. Tears came into Nicole's eyes as she thought of
the grace and humor of her first  daughter, whom she had not seen  for
so many years.  Thank you again,  Kenji, she mumbled  as she began  to
walk, recalling the photographs her new friend had brought from Earth,
for sharing with me your visit with Genevieve.
    It was again black  all around her as  Nicole wound back down  the
side of the  mountain. The outer  wall of  the colony was  now on  her
left. She continued to think about  life in New Eden. We need  special
courage now, she said
    340 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    to herself. Courage, and values, and vision. But in her heart  she
feared the worst was still ahead for the colonists. Unfortunately, she
reflected gloomily, Richard and I and even the children have  remained
outsiders, despite everything we have tried to do. It is unlikely that
we will ho able to change anything very much.
    Richard checked to ensure  that the three  Einstein biots had  all
properly copied the procedures and data  that had been on the  several
monitors in his  study. As the  four of them  were leaving the  house,
Nicole gave him a kiss.
    "You are a wonderful man, Richard Wakefield," she said.
    "You're the only one who thinks so," he replied, forcing a smile.
    "I'm also the only one who  knows," Nicole said. She paused for  a
moment. "Seriously, darling," she continued, "1 appreciate what you're
doing. I know-"
    "I won't be very late," he interrupted. "The three Als and I  have
only two basic ideas left to  try. ... If we aren't successful  today,
we're giving up."
    With the  three  Einsteins  following close  behind  him,  Richard
hurried down  to  the  Beauvois  station  and  caught  the  train  for
Positano. The  train  stopped momentarily  by  the big  park  on  Lake
Shakespeare where  the  Settlement  Day picnic  had  been  two  months
earlier. Richard  and his  supporting  biot cast  disembarked  several
minutes later  at  Positano and  walked  through the  village  to  the
southwest  comer   of   the   colony.  There,   after   having   their
identification checked by one human and two Garcias, they were allowed
to pass through the  colony exit into  the annulus that  circumscribed
New Eden. There was one  more brief electronic inspection before  they
reached the only  door that had  been cut in  the thick external  wall
surrounding the habitat. It swung open and Richard led the biots  into
Rama itself.
    Richard had  had misgivings  when,  eighteen months  earlier,  the
Senate had voted to develop and deploy a penetrating probe to test the
environmental conditions in  Rama just outside  their module.  Richard
had served on the committee  that had reviewed the engineering  design
of the
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    341
    probe; he had been afraid  that the external environment might  be
overwhelmingly hostile  and that  the design  of the  probe might  not
properly protect the integrity of  their habitat. Much time and  money
had been  spent guaranteeing  that  the boundaries  of New  Eden  were
hermetically sealed during the entire procedure, even while the  probe
was inching its way through the wall.
    Richard had lost credibility in the colony when the environment in
Rama had turned out to be not significantly different from that in New
Eden. Outside there was permanent  darkness, and some small,  periodic
variations in  both atmospheric  pressure  and constituents,  but  the
ambient Raman environment was so similar to the one in the colony that
the human explorers did  not even need their  space suits. Within  two
weeks after the first  probe revealed the  benign atmosphere in  Rama,
the colonists had  completed the mapping  of the area  of the  Central
Plain that was now accessible to them.
    New Eden and a second,  almost identical rectangular construct  to
the south, which Richard and Nicole both believed to be a habitat  for
a  second  life-form,  were  enclosed  together  in  a  larger,   also
rectangular  region  whose  extremely  tall,  metallic  gray  barriers
separated it from  the rest  of Rama. The  barriers on  the north  and
south sides of this larger region were extensions of the walls of  the
habitats themselves.  On  both the  east  and  west side  of  the  two
enclosed habitats, however,  there were about  two kilometers of  open
space.
    At  the  four  corners  of  this  outer  rectangle  were   massive
cylindrical structures. Richard and the other technological  personnel
in the colony  were convinced that  the impenetrable corner  cylinders
contained the fluids and pumping mechanisms whereby the  environmental
conditions inside the habitats were maintained.
    The new outer region, which had no ceiling except for the opposite
side of Rama itself, covered most of the Northern Hemicylinder of  the
spacecraft. A large  metal hut,  shaped like  an igloo,  was the  only
building in the Central Plain between  the two habitats. This hut  was
the control  center for  New Eden  and was  located approximately  two
kilometers south of the colony wall.
    342 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    When they exited from  New Eden, Richard  and the three  Einsteins
were headed  for  the control  center,  where they  had  been  working
together for almost two weeks in  an attempt to break into the  master
control logic governing  the weather  inside New  Eden. Despite  Kenji
Watanabe's objection, the Senate had earlier appropriated funds for an
"all-out effort" by the colony's  "best engineers" to alter the  alien
weather algorithm. They had promulgated this legislation after hearing
testimony from a group of Japanese scientists, who had suggested  that
stable weather conditions could indeed be maintained inside New  Eden,
even with  the  higher levels  of  carbon  dioxide and  smoke  in  the
atmosphere.
    It was an appealing conclusion  for the politicians. If,  perhaps,
neither barring wood-burning nor deploying a reconstituted GED network
were truly  required,  and it  was  only  necessary to  adjust  a  few
parameters in the alien algorithm that had, after all, been  initially
designed with some assumptions that were no longer valid, well, then .
. .
    Richard hated that kind  of thinking. Avoid the  issue as long  as
possible, he called it. Nevertheless,  both because of Nicole's  pleas
and the total failure of the other colony engineers to understand  any
facet of the weather control process, Richard had agreed to tackle the
task. He had insisted, however,  that he work essentially alone,  with
only the Einsteins helping him.
    On the day that Richard planned to make his last attempt to decode
the New Eden weather algorithm, he and his biots stopped first near  a
site one kilometer away from the  colony exit. Under the large  lights
Richard could see  a group of  architects and engineers  working at  a
very long table.
    "The canal will not be difficult to build-the soil is very soft."
    "But what about sewage? Should we dig cesspools, or haul the waste
material back to New Eden for processing?"
    "The power requirements for  this settlement will be  substantial.
Not only the lighting, because of  the ambient darkness, but also  all
the appliances. In addition, we're
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    343
    far enough away from New Eden that we must account for  nontrivial
losses on the lines. . . , Our best superconducting materials are  too
critical for this usage."
    Richard felt a mixture of disgust and anger as he listened to  the
conversations.  The  architects  and   engineers  were  conducting   a
feasibility study for an external  village that could house the  RV-41
carriers. The project,  whose name  was Avalon,  was the  result of  a
delicate  political  compromise  between  Governor  Watanabe  and  his
opposition. Kenji had permitted the study to be funded to show that he
was "open-minded" on the issue of how to deal with the RV-41 problem.
    Richard and  the three  Einsteins  continued down  the path  in  a
southerly direction. Just north of  the control center they caught  up
with a group  of humans  and biots  headed toward  the second  habitat
probe site with some impressive equipment.
    "Hi, Richard,"  said  Marilyn  Blackstpne, the  fellow  Brit  whom
Richard had recommended  to head  the probe effort.  Marilyn was  from
Taunton, in Somerset.  She had  received her  engineering degree  from
Cambridge in 2232 and was extremely competent.
    "How's the work coming?" Richard asked.
    "If you have a minute, come take a look," Marilyn suggested.
    Richard left  the  three  Einsteins  at  the  control  center  and
accompanied Marilyn  and her  team  across the  Central Plain  to  the
second habitat. As he was walking, he remembered his conversation with
Kenji  Watanabe  and  Dmitri  Ulanov  in  the  governor's  office  one
afternoon before the probe project was officially approved.
    "I want it understood," Richard had said, "that I am categorically
against any and all efforts to intrude upon the sanctity of that other
habitat. Nicole and I are  virtually positive that it harbors  another
kind  of  life.  There  is   no  argument  for  penetration  that   is
compelling."
    "Suppose it's empty," Dmitri had replied. "Suppose the habitat has
been placed there for us, assuming we are clever enough to figure  out
how to use it."
    "Dmitri," Richard  had  almost  shouted,  "have  you  listened  to
anything that Nicole and I have been telling you
    344 ARTHUR C- CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    ail these months? You are still clinging to an absurd homo-centric
notion about our place  in the universe. Because  we are the  dominant
species on the planet Earth, you assume we are superior beings. We are
not. There must be hundreds-"
    "Richard," Kenji had  interrupted him  in a soft  voice, "we  know
your opinion on  this subject. But  the colonists of  New Eden do  not
agree with you. They  have never seen the  Eagle, the octospiders,  or
any of the other wonderful creatures that you talk about. They want to
know if we have room to expand. ..."
    Kenji was already afraid then, Richard was thinking as he and  the
exploration team neared the second habitat. He's still terrified  that
Macmillan will beat Ulanov in the election and turn the colony over to
Nakamura.
    Two Einstein biots began  working as soon as  the team arrived  at
the probe site. They  carefully installed the  compact laser drill  in
the spot where  a hole in  the wall had  already been created.  Within
five minutes the drill was slowly expanding the hole in the metal.
    "How  far  have  you  penetrated?"  Richard  asked.  "Only   about
thirty-five centimeters  so far,"  Marilyn replied.  "We're taking  it
very slowly. If the wall  has the same thickness  as ours, it will  be
another three or four weeks before we  are all the way through. . .  .
Incidentally, the spectrographic analysis of the wall parts  indicates
it's the same material as our wall."
    "And once you've penetrated  into the interior?" Marilyn  laughed.
"Don't  worry,  Richard.  We're  following  all  the  procedures   you
recommended.  We  will  have  a  minimum  of  two  weeks  of   passive
observation before we continue  to the next phase.  We'll give them  a
chance to respond-if they are indeed inside."
    The skepticism in her voice  was obvious. "Not you too,  Marilyn,"
Richard said. "What's the matter  with everybody? Do you think  Nicole
and the children and I just made up all those stories?"
    "Extraordinary  claims   require  extraordinary   evidence,"   she
replied.
    Richard shook his head. He started  to argue with Marilyn, but  he
realized he had more important things to do.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    345
    After a few minutes of polite engineering conversation, he  walked
back toward the control center where his Einsteins were waiting.
    The great thing  about working  with the Einstein  biots was  that
Richard could try  many ideas at  once. Whenever he  had a  particular
approach in mind, he  could outline it  to one of  the biots and  have
complete  confidence  that  it  would  be  implemented  properly.  The
Einsteins never suggested a new method themselves; however, they  were
perfect memory  devices and  often reminded  Richard when  one of  his
ideas was similar to an earlier technique that had failed.
    All the other  colony engineers attempting  to modify the  weather
algorithm had  tried first  to understand  the inner  workings of  the
alien supercomputer  that was  located in  the middle  of the  control
center. That had  been their fundamental  mistake. Richard, knowing  a
priori  that   the  supercomputer's   internal  operation   would   be
indistinguishable from  magic to  him, concentrated  on isolating  and
identifying the output signals that emanated from the huge  processor.
After all, he  reasoned, the basic  structure of the  process must  be
straightforward. Some  set  of  measurements  defines  the  conditions
inside New Eden at any given time. The alien algorithms must use  this
measurement data to compute  commands that are  somehow passed to  the
huge cylindrical structures, where the actual physical activity  takes
place that  leads  to  modifications  in  the  atmosphere  inside  the
habitat.
    It did not take Richard long to draw a functional block diagram of
the process. Because there were no direct electrical contacts  between
the control center and the cylindrical structures, it was obvious that
there was some kind of  electromagnetic communication between the  two
entities. But what kind? When Richard  scanned the spectrum to see  at
what wavelengths the  communication was  taking place,  he found  many
potential signals.
    Analyzing and interpreting those signals was a little like looking
for a  needle in  a haystack.  With the  Einstein biots  helping  him,
Richard eventually  determined that  the most  frequent  transmissions
were in the microwave bandwidth.
    346 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    For  a  week  he  and  the  Einsteins  catalogued  the   microwave
exchanges, reviewing the  weather conditions in  New Eden both  before
and after,  and  trying to  zero  in  on the  specific  parameter  set
modulating the strength of  the response on the  cylinder side of  the
interface. During  that week  Rich  ard also  tested and  validated  a
portable microwave transmitter that he  and the biots had  constructed
together. His goal was to create  a command signal that would look  as
if it had come from the control center.
    His first serious attempt on die final day was a complete failure.
Guessing that the accuracy of the timing of his transmission might  be
the problem, he and the Einsteins next developed a sequencing  control
routine that  would enable  them to  issue a  signal with  femtosecond
precision, so that the cylinders  would receive the command within  an
extremely tiny time slice.
    An instant after Richard had sent what he thought was a new set of
parameters to  the cylinders,  a  loud alarm  sounded in  the  control
center. Within seconds a wraithlike image of the Eagle appeared in the
air above Richard and the biots.
    "Human beings,"  the holographic  Eagle  said, "be  very  careful.
Great care and knowledge were used  to design the delicate balance  of
your habitat. Do not change these critical algorithms unless there  is
a genuine emergency."
    Even though he  was shocked, Richard  acted immediately,  ordering
the Einsteins to record what they were seeing. The Eagle repeated  his
warning a second  time and  then vanished,  but the  entire scene  was
stored in the videorecording subsystems of the biots.
    3
    A;
    re you  going  to be  depressed  forever?" Nicole  asked,  looking
across the breakfast table at her husband. "Besides, thus far  nothing
terrible has happened. The weather has been fine."
    "I think it's better than before, Uncle Richard," Patrick offered.
"You're a hero  at the university-even  if some of  the kids do  think
you're part alien."
    Richard managed  a  smile. "The  government  is not  following  my
recommendations," he said quietly, "and  is paying no heed  whatsoever
to the Eagle's warning. There are even some people in the  engineering
office who are saying I created the hologram of the Eagle myself.  Can
you imagine that?"
    "Kenji believes what you told him, darling."
    "Then why is he letting those weather people continually  increase
the strength of  the commanded response?  They can't possibly  predict
the long-term effects."
    "What is it you're  worried about, Father?"  Ellie asked a  moment
later.
    "Managing such a large volume of gas is a very compli-
    348 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    cated process, EHie,  and I  have great  respect for  the ETs  who
designed the New Eden infrastructure in the first place. They were the
ones who insisted  the carbon dioxide  and particulate  concentrations
must be  maintained  below  specified levels.  They  must  have  known
something."
    Patrick and EHie finished their breakfasts and excused themselves.
Several minutes later, after the  children had left the house,  Nico!e
walked around the table and put her hands on Richard's shoulders.  "Do
you remember the night we  discussed Albert Einstein with Patrick  and
Ellie?"
    Richard looked at Nicole with a furrowed brow.
    "Later on  that night,  when  we were  in  bed, I  commented  that
Einstein's discovery of the relationship between matter and energy was
'horrible,' because it led to the existence of nuclear weapons. ... Do
you remember your response?"
    Richard shook his head.
    "You told me that  Einstein was a scientist,  whose life work  was
searching for  knowledge and  truth. 'There  is no  knowledge that  is
horrible,' you  said.  'Only what  other  human beings  do  with  that
knowledge can be called horrible.' "
    Richard smiled. "Are you trying to absolve me of responsibility on
this weather issue?"
    "Maybe," Nicole replied. She  reached down and  kissed him on  the
lips. "I know that  you are one of  the smartest, most creative  human
beings who ever lived  and I don't  like to see  you carrying all  the
burdens of the colony on your shoulders."
    Richard kissed her back with considerable vigor. "Do you think  we
can finish  before Benjy  wakes up?"  he whispered.  "He doesn't  have
school today and he stayed up very late last night."
    "Maybe," Nicole answered with a coquettish grin. "We can at  least
try. My first case is not until ten o'clock."
    Eponine's senior class at Central High School, called simply  "Art
and Literature,"  encompassed many  aspects of  the culture  that  the
colonists had at least temporarily
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    349
    left  behind.  In   her  basic  curriculum,   Eponine  covered   a
multicultural, eclectic set  of sources, encouraging  the students  to
pursue independent study in any specific areas they found stimulating.
Although she always used lesson plans and a syllabus in her  teaching,
Eponine was the kind of instructor who tailored each of her classes to
the interests of the students.
    Eponine herself  thought Les  Miserables by  Victor Hugo  was  the
greatest novel ever written, and the nineteenth century  impressionist
painter Pierre-Auguste  Renoir, from  her home  city of  Limoges,  the
finest painter who had ever lived.  She included the works of both  of
her countrymen in the class, but carefully structured the rest of  the
source material  to  give fair  representation  to other  nations  and
cultures.
    ' Since the  Kawabata biots helped  her each year  with the  class
play, it was  natural to  use the  real Kawabata's  novels A  Thousand
Cranes and Snow Country as examples of. Japanese literature. The three
weeks on poetry ranged from Frost  to Rilke to Omar Khayyam.  However,
the principal poetic focus was Benita Garcia, not only because of  the
presence of  the Garcia  biots all  over New  Eden, but  also  because
Benita's poetry and life were both fascinating to young people.
    . There were only  eleven students in  Eponine's senior class  the
year she  was required  to  wear the  red  armband for  having  tested
positive for RV-41 antibodies. The  results of her test had  presented
the school  administration  with  a difficult  dilemma.  Although  the
superintendent had  courageously resisted  the efforts  of a  strident
group of parents, mostly from Hakone, who had demanded that Eponine be
"dismissed" from the high  school, he and  his staff had  nevertheless
bowed somewhat  to the  hysteria  in the  colony by  making  Eponine's
senior course optional. As a result her class was much smaller than it
had been in the previous two years.
    Ellie Wakefield was Eponine's favorite student. Despite the  great
gaps in the  young woman's knowledge  due to her  years asleep on  the
trip back to the solar system from the Node, her natural  intelligence
and hunger for learning made her a joy in the classroom. Eponine often
asked Ellie
    350 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    to perform special tasks. On the morning that the class began  its
study of Benita Garcia, which was, incidentally, the same morning that
Richard Wakefield had  discussed with his  daughter his worries  about
the weather control activities in the colony, Ellie had been asked  to
memoriz'; one of the poems from Benita Garcia's first book, Dreams  of
a Mexican Girl, written when the  Mexican woman was still a  teenager.
Before  Ellie's  recitation,  however,  Epo-nine  tried  to  fire  the
imaginations of  the young  people with  a short  lecture on  Benita's
life.
    ' 'The real Benita  Garcia was one of  the most amazing women  who
ever lived," Eponine said, nodding  at the expressionless Garcia  biot
in the corner who helped her with all the routine chores of  teaching.
"Poet,  cosmonaut,  political  leader,  mystic-her  life  was  both  a
reflection of the history of her time and an inspiration for everyone.
    "Her father was a large landowner in the Mexican state of Yucatan,
far from the artistic and political heart of the nation. Benita was an
only child, the daughter  of a Mayan mother  and a much older  father.
She spent most of  her childhood alone on  the family plantation  that
touched the  marvelous Puuc  Mayan ruins  at Uxmal.  As a  small  girl
Benita  often  played  among  the  pyramids  and  buildings  of   that
thousand-year-old ceremonial center.
    "She was  a gifted  student from  the beginning,  but it  was  her
imagination and elan that truly separated  her from the others in  her
class. Benita wrote her first poem when  she was nine, and by the  age
of fifteen, at which time she was in a Catholic boarding school in the
Yucatecan capital of Me'rida, two of  her poems had been published  in
the prestigious Diario de Mexico.
    "After finishing secondary school,  Benita surprised her  teachers
and her family  by announcing that  she wanted to  be a cosmonaut,  hi
2129 she  was the  first  Mexican woman  ever  admitted to  the  Space
Academy in Colorado.  When she  graduated four years  later, the  deep
cutbacks in space had already begun.  Following the crash of 2134  the
world plunged  into  the  depression  known as  the  Great  Chaos  and
virtually all space exploration  was stopped. Benita  was laid off  by
the ISA in 2137 and thought that her space career was over.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    351
    "In 2144 one  of the last  interplanetary transport cruisers,  the
James Martin, limped home from Mars to Earth carrying mostly women and
children from the Martian colonies. The spacecraft was barely able  to
make it into  Earth orbit  and it appeared  as if  all the  passengers
would die. Benita Garcia and three  of her friends from the  cosmonaut
corps jerryrigged a rescue vehicle and managed to save twenty-four  of
the voyagers in the most spectacular space mission of all times. ..."
    Ellie's mind floated  free from Eponine's  narrative and  imagined
how exhilarating it must have been-on Benita's rescue mission.  Benita
had flown her space  vehicle manually, without  a lifeline to  mission
operations on the  Earth, and risked  her life to  save others.  Could
there be  any  greater  commitment  to one's  fellow  members  of  the
species?
    As she thought about Benita Garcia's selflessness, an image of her
mother came into Ellie's mind. A montage of pictures of Nicole rapidly
followed. First, Ellie saw  her mother in  her judge's robes  speaking
articulately before  the  Senate.  Next  Nicole  was  rubbing  Ellie's
father's neck in the study late at night, patiently teaching Benjy  to
read day after day, riding off beside Patrick on a bicycle for a  game
of tennis in the park, or telling Line what to prepare for dinner.  In
the last  image Nicole  was  sitting on  Ellie's  bed late  at  night,
answering questions about life and love.  My mother is my hero,  Ellie
suddenly realized. She is as unselfish as Benita Garcia.
    ". . . Imagine, if you will, a young Mexican girl of sixteen, home
from boarding school for vacation, climbing slowly up the steep  steps
of the Pyramid  of the Magician  in Uxmal. Below  her, in the  already
warm spring morning, iguanas play among the rocks and the ruins."
    Eponine nodded at Ellie.  It was time for  her poem. She stood  at
her seat and recited.
    "You have seen it  all, old lizard Seen  our joys, our tears,  Our
hearts full of dreams and terrible desires. And does it never change?
    352 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Did my Indian mother's mother Sit here on these steps One thousand
years ago And tell to you the passions she would not, could not share?
At night I look unto the stars  And dare to see myself among them.  My
heart  soars  above  these  pyramids,  flying  free  into  the   every
thing-can-be. Yes, Benita, the  iguanas tell me, Yes  to you and  your
mother's mother,  whose  yearning dreams  years  ago will  now  become
fulfilled in you."
    When Ellie had finished her cheeks were glistening from the silent
tears that had  fallen. Her  teacher and the  other students  probably
thought that she had been deeply moved by the poem and by the  lecture
on Benita Garcia. They  couldn't have understood  that Ellie had  just
experienced an emotional  epiphany, that she  had just discovered  the
true depth of her love and respect for her mother.
    It was the last  week of rehearsals for  the school play.  Eponine
had picked an old  work, Waiting for Godot,  by the twentieth  century
Nobel laureate Samuel  Beckett, because  its theme was  so germane  to
life in  New Eden.  The  two main  characters,  both dressed  in  rags
throughout, were  played  by Ellie  Wakefield  and Pedro  Martinez,  a
handsome  nineteen-year-old  who  had  been  one  of  the   "troubled"
teenagers added to the colony contingent during the last months before
launch.
    Eponine could not  have produced the  play without the  Kawabatas.
The biots designed and created  the sets and the costumes,  controlled
the lights,  and  even conducted  rehearsals  when she  could  not  be
present. The school had four  Kawabatas altogether, and three of  them
were under  Eponine's jurisdiction  during the  six weeks  immediately
preceding me play.
    "Good work," Eponine called out,  approaching her students on  the
stage. "Let's call it quits for today."
    "Miss Wakefield," Kawabata #052 said, "there were
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    353
    three places where your  words were not  exactly correct. In  your
speech beginning-"
    "Tell her tomorrow," Eponine  interrupted, gently waving the  biot
away. "It will mean more  to her then." She  turned to face the  small
cast. "Are there any questions?"
    "I know  we've  been through  this  before, Miss  Eponine,"  Pedro
Martinez said hesitantly, "but it would help me if we could discuss it
again. . . . You told  us that Godot was not  a person, that he or  it
was actually a concept, or  a fantasy . . .  that we were all  waiting
for something.  .  .  .  I'm  sorry, but  it's  difficult  for  me  to
understand exactly what ..."
    "The whole  play is  basically a  commentary on  the absurdity  of
life," Eponine replied after a few  seconds. "We laugh because we  see
ourselves in those  bums on  the stage, we  hear our  words when  they
speak. What Beckett has captured is the essential longing of the human
spirit. Whoever he is, Godot will  make everything all right. He  will
somehow transform our lives and make us happy."
    "Couldn't Godot be God?" Pedro asked.
    "Absolutely,"  Eponine   said.   "Or   even   the   superad-vanced
extraterrestrials who built the Rama  spacecraft and oversaw the  Node
where Ellie and her family stayed. Any power or force or being that is
a panacea for the  woes of the  world could be  Godot. That's why  the
play is universal."
    "Pedro," a  demanding voice  shouted from  the back  of the  small
auditorium, "are you almost finished?"
    "Just a minute, Mariko," the young man answered. "We're having  an
interesting discussion. Why don't you come join us?"
    The Japanese girl remained in the doorway. "No," she said  rudely.
"I don't want to-let's go now."
    Eponine dismissed the cast and  Pedro jumped down from the  stage.
Ellie came over beside her teacher as the young man hurried toward the
door.
    "Why does he let her act that way?" Ellie mused out loud.
    "Don't ask me,"  Eponine replied  with a shrug.  *Tm certainly  no
expert when it comes to relationships."
    That Kobayashi girl is trouble, Eponine thought, re-
    354 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    membering how Mariko  had treated both  Ellie and her  as if  they
were insects one night after rehearsal. Men are so stupid sometimes.
    "Eponine," Ellie asked, "do you have any objections if my  parents
come to the dress  rehearsal? Beckett is one  of my father's  favorite
playwrights and-"
    "That would be fine," Eponine  replied. "Your parents are  welcome
anytime. Besides, I want to thank them-"
    "Miss Eponine," a young male  voice shouted from across the  room.
It was Derek  Brewer, one of  Eponine's students who  had a  schoolboy
crush on her. Derek ran a few steps toward her and then shouted again.
"Have you heard the news?"
    Eponine shook her head. Derek  was obviously very excited.  "Judge
Mishkin has ruled the armbands unconstitutional!"
    It took a few  seconds for Eponine to  absorb the information.  By
then Derek was at  her side, delighted  to be the  one giving her  the
news. "Are ... are you certain?" Eponine asked.
    "We just heard it on the radio hi the office."
    Eponine reached for her arm and the hated red band. She glanced at
Derek and Ellie and  with one swift movement  pulled the band off  her
arm and tossed it into the air. As she watched it arc toward the floor
her eyes filled with tears.
    "Thank you, Derek," she said.
    Within  moments  Eponine  felt  four  young  arms  embracing  her.
"Congratulations," Ellie said softly.
    4
    Tl
    •he hamburger stand in Central  City was completely run by  biots.
Two Lincolns managed the busy  restaurant and four Garcias filled  the
customer orders. The food preparation was done by a pair of  Einsteins
and the entire eating area was  kept spotless by a single Tiasso.  The
stand generated an enormous profit  for its owner, because there  were
no costs except the initial building conversion and the raw materials.
    Ellie always ate there on Thursday nights, when she worked at  the
hospital as  a volunteer.  On the  day  of what  became known  as  the
Mishkin Proclamation, Ellie was joined  at the hamburger stand by  her
now bandless teacher Eponine.
    "I wonder why I've never seen  you at the hospital," Eponine  said
as she took a  bite of a  French fried potato. "What  do you do  there
anyway?"
    "Mostly I talk to  the sick children,"  Ellie replied. "There  are
four or five with serious illnesses,  one little boy even with  RV-41,
and they  appreciate visits  from humans.  The Tiasso  biots are  very
efficient at operating
    356 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    the hospital and performing all  the procedures, but they are  not
that sympathetic."
    "If you  don't mind  my asking,"  Eponine said  after chewing  and
swallowing a bite of her hamburger, "why do you do it? You are  youngf
beautiful, healthy. There must be a thousand things you'd rather do."
    "Not really," EHie answered. "My mother has a very strong sense of
community, as you  know, and  I feel worthwhile  after I  talk to  the
kids." She hesitated a moment. "Besides,  I'm socially awkward. . .  .
I'm physically nineteen or twenty, which is old for high school, but I
have  almost  no  social  experience."   EHie  blushed.  "One  of   my
girlfriends in  school told  me that  the boys  are convinced  I'm  an
extraterrestrial."
    Eponine smiled  at her  protegee.  Even being  an alien  would  be
better than having RV-41,  she thought. But the  young men are  really
missing something if they're passing you by.
    The two women finished their dinner and left the small restaurant.
They walked out  into the Central  City square. In  the middle of  the
square was a  monument, appropriately cylindrical  in shape, that  had
been dedicated in the ceremonies associated with the first  Settlement
Day  celebration.  The  monument  was  two  and  a  half  meters  tall
altogether. Suspended in the cylinder  at eye level was a  transparent
sphere with a diameter  of fifty centimeters. The  small light at  the
center of the sphere  represented the Sun, the  plane parallel to  the
ground was the ecliptic plane that  contained the Earth and the  other
planets of the solar system,  and the lights scattered throughout  the
sphere showed the correct relative positions of all the stars within a
twenty-light-year radius of the Sun.
    A line of  illumination connected the  Sun and Sirius,  indicating
the path that the  Wakefields had taken on  their odyssey to and  from
the Node. Another tiny  line of light extended  from the solar  system
along the trajectory that had been  followed by Rama III since it  had
acquired the  hutnan colonists  in Mars  orbit. The  host  spacecraft,
which was represented by a large, blinking red light, was currently in
a position about one third of the way between the Sun and the star Tau
Ceti.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    357
    "I understand the idea for this monument originally came from your
father," Eponine  said as  the two  women stood  beside the  celestial
sphere.
    "Yes," said  EHie.."Father  is  really  extremely  creative  where
science and electronics are concerned."
    Eponine stared at the blinking red  light. "Does it bother him  at
all that we are going in  a different direction, not toward Sirius  or
the Node at all?"
    Ellie shrugged. "I don't think so," she said. "We don't talk about
it very much. ... He told me one  time that none of us was capable  of
understanding what the extraterrestrials were doing anyway."
    Eponine glanced around her in the square. "Look at all the people,
hurrying here and there. Most of them never even stop to see where  we
are. ... I check our location at least once a week." She was  suddenly
very serious. "Ever  since I  was diagnosed with  RV-41 I  have had  a
compulsive need to know exactly  where I am in the  universe. . . .  I
wonder if that's part of my fear of dying."
    After a long silence Eponine put her arm on Ellie's shoulder. "Did
you ever ask the Eagle about death?" she said.
    "No," Ellie replied softly. "But I was only four years old when  I
left the Node. I certainly had no concept of death."
    "When I was  a child,  I thought like  a child,"  Eponine said  to
herself. She laughed. "What did you talk to the Eagle about?"
    "I don't recall exactly,"  Ellie said. "Patrick  told me that  the
Eagle especially liked to watch us play with our toys."
    "Really?" Eponine  said. "That's  a surprise.  From your  mother's
description I would have imagined (he Eagle was much too serious to be
interested in play."
    "1 can still see him clearly in my mind's eye," Ellie said,  "even
though I was so young. But I can't remember what he sounded like."
    "Have you ever  dreamed about  him?" Eponine asked  a few  seconds
later.
    "Oh, yes. Many times. Once he was standing on top of a huge  tree,
looking down at me from the clouds."
    358 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Eponine laughed again.  Then she quickly  checked her watch.  "Oh,
my," she said. "I'm late for my appointment. What time are you due  at
the hospital?"
    "Seven o'clock," Ellie said.
    "Then we'd better be on our way."
    When Eponine  reported to  Dr. Turner's  office for  her  biweekly
checkup, the Tiasso  in charge  took her to  the laboratory,  obtained
blood and urine specimens, and then asked her to take a seat. The biot
informed Eponine that the doctor was "running behind."
    A dark black  man with sharp  eyes and a  friendly smile was  also
sitting in the waiting room. "Hello," he said when their eyes met, "my
name is Amadou Diaba. I'm a pharmacist."
    Eponine introduced herself,  thinking that  she had  seen the  man
before.
    "Great day, huh?"  the man asked  after a brief  silence. "What  a
relief to take off that cursed armband."
    Eponine now remembered Amadou. She had  seen him once or twice  in
group meetings for the RV-41 sufferers. Someone had told Eponine  that
Amadou had contracted  the retrovirus through  a blood transfusion  in
the early days  of the colony.  How many of  us are there  altogether?
Eponine thought.  Ninety-three. Or  is it  ninety-four? Five  of  whom
caught the disease through a transfusion. . . .
    "It seems  that big  news  always happens  in pairs,"  Amadou  was
saying. "The Mishkin Proclamation was announced only hours before  the
leggie things were seen for the first time."
    Eponine looked at him quizzically.  "What are you talking  about?"
she asked.
    "You haven't heard about the  leggies yet?" Amadou said,  laughing
slightly. "Where in the world have you been?"
    Amadou waited a few seconds before launching into an  explanation.
"The exploration  team over  at  the other  habitat  has been  in  the
process of  widening their  penetration site  for the  last few  days.
Today they  were  suddenly confronted  by  six strange  creatures  who
crawled out of the hole that had been made in the wall. These leggies,
as the
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    359
    television reporter  called them,  apparently  live in  the  other
habitat. They  look  like hairy  golf  balls attached  to  six  giant,
jointed legs, and they move very, very quickly. . . . They crawled all
over the men,  the biots, and  the equipment for  about an hour.  Then
they disappeared back into the penetration site."
    Eponine was about to ask some questions about the leggies when Dr.
Turner came out of his office. "Mr. Diaba and Miss Eponine," he  said.
"I have a detailed report for each of you. Who wants to be first?"
    The doctor still had  the most magnificent  blue eyes. "Mr.  Diaba
was here before me," Eponine replied. "So-"
    "Ladies always go first," Amadou interrupted. "Even in New Eden."
    Eponine went into Dr.  Turner's inner office.  "So far, so  good,"
the doctor told  her when they  were alone. "You  definitely have  the
virus in  your  system,  but  there's no  sign  of  any  heart  muscle
deterioration.  I  don't  know  why  for  certain,  but  the   disease
definitely progresses more rapidly in some than others."
    How can  it be,  my  handsome doctor,  Eponine thought,  that  you
follow all my health data so  closely but never once have noticed  the
looks I've been giving you all this time?
    "We'll keep you on the regular immune system medication. It has no
serious side effects, and it may be partially responsible for our  not
seeing any evidence of the virus's  destructive activities. . . .  Are
you feeling all right otherwise?"
    They walked  back out  to the  waiting room  together. Dr.  Turner
reviewed for Eponine the  symptoms that would  indicate the virus  had
moved to another stage  in its development.  While they were  talking,
the door opened and Ellie Wakefield  came into the room. At first  Dr.
Turner ignored  her presence,  but  moments later  he did  an  obvious
double take.
    "May I help you, young lady?" he said to Ellie.
    "I've  come   to   ask   Eponine  a   question,"   Ellie   replied
deferentially. "If I'm disturbing you, I can wait outside."
    Dr. Turner shook his head and then was surprisingly
    360 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    disorganized in his final  comments to Eponine.  At first she  did
not understand what had  happened. But when  Eponine started to  leave
with Ellie,  she saw  the doctor  staring at  her student.  For  three
years, Eponine thought, / have yearned to see a look like that in  his
eyes. I didn't think he was capable of it. And Ellie, bless her heart,
missed it altogether.
    It had been a  long day. Eponine was  extremely tired by the  time
she walked from the station to her apartment in Hakone. The  emotional
release she had felt  after removing her armband  had passed. She  was
now a little depressed. Eponine was also fighting feelings of jealousy
toward Ellie Wakefield.
    She stopped in front of her apartment. The broad red stripe pn her
door reminded everyone  that an RV-41  carrier lived inside.  Thanking
Judge Mishkin again, Eponine carefully pulled off the stripe. It  left
an outline on the door. /'// paint it tomorrow, Eponine thought.
    Once in her  apartment, she  plopped down  in her  soft chair  and
reached for  a  cigarette.  Eponine felt  the  surge  of  anticipatory
pleasure as  she put  the cigarette  in her  mouth. /  never smoke  at
school in front of my students, she  rationalized. / do not set a  bad
example for them. I smoke only here. At home. When I'm lonely.
    Eponine hardly ever went out at night. The villagers in Hakone had
made it very clear to her that they didn't want her in their midst-two
separate delegations had asked her to leave the village and there  had
been several  nasty  notes on  her  apartment door.  But  Eponine  had
stubbornly refused to move. Since Kimberly Henderson was never  there,
Eponine had much more  living space than she  would have been able  to
afford under normal circumstances. She also knew that an RV-41 carrier
would not be welcomed in any neighborhood in the colony.
    Eponine had fallen asleep in her chair and was dreaming of  fields
of yellow flowers. She  almost didn't hear the  knock, even though  it
was very loud. She  glanced at her watch-it  was eleven o'clock.  When
Eponine opened the door, Kimberly Henderson entered the apartment.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    361
    "Oh, Ep," she said, "I'm  so glad you're here.  I need to talk  to
someone desperately. Someone I can trust."
    Kimberly lit a cigarette with a jerky motion and immediately burst
into a rambling monologue. "Yes,  yes, I know," Kimberly said,  seeing
the disapproval in Epo-nine's eyes. "You're  right, I'm stoned. . .  .
But I needed it.  ... Good old  kokomo. . .  . Artificial feelings  of
self-confidence are at  least better  than thinking of  yourself as  a
piece of shit."
    She took a  frantic drag and  exhaled the smoke  in short,  choppy
bursts. "The asshole  has really  done it  this time,  Ep .  . .  he's
pushed me over the brink. . . . Cocky son of a bitch-thinks he can  do
whatever he wants. ...  I tolerated his affairs  and even let some  of
the younger  girls  join  me  sometimes-the  threesomes  relieved  the
boredom . .  . but I  was always ichiban,  numero uno, or  at least  I
thought I was-"
    Kimberly stubbed out her cigarette  and began to wring her  hands.
She was close  to tears. "So  tonight he tells  me I'm moving.  . .  .
"What,' I say, 'What do you mean?' . . . 'You're moving,' he says. ...
No smile, no discussion. . .  . 'Pack your things,' he says,  'there's
an apartment for you over behind Xanadu.'
    " "That's where the whores live,' I answer. ... He smiles a little
and says nothing. . . . 'That's it, I'm dismissed,' I say. ... I  flew
into a rage. . . . 'You can't do this,' I said. ... I tried to hit him
but he grabbed my hand and smacked me hard on the face. . . .  'You'll
do as I order,' he says. ... 'I  will not, you motherfucker.' . . .  I
picked up a vase and threw .it. It smashed into a table and shattered.
In seconds two  men had  pinned my  arms behind me.  . .  . 'Take  her
away,' the king Jap said.
    "They took  me to  my new  apartment.  It was  very nice.  In  the
dressing room was a large box of rolled kokomo. ... I smoked an entire
number and was flying.  . . . Hey,  I said to myself,  this is not  so
bad. At  least  I don't  have  to  cater to  Toshio's  bizarre  sexual
desires. ... I went over to the casino and was having fun, higher than
a kite, until I saw them ... out in public in front of everybody else.
... I went wild-hollering,
    362 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    screaming, cursing-I even attacked her. .  . . Somebody hit me  in
the head. ... I was down on the casino floor with Toshio bending  over
me. ... 'If you ever do anything like that again,' he hissed,  'you'll
be buried beside Marcello Danni.' "
    Kimberly put her face in her  hands and started to sob. "Oh,  Ep,"
she said seconds later, "I feel  so helpless. I have nowhere to  turn.
What can I do?"
    Before Eponine could say anything, Kimberly was talking again.  "I
know, I know," she  said. "I could  go back to  work at the  hospital.
They still need nurses, real ones- by the way, where is your Lincoln?"
    Eponine smiled and pointed to the closet. "Good for you." Kimberly
laughed. "Keep  the robot  in the  dark. Bring  him out  to clean  the
bathroom, wash the dishes, cook the  meals. Then, whoosh, back in  the
closet. . .  ." She chuckled.  ''Their dicks don't  work, you know.  I
mean, they have one, or sort  of, anatomically perfect after all,  but
they don't get hard. One night when  I was stoned and alone I had  one
mount me but he didn't know what I meant when I said 'thrust.' ...  As
bad as some men I've known."
    Kimberly jumped up and paced around the room. "I'm not really sure
why I came," she  said, lighting another  cigarette. "I thought  maybe
you and I ... I mean,  we were friends for a  while. . . ." Her  voice
trailed off. "I'm coming  down now, starting  to feel depressed.  It's
awful, terrible. I can't stand it.  I don't know what I expected,  but
you have your own life. ... I'd better be going."
    Kimberly crossed  the room  and gave  Eponine a  perfunctory  hug.
"Take care, now, okay?" Kimberly said. "Don't worry about me, I'll  be
all right."
    It was only after the door  closed and Kimberly left that  Eponine
realized she had not uttered one  word while her ex-friend was in  the
room. Eponine was certain that she would never see Kimberly again.
    5
    It was an open meeting of i
    I the Senate and  anyone in the colony  could attend. The  gallery
had only three hundred seats and they were all filled. Another hundred
people were standing along the walls and sitting in the aisles. On the
main floor the twenty-four  members of the  New Eden legislative  body
were called to  attention by their  presiding officer, Governor  Kenji
Watanabe.
    "Our budget hearings  continue today," Kenji  said after  striking
the gavel several times to  quiet the onlookers, "with a  presentation
by the director of the New Eden Hospital,- Dr. Robert Turner. He  will
summarize what was accomplished with  the health budget last year  and
present his requests for the coming year.''
    Dr. Turner walked to the rostrum  and motioned to the two  Tiassos
who had been sitting beside him. The biots quickly set up a  projector
and a suspended cube screen for the visual material that would support
Dr. Turner's
    talk.
    "We have made great strides in  the last year," Dr. Turner  began,
"both in building a solid medical environ-
    364 ARTHUR
    CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    ment for the colony  and in understanding  our nemesis, the  RV-41
retrovirus that  continues to  plague our  populace. During  the  last
twelve months not only have we completely determined the life cycle of
this complex organism, but also we have developed screening tests that
allow us to  identify accurately  any and  all persons  who carry  the
disease.
    "Everyone in New Eden was  tested during a three-week period  that
ended seven  months ago.  Ninety-six individuals  in the  colony  were
identified as being infected with  the retrovirus at that time.  Since
the completion of the  testing, only one new  carrier has been  found.
There have been  three deaths from  RV-41 during the  interim, so  our
current infected population is ninety-four.
    "RV-41 is  a deadly  retrovirus that  attacks the  muscles of  the
heart, causing  them to  atrophy  irreversibly. Ultimately  the  human
carrier dies. There  is no  known cure.  We are  experimenting with  a
variety of techniques for remitting the progression of the disease and
have recently  had some  sporadic but  inconclusive success.  At  this
moment, until we score a significant breakthrough in our work, we must
reluctantly assume that  all individuals afflicted  by the  retrovirus
will eventually succumb to its virulence.
    "The chart I'm placing  on the projection  cube shows the  various
stages of the  disease. The retrovirus  is passed between  individuals
during a sharing of bodily  fluids involving any combination of  semen
and blood. There is  no indication that there  is any other method  of
transfer. I repeat," Dr. Turner said,  now shouting to be heard  above
the hubbub of the gallery, "we have verified passage only where  semen
or blood  is  involved. We  cannot  categorically declare  that  other
bodily fluids, such as sweat, mucus, tears, saliva, and urine,  cannot
be agents in  the transfer, but  our data thus  far strongly  suggests
that RV-41 cannot be passed in these fluids."
    The talking in the gallery  was now widespread. Governor  Watanabe
struck his  gavel  several times  to  quiet the  room.  Robert  Turner
cleared his throat and then continued. "This particular retrovirus  is
very clever, if I  can use that word,  and especially well adapted  to
its human host. As
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    365
    you can see from the diagram on the cube, it is relatively  benign
in its first two  stages, when it  essentially just re-sides,  without
harm, inside the  blood and semen  cells. It may  be that during  this
time it has already begun its  attack on the immune system. We  cannot
say for certain, because during  this stage all diagnostic data  shows
that the immune system is healthy.
    "We do not know  what triggers the decline  of the immune  system.
Some inexplicable process in  our complex bodies-and  here is an  area
where we need to  do more intensive  research-suddenly signals to  the
RV-41 virus that the immune system  is vulnerable and a mighty  attack
begins. The virus  density in the  blood and semen  suddenly rises  by
several orders of  magnitude: This  is when  the disease  is the  most
contagious, and also when the immune system is overwhelmed."
    Dr. Turner  paused.  He shuffled  the  papers from  which  he  was
reading before continuing. "It is curious that the immune system never
survives this attack. Somehow RV-41 knows  when it can win, and  never
multiplies until that particular  condition of vulnerability has  been
reached. Once the immune system is destroyed, the atrophy of the heart
muscles begins and a predictable death follows.
    "In  the  later  stages  of  the  disease,  the  RV-41  retrovirus
disappears completely from the  semen and the blood.  As you can  well
imagine, this  vanishing wreaks  havoc  with the  diagnostic  process.
Where does it go? Does it 'hide' in some way, become something else we
have not yet identified? Is it supervising the gradual destruction  of
the heart  muscles, or  is the  atrophy simply  a side  effect of  the
earlier attack on  the immune  system? All these  questions we  cannot
answer at the present time."
    The doctor stopped momentarily for a drink of water. "Part of  our
charter last year," he  then said, "was to  investigate the origin  of
this disease. There have been rumors that RV-41 was somehow indigenous
to  New  Eden,  perhaps  placed  here  as  some  kind  of   diabolical
extraterrestrial experiment. That kind  of talk is complete  nonsense.
We definitely  brought  this  retrovirus  here  from  the  Earth.  Two
passengers on the Santa Maria died  from RV-41 within three months  of
each other, the first during
    366 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    the cruise from Earth to Mars. We can be certain, although this is
hardly encouraging, that our friends and colleagues back on Earth  are
struggling with this devil as well.
    "As for the  origin of RV-41,  here I can  only speculate. If  the
medical data base  that we had  brought along fiom  Earth had been  an
order of magnitude larger,  then perhaps I would  be able to  identify
its origin without any guessing. . . . Nevertheless, I will point  out
that the genome of this RV-41 retrovirus is astonishingly similar to a
pathogen genetically engineered,  by humans,  as part  of the  vaccine
envelope testing performed  in the  early years  of the  twenty-second
century.
    "Let me explain in more  detail. After the successful  development
of preventive vaccines for the  AIDS retrovirus, which was a  horrible
scourge during the last two decades of the twentieth century,  medical
technology took  advantage of  biological  engineering to  expand  the
range of all the available vaccines. Specifically, the biologists  and
the doctors purposely engineered new and more deadly retroviruses  and
bacteria to prove  that a  given vaccine class  had a  broad range  of
successful application.  All  this work  was  done, of  course,  under
careful controls and at no risk to the populace.
    "When the  Great Chaos  occurred,  however, research  monies  were
severely cut and many of the medical laboratories had to be abandoned.
The dangerous pathogens stored in isolated spots around the world were
presumably  all  destroyed.  Unless  .  .  .  and  here  is  where  my
speculation enters into the explanation.
    "The retrovirus  that  is  afflicting  us  here  in  New  Eden  is
amazingly similar to the  AQT19 retrovirus engineered  in 2107 at  the
Laffont Medical Laboratory in Senegal.  It is possible, I will  admit,
that a naturally occurring agent could have a genome similar to AQT19,
and therefore my speculation could be wrong. However, it is my  belief
that all the AQT19 in that abandoned lab in Senegal was not destroyed.
I am convinced  that this particular  retrovirus somehow survived  and
mutated slightly in the subsequent century-perhaps by living in simian
hosts-and eventually found its way into human beings. In that case, we
are the ultimate creators of the disease that is killing us."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    367
    There was  an  uproar  in the  gallery.  Governor  Watanabe  again
gaveled the audience to quiet,  privately wishing that Dr. Turner  had
kept his conjectures to himself.  At this point the hospital  director
began his discussion of all the projects for which funding was  needed
in the coming year. Dr. Turner was requesting an appropriation  double
what his department  had had in  the past year.  There was an  audible
groan on the Senate floor.
    The several speakers who  immediately followed Robert Turner  were
really just  window  dressing.  Everyone  knew  that  the  only  other
important speech  of the  day would  be given  by lan  Macmillan,  the
opposition candidate for governor in the elections three months hence.
It was understood that both the current governor, Kenji Watanabe,  and
the  choice  of  his  political   party,  Dmitri  Ulanov,  favored   a
significant increase  in the  medical budget  even if  new taxes  were
required to  finance  it.  Macmillan was  reportedly  opposed  to  any
increase in Dr. Turner's funds.
    lan Macmillan had been soundly  defeated by Kenji Watanabe in  the
first general  election  held in  the  colony. Since  that  time,  Mr.
Macmillan had moved his  residence from Beauvois  to Hakone, had  been
elected to  the  Senate from  the  Vegas  district, and  had  taken  a
lucrative position in Toshio Nakamura's expanding business empire.  It
was the perfect marriage. Nakamura needed someone "acceptable" to  run
the colony for him,  and Macmillan, who was  an ambitious man  without
any clearly defined values or principles, wanted to be governor.
    "It is  too easy,"  lan Macmillan  began reading  his speech,  "to
listen to  Dr.  Turner  and  then  to  open  our  hearts  and  purses,
allocating funds for all his requests. That's what is wrong with these
budget hearings. Each department head can  make a strong case for  his
proposals. But by listening to each item separately, we lose sight  of
the larger picture. I do not mean to suggest that Dr. Turner's program
is anything  but worthy.  However, I  do think  that a  discussion  of
priorities is warranted at this time."
    Macmillan's speaking style had improved considerably since he  had
moved to Hakone. He had obviously been carefully coached. However,  he
was not a natural orator,
    368 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    so at  times his  practiced gestures  seemed almost  comical.  His
primary point  was that  the RV-41  carriers made  up less  than  five
percent of the population of New Eden and the cost of helping them was
incredibly expensive.
    "Why should the rest  of the citizens of  the colony be forced  to
suffer deprivation for the  benefit of such a  small group?" he  said.
"Besides," he added,  "there are  other, more  compelling issues  that
require added monies, issues  that touch each  and every colonist  and
will likely impact our very survival."
    When lan Macmillan presented  his version of  the story about  the
leggies that had  "rushed out"  of the  adjoining module  in Rama  and
"frightened" the colony exploration team, he made it sound as if their
"attack" had  been the  first  foray in  a planned  interspecies  war.
Macmillan raised the specter  of the leggies  being followed by  "more
fearsome creatures" that would  terrify the colonists, especially  the
women and children. "Money for defense," he said, "is money spent  for
all of us."
    Candidate Macmillan also suggested that environmental research was
another activity ' 'far more important for the general welfare of  the
colony" than the medical  program outlined by  Dr. Turner. He  praised
the work  being done  to  control the  environment, and  envisioned  a
future where  the  colonists  would have  complete  knowledge  of  the
cdm-ing weather.
    His speech  was  interrupted by  applause  from the  gallery  many
times. When  he did  finally discuss  the individuals  suffering  from
RV-41, Mr. Macmillan  outlined a  "more cost-effective"  plan to  deal
with "their  terrible tragedy."  "We  will create  a new  village  for
them," he intoned, "outside of New Eden, where they can live out their
final days in peace.
    "In my opinion," he said, "the RV-41 medical effort in the  future
should be restricted to isolating  and identifying all the  mechanisms
by which this scourge is  passed from individual to individual.  Until
this research is completed, it is in the best interests of everyone in
the colony, including the unfortunate people who carry the disease, to
quarantine the  carriers  so that  there  can be  no  more  accidental
contamination."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    369
    Nicole and her family were all  in the gallery. They had  badgered
Richard into  coming, even  though he  disliked political  gatherings.
Richard was disgusted by Macmillan's speech. For her part, Nicole  was
frightened. What the man was saying had a certain appeal. / wonder who
is writing his material, she thought at the conclusion of his  speech.
She chastised herself for having underestimated Nakamura.
    Toward the  end of  Macmillan's oration,  Ellie Wakefield  quietly
left her place  in the  gallery. Her  parents were  astonished, a  few
moments later, to  see her down  on the Senate  floor approaching  the
rostrum. So were  the other members  of the gallery,  who had  thought
that lan  Macmillan was  the last  speaker of  the day.  Everyone  was
preparing to depart. Most of them  sat down again when Kenji  Watanabe
introduced Ellie.
    "In our civics class in high school," she started, her nervousness
apparent in her voice, "we have been studying the colony  constitution
and the Senate procedures. It's  a little-known fact that any  citizen
of New Eden may address one of these open hearings. ..."
    Ellie took a deep breath  before continuing. In the gallery,  both
her mother and her teacher Eponine leaned forward and grabbed the rail
in front  of  them.  "I  wanted  to  speak  today,"  Ellie  said  more
forcefully, "because I believe I have  a unique point of view on  this
issue of the RV-41 sufferers. First,  I am young, and second, until  a
little over  three  years  ago  I  had  never  had  the  privilege  of
interacting with a human being other than my family.
    "For both those reasons I treasure human life. My word was  picked
carefully. A treasure is something  you value greatly. This man,  this
incredible doctor who works all day and sometimes all night to keep us
healthy, obviously treasures human life as well.
    "When he spoke earlier, Dr. Turner  didn't tell you why we  should
fund his program, only what  the disease was and  how he would try  to
combat h. He assumed  you all understood why.  After listening to  Mr.
Macmillan," Ellie said, glancing at the previous speaker, "I have some
doubts.
    "We must continue to study this horrible disease, until
    370 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    we can contain and control it, because a human life is a  precious
commodity. Each  individual person  is a  unique miracle,  an  amazing
combination of  complex chemicals  with special  talents, dreams,  and
experiences. Nothing can be more important to the overall colony  than
an activity aimed at the preservation of human life.
    "I understand from the discussion today that Dr. Turner's  program
is expensive. If taxes must be raised to pay for it, then perhaps each
of us will have to do without some special item that we wanted. It  is
a small  enough price  to  pay for  the  treasure of  another  human's
company.
    "My family  and friends  tell me  sometimes that  I am  hopelessly
naive. That may  be true. But  perhaps my innocence  allows me to  see
things more clearly  than other  people can.  In this  case I  believe
there is only one  question that needs  to be asked.  If you, or  some
member of  your  family, had  been  diagnosed with  RV-41,  would  you
support Dr. Turner's program? . . . Thank you very much."
    There was an eerie silence as Ellie stepped away from the rostrum.
Then thunderous applause  erupted. Tears flowed  in both Nicole's  and
Eponine's eyes. On the Senate floor Dr. Robert Turner reached both his
hands out to Ellie.
    6
    w:
    fhen Nicole opened her eyes Richard was sitting beside her on  the
bed. He was  holding a  cup of  coffee. "You told  us to  wake you  at
seven," he said.
    She sat up  and took the  coffee from him.  "Thank you,  darling,"
Nicole said. "But why didn't you let Line-"
    "I decided to bring your coffee myself.  . . . There is news  from
the Central Plain again. I wanted to discuss it with you, even  though
I know how you dislike being jabbered at first thing in the morning."
    Nicole took  a long,  slow sip  from her  cup. She  smiled at  her
husband. "What's the news?" she said.
    "There were  two  more leggie  incidents  last night.  That  makes
almost a  dozen this  week. Our  defense forces  reportedly  destroyed
three leggies who were 'harassing' the engineering crew."
    "Did the leggies make any attempts to fight back?"
    "No, they didn't. At the first sound of gunfire they raced for the
hole in the other habitat. . . . Most of them escaped, as they did the
day before yesterday."
    372 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "And you still  think they're  remote observers,  like the  spider
biots in Ramas I and II?"
    Richard nodded. "And you can just  imagine what kind of a  picture
the Others are developing of us. We fire.on unarmed creatures  without
provocation ... we react in a  hostile manner to what is certainly  an
attempt at contact. ..."
    "I don't like it either," Nicole said softly. "But what can we do?
The Senate  explicitly  authorized  the exploration  teams  to  defend
themselves."
    Richard was about to reply when  he noticed Benjy standing in  the
doorway. The young man was smiling  broadly. "May I come in,  Mother?"
he asked.
    "Of course, dear," Nicole replied. She opened her arms wide. "Come
give me a big birthday hug."
    "Happy birthday, Benjy," Richard said  as the boy, who was  larger
than most men, crawled onto the bed and embraced his mother.
    "Thank you, Uncle Richard."
    "Are we still  having a  picnic in Sherwood  Forest today?"  Benjy
asked slowly.
    "Yes, indeed," his mother answered. "And then tonight we're having
a big party."
    "Hooray," Benjy said.
    It was  a Saturday.  Patrick  and Ellie  were both  sleeping  late
because they did not have  classes. Line served breakfast to  Richard,
Nicole, and  Benjy  while  the  adults watched  the  morning  news  on
television. There  was  a  short  film  of  the  most  recent  "leggie
confrontation" near the second habitat  as well as comments from  both
of the gubernatorial candidates.
    "As I have been  saying for weeks now,"  lan MacmiUan remarked  to
the television  reporter, "we  must  dramatically expand  our  defense
preparations. We have finally started to upgrade the weapons available
to our forces, but we need to move more boldly in this arena."
    An interview with the weather director concluded the morning news.
The woman explained that  the unusually dry  and windy recent  weather
had been caused by  a "modeling error"  in their computer  simulation.
"All week long," she said, "we have been trying unsuccessfully to
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    373
    create rain.  Now, of  course,  since it's  the weekend,  we  have
programmed sunshine. . . . But we promise it will rain next week."
    "They don't have the slightest  idea what they're doing,"  Richard
grumbled, switching off  the television.  "They're overcommanding  the
system and generating chaos."
    "What's k-oss, Uncle Richard?" Benjy asked.
    Richard hesitated for a moment.  "I guess the simplest  definition
is the  absence of  order. But  in mathematics,  the word  has a  more
precise meaning. It is used  to describe unbounded responses to  small
perturbations." Richard laughed. "I'm  sorry, Benjy. Sometimes I  talk
in scientific gobbledygook."
    Benjy smiled. "I like it when you  talk to me as if I'm  nor-mal,"
he said carefully. "And some-times I do un-der-stand a lit-tle."
    Nicole seemed preoccupied  while Line was  clearing the  breakfast
dishes off the table. When Benjy left the room to brush his teeth, she
leaned toward her husband. "Have you talked to Katie?" she asked. "She
didn't answer her phone yesterday afternoon or last night." ,
    Richard shook his head.
    "Benjy will be crushed if she  doesn't show up for his party.  I'm
going to send Patrick off to find her this morning."
    Richard stood up from  his chair and walked  around the table.  He
reached down  and  took  Nicole's  hand. "And  what  about  you,  Mrs.
Wakefield? Have you  scheduled some  rest and  relaxation anywhere  in
your busy program? After all, it is the weekend."
    "I'm going by the hospital this morning to help train the two  new
paramedics. Then Ellie and I will leave here with Benjy at ten. On the
way back I'll stop by the courtroom-I haven't even read the  submitted
briefs for the cases on Monday. I  have a quick meeting with Kenji  at
two-thirty and my pathology lecture at three. ... I should be home  by
four-thirty."
    "Which will give you just enough time to organize Ben-jy's  party.
Really, darling, you need to slow down. After all, you're not a biot."
    374 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Nicole kissed her husband.  "You should talk.  Aren't you the  one
who works twenty or thirty straight  hours when you're involved in  an
exciting project?" She stopped a moment and became serious. "All  this
is very important, darling. ... I feel we're at a cusp in the  affairs
of the colony and that I really am making a difference here."
    "No question, Nicole. You are definitely having an impact. But you
never have any time for yourself."
    "That's a luxury item," Nicole said, opening the door to Patrick's
room. "To be savored in my later years."
    As they emerged from the trees  into the wide meadow, rabbits  and
squirrels scurried  out of  their way.  On the  opposite side  of  the
meadow, quietly  eating  in the  middle  of  a patch  of  tall  purple
flowers, was a young  stag. He turned his  head of new antlers  toward
Nicole, Ellie, and Benjy as they approached him, and then bounded away
into the forest.
    Nicole consulted her map. "There should be some picnic tables here
somewhere, right beside the meadow."
    Benjy was kneeling down over a  group of yellow flowers that  were
full of bees.  "Ho-ney," he said  with a smile.  "Bees make ho-ney  in
their hives."
    After several mintues  they located  the tables and  spread out  a
cloth on top of one of them. Line had packed sand: wiches-Benjy  liked
peanut butter and  jelly best-plus fresh  oranges and grapefruit  from
the orchards near San  Miguel. While they  were eating lunch,  another
family traipsed through the other side of the meadow. Benjy waved.
    "Those peo-ple don't know it's my birth-day," he said.
    "But we do," Ellie said, raising her cupful of lemonade to make  a
toast. "Congratulations, brother."
    Just before  they  were  finished eating,  a  small  cloud  passed
overhead and  the  bright colors  of  the meadow  momentarily  dimmed.
"That's an unusually dark cloud,"  Nicole commented to Ellie.  Moments
later it was  gone and the  grasses and flowers  were again bathed  in
sunlight.
    "Do you want  your pudding now?"  Nicole asked Benjy.  "Or do  you
want to wait?"
    "Let's play catch first," Benjy replied. He took the
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    375
    baseball equipment out  of the picnic  bag and handed  a glove  tp
Ellie. "Let's go," he said, running out into the meadow.
    While her two children were throwing the baseball back and  forth,
Nicole cleaned up the  remains of their lunch.  She was about to  join
Eilie and  Benjy when  she heard  the alarm  on her  wrist radio.  She
pressed the receive button and  the digital time display was  replaced
with a television  picture. Nicole turned  up the volume  so that  she
could hear what Kenji Watanabe had to say.
    "I'm sorry to  bother you, Nicole,"  Kenji said, "but  we have  an
emergency. A rape  complaint has been  filed and the  family wants  an
indictment immediately. It's a  sensitive case, in your  jurisdiction,
and I think it should be handled now. ... I don't want to say anything
else on the line."
    "I'll be there in half an hour," Nicole responded.
    At first Benjy was crestfallen that his picnic was going to be cut
short. However, Ellie convinced her mother  that it was all right  for
her to stay in the forest with Benjy for another couple of hours. Just
as she departed  from the meadow,  Nicole handed the  map of  Sherwood
Forest to Ellie. At that moment anotiier, larger cloud moved in  front
of the artificial New Eden sun.
    There was no sign  of any life at  Katie's apartment. Patrick  was
temporarily stymied.  Where  should  he  look for  her?  None  of  his
university friends lived in Vegas, so  he really didn't know where  to
start.
    He called Max Puckett  from a public phone.  Max gave Patrick  the
names, addresses, and phone  numbers of three  individuals he knew  in
Vegas. "None of these people is the kind you would want to invite home
to dinner with your parents, if you know what I mean," Max said with a
laugh, "but they are all good-hearted and will probably help you  find
your sister."
    The only  name  Patrick  recognized  was  Samantha  Porter,  whose
apartment was just  a few hundred  meters from the  phone booth.  Even
though it was the early afternoon, Samantha was still in her robe when
she finally answered the door. "I thought that was you, when I  looked
on the
    376 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    monitor," she said  with a  sexy smile.  "You're Patrick  O'Toole,
aren't you?"
    Patrick nodded and  then shifted his  feet uncomfortably during  a
long silence. "Miss Porter," he said at length, "I have a problem-"
    "You're much too young to have a problem," Sama> tha  interrupted.
She laughed heartily. "Why don't you come inside and we'll talk  about
it?"
    Patrick blushed. "No, ma'am,"  he said, "it's not  that kind of  a
problem. ... I just can't find my sister Katie and I thought maybe you
could help me."
    Samantha, who had half turned to lead Patrick into her  apartment,
turned back to stare at the young man. "That's why you've come to  see
me?" she  said.  She  shook  her  head  and  laughed  again.  "What  a
disappointment! I thought  that you had  come to fool  around. Then  I
could tell everybody, once and for all, whether or not you really  are
an alien."
    Patrick continued  to  fidget  in the  entry  way.  After  several
seconds Samantha shrugged. "I  believe that Katie  spends most of  her
time in the palace," she said. "Go  to the casino and ask for  Sherry.
She'll know how to find your sister."
    "Yes, yes, Mr. Kobayashi,  I understand. Wakari-mojM," Nicole  was
saying to the  Japanese gentlemajn  in her office.  "I can  appreciate
what you must be feeling. You can be sure that justice will be done."
    She escorted the man  into the waiting room,  where he joined  his
wife. Mrs. Kobayashi's eyes were  still swollen from her tears.  Their
sixteen-year-old  daughter  Mariko  was  in  the  New  Eden  Hospital,
undergoing a fuJI medical examination. She had been badly beaten,  but
was not in critical condition.
    Nicole called  Dr.  Turner  after  she  finished  talking  to  the
Kobayashis. "There's fresh  semen in  the girl's  vagina," the  doctor
said, "and  bruises on  almost every  square centimeter  of her  body.
She's an emotional wreck as well-rape is definitely a possibility."
    Nicole sighed.  Mariko Kobayashi  had  named Pedro  Martinez,  the
young man who had starred with Ellie in
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    377
    the school  play, as  the  rapist. Could  it be  possible?  Nicole
rolled her  chair across  the floor  of her  office and  accessed  the
colony data base through her computer.
    MARTINEZ, PEDRO ESCOBAR . . . born 26 May 2228, Managua, Nicaragua
. . . mother unwed, Maria Escobar, maid, domestic, often unemployed  .
. . father probably  Ramon Martinez, black  dockworker from Haiti  ...
six half brothers and sisters, all younger . . . convicted for selling
kokomo, 2241,  2242 .  .  . rape,  2243 .  .  . eight  months  Managua
Correction Home . . . model prisoner . . . transfer to Covenant  House
in Mexico City, 2244 ... IE 1.86, SC 52.
    Nicole read the  short computer entry  twice before calling  Pedro
into her office. He sat down, as Nicole suggested, and then stared  at
the floor. A Lincoln biot stood in the corner throughout the interview
and carefully recorded the conversation.
    "Pedro," Nicole said  softly. There  was no response.  He did  not
even look up. "Pedro Martinez," she repeated more forcefully, "do  you
understand that you have been accused of raping Mariko Kobayashi  last
night? I'm sure I  don't need to  explain to you that  this is a  very
serious accusation. . . . You are being given a chance now to  respond
to her charges."
    Pedro still did not say anything. "In New Eden," Nicole  continued
at length, "we have a judicial  system that may be different from  the
one you experienced in Nicaragua.  Here criminal cases cannot  proceed
to indictment unless a judge, after examining the facts, believes that
there is sufficient reason for indictment. That is why I am talking to
you."
    After a long  silence the young  man, without looking  up at  all,
mumbled something that was inaudible.
    "What?" Nicole asked.
    "She's lying," Pedro  said, much  louder. "I don't  know why,  but
Mariko's lying."
    "Would you like to tell me your version of what happened?"
    378 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "What difference  would it  make? Nobody  is going  to believe  me
anyway."
    "Pedro,  listen  to   me.  If,   on  the  basis   of  an   initial
investigation, my court concludes that there is insufficient reason to
proceed with the prosecution, your  case can be dismissed. Of  course,
the seriousness of this charge demands a very thorough  investigation,
which means you will have to make a complete statement and answer some
very tough questions."
    Pedro Martinez lifted his head and stared at Nicole with sorrowful
eyes. "Judge Wakefield," he said quietly,  "Mariko and I did have  sex
last night ... but it was her idea. She thought it would be fun to  go
into the forest-" The young man  stopped talking and looked back  down
at the floor.
    "Had you had intercourse with  Mariko before?" Nicole asked  after
several seconds.
    "Only once-about ten days ago," Pedro answered.
    "Pedro, was your  lovemaking last  night .  . .  was it  extremely
physical?"
    Tears eased out of Pedro's eyes and rolled onto his cheeks. "I did
not beat her," he said passionately. "I would never have hurt her."
    As he spoke there  was a strange sound  in the distance, like  the
cracking of a long whip, except much deeper in tone.
    "What was that?" Nicole wondered out loud.
    "Sounded like thunder," Pedro remarked.
    The thunder could also be heard  in the village of Ha-kone,  where
Patrick was sitting in a luxurious suite in Nakamura's palace, talking
to his  sister  Katie. She  was  dressed  in an  expensive  blue  silk
lounging outfit.
    Patrick ignored  the unexplained  noise. He  was angry.  "Are  you
telling me  that  you won't  even  try to  make  it to  Benjy's  party
tonight? What am I supposed to tell Mother?"
    "Tell her anything  you want,"  Katie said. She  took a  cigarette
from her case and placed it in her mouth. "Tell her you couldn't  find
me." She lit the cigarette with a
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    379
    gold lighter and  blew the  smoke in her  brother's direction.  He
tried to wave it away with his hand.
    "Come on, baby brother," Katie said  with a laugh. "It won't  kill
you."
    "Not immediately, anyway," he answered.
    "Look, Patrick,"  Katie said,  standing up  and starting  to  pace
around the suite, "Benjy's  an idiot, a moron.  We've never been  very
close. He won't even realize mat I'm not there unless someone mentions
it to him."
    "You're wrong, Katie.  He's more  intelligent than  you think.  He
asks about you all the time."
    "That's crap, baby brother," Katie replied. "You're just saying it
to make me feel guilty.  . . . Look, I'm  not coming. I mean, I  might
consider it if  it were just  you and Benjy  and Ellie-although  she's
been a pain in the ass ever since her 'wonderful' speech. But you know
what it's like for me around Mother. She's on my case all the time."
    "She's worried about you, Katie."
    Katie laughed  nervously  and  took  a deep  drag  to  finish  her
cigarette. "Sure she is,  Patrick. All she's  really worried about  is
whether I'll embarrass the family."
    Patrick stood up to leave. "You don't have to go now," Katie said.
"Why don't you stay for a while? I'll put on some clothes and we'll go
down to the casino. Remember how much fun we used to have together?"-
    Katie started toward the bedroom.  "Are you using drugs?"  Patrick
asked suddenly.
    She stopped and stared at her brother. "Who wants to know?"  Katie
said defiantly. "You or Madame Cosmonaut Doctor Governor Judge  Nicole
des Jardins Wakefield?"
    "I want to know," Patrick said quietly.
    Katie walked  across  the room  and  put her  hands  on  Patrick's
cheeks. "I'm your sister and I  love you," she said. "Nothing else  is
important."
    The dark clouds had all gathered  over the small rolling hills  of
Sherwood Forest. Wind was sweeping through the trees, blowing  Ellie's
hair behind  her.  There  was  a  bolt  of  lightning  and  an  almost
simultaneous crack of thunder.
    380 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Benjy recoiled and Ellie pulled  him close beside her.  "According
to the map," she said, "we're  only about one kilometer from the  edge
of the forest."
    "How far is that?" Benjy asked.
    "If we walk quickly," Ellie shouted  above the wind, "then we  can
make it out in about ten minutes." She grabbed Benjy's hand and pulled
him alongside her on the path.
    An instant later lightning split one of the trees beside them  and
a thick branch fell  across the path. The  branch struck Benjy on  the
back and knocked him down.  He fell mostly on  the path, but his  head
landed in the green  plants and ivy  at the base of  the trees in  the
forest. The noise from the thunder nearly deafened him.
    He lay  on  the  forest  floor  for  several  seconds,  trying  to
understand what had  happened to him.  At length he  struggled to  his
feet. "Ellie," he said, looking at the prostrate form of his sister on
the other side of the path. Her eyes were closed.
    "Ellie!" Benjy now screamed, half  walking, half crawling over  to
her side. He grabbed her by  the shoulders and shook her lightly.  Her
eyes did not open. The swelling on her forehead, above and to the side
of her right eye, was already the size of a large orange.
    "What am I go-ing  to do?" Benjy said  out loud. He smelted  smoke
and glanced up into the trees at  almost the same moment. He saw  fire
leaping from branch to branch, driven  by the wind. There was  another
bolt of lightning, more  thunder. In front of  him, down the trail  in
the direction that Ellie and he had been going, Benjy could see that a
larger fire was sweeping through the trees on both sides of the  path.
He started to panic.
    He held his  sister in  his arms and  slapped her  lightly on  the
face. "Ellie," he said,  "please, please wake up."  She did not  stir.
The fire around him was spreading rapidly. Soon this entire portion of
the forest would be an inferno.
    Benjy was terrified. He tried to  lift Ellie up, but stumbled  and
fell in the  process. "No,  no, no,"  he shouted,  standing again  and
bending to lift Ellie to his shoulders.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    381
    The smoke was  getting heavy.  Benjy moved slowly  down the  path,
away from the fire, with Ellie on his back.
    He was  exhausted when  he reached  the meadow.  He gently  placed
Ellie on one of the  concrete tables and sat  on a bench himself.  The
fire was raging out of control on  the north side of the meadow.  What
do I do  now? he  thought. His  eye fell on  the map  sticking out  of
Ellie's shirt pocket. That can help me. He grabbed the map and  looked
at it. At first he could not  understand any of it and he began  again
to panic.
    Relax, Benjy, he heard his mother  say in a soothing tone. It's  a
little hard, but you can do it. Maps are very important. They tell  us
where to go. . . . Now, the first thing always is to orient the map so
that you can read the writing. See. That's right. Most of the time the
up direction is called north. Good. This is a map of Sherwood  Forest.
. . .
    Benjy turned the map over in his hands until the letters were  all
right side up. The lightning and thunder continued. A sudden change in
the wind pushed smoke into his lungs and he coughed. He tried to  read
the words on the map.
    Again he heard his mother's voice. If you don't recognize the word
at first, then take each letter and sound it out very slowly. Next let
all the sounds fall together until it makes a word you understand.
    Benjy glanced at Ellie on the table. "Wake up, oh, please wake up,
Ellie," he said. "I need your help." Still she did not move.
    He bent  down over  the  map and  struggled to  concentrate.  With
painstaking deliberation Benjy sounded out  all the letters, over  and
over, until he had convinced himself  that the green patch on the  map
was the meadow where he was sitting. The white lines are the paths, he
said to himself. There  are three white lines  running into the  green
patch.
    Benjy looked up from the map, counted the three paths leading  out
of the meadow,  and felt  a surge of  self-confidence. Moments  later,
however, a gust of wind carried cinders across the meadow and  ignited
the trees on the
    382 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    southern side.  Benjy moved  quickly. /  must go,  he said,  again
lifting Ellie onto his back.
    He now knew that the main fire was in the northern portion of  the
map, toward the village of Hakone. Benjy stared again at the paper  in
his hands.  So I  must stay  on white  lines in  the bottom  part,  he
thought.
    The young man trundled down the  path as another tree exploded  in
fire far above  his head. His  sister was over  his shoulder, and  the
lifesaving map was in his right hand. Benjy stopped to look at the map
every ten steps, each time verifying  that he was still headed in  the
correct direction. When  he finally  came to a  major trail  junction,
Benjy placed Ellie gingerly on the  ground and traced the white  lines
on the map with his finger.  After a minute he smiled broadly,  picked
up his sister again, and headed down the trail leading to the  village
of Positano. Lightning flashed one more time, the thunder boomed,  and
a drenching shower began to fall on Sherwood Forest.
    7
    Five hours later Benjy was sleeping soundly in his
    room. Meanwhile,  in  the  center  of the  colony,  the  New  Eden
hospital was a madhouse. Humans and biots were dashing about,  gurneys
with bodies  were standing  in the  halls, patients  were shouting  in
agony. Nicole was talking on the  phone with Kenji Watanabe. "We  need
every Ti-asso in the colony sent  here as quickly as possible. Try  to
replace those that are doing geriatric  or infant care with a  Garcia,
or even  an  Einstein. Have  humans  staff the  village  clinics.  The
situation is very serious."
    She could barely hear what Kenji was saying above the noise in the
hospital. "Bad, really  bad," she  said in response  to his  question.
"Twenty-seven admitted so far,  four dead that we  know of. The  whole
Nara area-that  enclave  of Japanese-style  wood  houses that  is  out
behind Vegas,  surrounded  by  the  forest-is  a  disaster.  The  fire
happened too fast. The people panicked."
    "Dr. Wakefield,  Dr. Wakefield.  Please come  to room  two-oh-four
immediately." Nicole hung up  the phone and raced  down the hall.  She
bounded up the stairs to the
    384 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    second floor.  The man  dying in  room 204  was an  old friend,  a
Korean, Kim  Lee,  who  had  been Nicole's  liaison  with  the  Hakone
community during the time that she was provisional governor.
    Mr. Kim had been  one of the  first to build a  new home in  Nara.
During the  fire he  had rushed  into  his bumirg  house to  save  his
seven-year-old son. The son would live, for Mr. Kim had protected  him
carefully while he had walked through the flames. But Kim Lee  himself
had suffered third-degree bums over most of his body.
    Nicole passed Dr. Turner in the corridor. "I don't think we can do
anything for that friend of yours in room two-oh-four," he said.  "I'd
like your  opinion. Call  me down  in the  emergency room.  They  just
brought in another critical who was trapped in her house."
    Nicole took a deep breath and slowly opened the door to the  room.
Mr. Kirn's  wife,  a pretty  Korean  woman in  her  mid-thirties,  was
sitting quietly in  the comer.  Nicole walked over  and embraced  her.
While Nicole was comforting  Mrs. Kim, the  Tiasso who was  monitoring
all of  Mr.  Kirn's data  brought  over a  set  of charts.  The  man's
condition was  indeed  hopeless.  When  Nicole  glanced  up  from  her
reading, she was surprised to see her daughter Ellie, a large  bandage
on the right side of her  head, standing beside Mr. Kirn's bed.  Ellie
was holding the dying man's hand.
    "Nicole," Mr.  Kim said  in  an agonized  whisper  as soon  as  he
recognized her. His face was nothing but blackened skin. Even speaking
one word was painful. "I  want to die," the  man said, nodding at  his
wife in the corner.
    Mrs. Kim stood up and approached  Nicole. "My husband wants me  to
sign the euthanasia papers," she said. "But I am unwilling unless  you
can tell me that there  is absolutely no chance  he can ever be  happy
again." She started to cry but stopped herself.
    Nicole hesitated for a moment. "I cannot tell you that, Mrs. Kim,"
Nicole said grimly. She glanced back and forth between the burned  man
and his  wife. "What  I can  tell you  is that  he will  probably  die
sometime in the  next twenty-four  hours and  will suffer  ceaselessly
until his
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    385
    death. If  a medical  miracle  occurs and  he survives,  he'll  be
seriously disfigured and debilitated for the rest of his life."
    "I want to die now," Mr. Kim repeated with effort.
    Nicole sent the  Tiasso for the  euthanasia documents. The  papers
required signatures from the attending physician, the spouse, and  the
individual himself if, in the opinion of the doctor, he was  competent
to make his own decisions. While the Tiasso was gone, Nicole  motioned
to Ellie to meet her out in the hall.
    "What are you doing here?" Nicole said quietly to Ellie when  they
were out of earshot. "I told you to  stay at home and rest. You had  a
bad concussion."
    "I'm all right, Mother," Ellie  said. "Besides, when I heard  that
Mr. Kim was badly  burned, I wanted  to do something  to help. He  was
such a good friend back in the early days."
    "He's in terrible shape," Nicole said, shaking her head. "I  can't
believe he's still alive."
    Ellie reached out and touched her mother on the forearm. "He wants
his death to be useful,"  she said. "Mrs. Kim  talked to me about  it.
I've already  sent for  Amadou, but  I need  for you  to talk  to  Dr.
Turner."
    Nicole stared at her daughter. "What in the world are you  talking
about?"
    "Don't you remember Amadou  Diaba? Eponine's friend, the  Nigerian
pharmacist with the Senoufo grandmother. He's the one who caught RV-41
from a blood transfusion. . , . Anyway, Eponine told me that his heart
is rapidly deteriorating."
    Nicole was silent for several seconds. She could not believe  what
she was hearing. "You want me,"  she said finally, "to ask Dr.  Turner
to perform a manual heart transplant, right now, in the middle of this
crisis?"
    "If he decides now, it can be done later tonight, can't
    it? Mr. Kirn's heart can be kept healthy at least that long."
    . "Look, Ellie," Nicole said, "we don't even know-"
    "I already  checked,"  Ellie  interrupted.  "One  of  the  Tiassos
verified that Mr. Kim would be an acceptable donor."
    386 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Nicole shook her  head again.  "All right, all  right," she  said.
"I'll think about it. Meanwhile,  I want you to  lie down and rest.  A
concussion is not a trivial injury."
    "You're asking me to  do whatf" an  incredulous Dr. Robert  Turner
said to Nicole.
    "Now, Dr. Turner," Amadou said in his British acce.it, "it is  not
Dr. Wakefield who is really making the request. It is I. I beseech you
to perform this operation.  And please do not  consider it risky.  You
have yourself told  me that  I will not  live more  than three  months
longer. I know full well that I may die on the operating table. But if
I survive,  according  to the  statistics  you  showed me,  I  have  a
fifty-fifty chance of living eight more years. I could even marry  and
have a child."
    Dr. Turner spun  around and  glanced at  the clock  on his  office
wall. "Forget for a moment, Mr. Diaba, tiiat it is past midnight and I
have been working nine hours straight with burn victims. Consider what
you are  asking. I  have not  performed a  heart transplant  for  five
years. And I have never ever  done one without being supported by  the
finest cardiological staff and equipment on the planet Earth. All  the
surgical work, for example, was always done by robots."
    "I understand all that, Dr. Turner. But it is not really  germane.
I  will  certainly  die  without  the  operation.  There  will  almost
certainly not be another donor in the near future. Besides, Ellie told
me that  you have  recently been  reviewing all  the heart  transplant
procedures, as part of your work in preparing your budget request  for
new equipment-"
    Dr. Turner flashed a quizzical look  at Ellie. "My mother told  me
about your thorough preparation, Dr.  Turner. I hope you're not  upset
that I said something to Amadou."
    "I will be pleased to assist you in any way I can," Nicole  added.
"Although I have never done any  heart surgery myself, I did  complete
my residency at a cardiological institute."
    Dr. Turner looked around the room, first at Ellie, then
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    387
    at Amadou and Nicole. "Then that settles it, I guess. I don't  see
where you've given me much choice."
    "You'll do it?" Ellie exclaimed with youthful excitement.
    "I wi).I try," the doctor answered. He walked over to Amadou Diaba
and extended both his  hands. "You do know,  don't you, that there  is
very little chance you will ever wake up?"
    "Yes, sir, Dr. Turner. But very little chance is better than none.
... I thank you."
    Dr. Turner turned  to Nicole. "I'll  meet you in  my office for  a
procedure review in fifteen  minutes. And by  the way, Dr.  Wakefield,
will you please have a Tiasso bring us a fresh pot of coffee?"
    Preparing for the transplant operation brought back memories  that
Dr. Robert Turner  had buried  in the recesses  of his  mind. Once  or
twice he  even  imagined for  several  seconds that  he  had  actually
returned to the Dallas Medical Center. He remembered mostly how  happy
he had been in those distant days  on another world. He had loved  his
work; he had loved his family. His life had been almost perfect.
    Drs. Turner and Wakefield carefully wrote down the exact  sequence
of events  that they  would follow  before they  began the  procedure.
Then, during the  operation itself,  they stopped to  check with  each
other after  each  major segment  was  completed. No  untoward  events
occurred at any  time during  the procedure. When  Dr. Turner  removed
Amadou's old heart, he  turned it over so  that Nicole and Ellie  (she
had insisted on  staying in case  there was anything  she could do  to
help) could see  the badly atrophied  muscles. The man's  heart was  a
disaster. Amadou would probably have died in less than a month.
    An automatic pump kept the  patient's blood circulating while  the
new heart was  "hooked up" to  all the principal  arteries and  veins.
This was the most difficult and  dangerous phase of the operation.  In
Dr. Turner's experience, this segment  'had never ever been  performed
by human hands.
    388 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Dr. Turner's surgical  skills had  been finely tuned  by the  many
manual operations he had conducted during his three years in New Eden.
He surprised even himself  with the ease with  which he connected  the
new heart to Amadou's critical blood vessels.
    Toward the end ,of the procedure, when all of the dangerous phases
had been completed, Nicole offered to perform the few remaining tasks.
But Dr. Turner  shook his head.  Despite the fact  that it was  almost
dawn in the colony, he was determined to finish the operation himself.
    Was it the extreme fatigue that  caused Dr. Turner's eyes to  play
tricks on him during the final  minutes of the operation? Or could  it
perhaps have  been  the  surge  of  adrenaline  that  accompanied  his
realization that the  procedure was going  to be successful?  Whatever
the cause, during the terminal stages of the operation, Robert  Turner
periodically witnessed remarkable changes in the face of Amadou Diaba.
Several times his patient's face  slowly altered before his eyes,  the
features of Amadou becoming those of  Carl Tyson, the young black  man
that Dr.  Turner  had murdered  in  Dallas. Once,  after  finishing  a
stitch, Dr. Turner  glanced up at  Amadou and was  frightened by  Carl
Tyson's cocky grin. The doctor blinked,  and looked again, but it  was
only Amadou Diaba on the operating table.
    After this phenomenon had occurred several times, Dr. Turner asked
Nicole if  she  had  noticed anything  unusual  about  Amadou's  face.
"Nothing but his smile,"  she replied. "I've  never seen anyone  smile
like that under anesthesia."
    When the operation was over and  the Tiassos reported that all  of
the patient's  vital signs  were excellent,  Dr. Turner,  Nicole,  and
Ellie were exultant despite their  exhaustion. The doctor invited  the
two women to join him in his office, for one final celebratory cup  of
coffee. At that  moment, he didn't  yet realize that  he was going  to
propose to Ellie.
    Ellie was stunned. She  just stared at the  doctor. He glanced  at
Nicole and then returned his gaze to Ellie. "I know it's sudden,"  Dr.
Turner said. "But there's no doubt
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    389
    in my mind. I have seen enough.  I love you. I want to marry  you.
The sooner the better."
    The room  was absolutely  quiet for  almost a  minute. During  the
silence, the doctor walked over to  his office door and locked it.  He
even disconnected his phone. Ellie started to speak. "No," he said  to
her with passion, "don't  say anything yet.  There's something else  I
must do first."
    He sat down in his chair and took a deep breath. "Something mat  I
should have  done  long ago,"  he  said quietly.  "Besides,  you  both
deserve to know the whole truth about me."
    Tears welled up in Dr. Turner's eyes even before he began to  tell
the story.  His voice  broke the  first  time he  spoke, but  he  then
collected himself and eased into the narrative.
    "I was thirty-three years old  and blindly, outrageously happy.  I
was already one of the leading cardiac surgeons in America and I had a
beautiful, loving  wife with  two daughters,  aged three  and two.  We
lived in  a  mansion  with  a swimming  pool  inside  a  country  club
community about forty kilometers north of Dallas, Texas.
    "One night when I  came home from the  hospital-it was very  late,
for I had supervised an unusually delicate open heart procedure-I  was
stopped at the  gate of  our community  by the  security guards.  They
acted rattled, as if they  didn't know what to  do, but after a  phone
call and some peculiar glances in my direction, they waved me through.
    "Two police  cars and  an ambulance  were parked  in front  of  my
house. Three mobile television vans  were scattered in the  cul-de-sac
just beyond my  home. When  I started  to turn  in to  my driveway,  a
policeman stopped me.  With flashbulbs  popping all  around and  klieg
lights from the television cameras blinding my eyes, the policeman led
me into my house.
    "My wife was lying under a sheet on a cot in the main hall  beside
the stairway to the  second floor. Her throat  had been slit. I  heard
some people talking  upstairs and raced  up to see  my daughters.  The
girls were still lying
    390 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    where they had been killed-Christie  on the floor in the  bathroom
and Amanda in her bed. The bastard had cut their throats as well."
    Huge, desolate  sobs wrenched  out of  Dr. Turner.  "I will  never
forget that horrible sight. Amanda must have been killed in her sleep,
for there was  no mark on  her except for  the cut. ...  What kind  of
human being coultl kill such innocent creatures?"
    Dr. Turner's tears were cascading  down his cheeks. His chest  was
heaving uncontrollably. For  several seconds he  did not speak.  Ellie
quietly came over beside his chair  and sat on the floor, holding  his
hand.
    "The next five  months I  was totally numb.  I could  not work,  I
could not eat. People tried  to help me-friends, psychiatrists,  other
doctors-but I could not  function. I simply could  not accept that  my
wife and children had been murdered.
    "The police had a suspect in less  than a week. His name was  Carl
Tyson. He was a young black man, twenty-three years old, who delivered
groceries for a nearby supermarket. My wife always used the television
for her  shopping. Carl  Tyson  had been  to  our home  several  times
before-I even  remembered having  seen him  once or  twice  myself-and
certainly knew his way around the house.
    "Despite my  daze during  that period,  I was  aware of  what  was
happening in the investigation of Linda's murder. At first, everything
seemed so simple. Carl Tyson's fresh fingerprints were found all  over
the house. He had been inside  our community that very afternoon on  a
delivery. Most  of Linda's  jewelry was  missing, so  robbery was  the
obvious motive. I figured the suspect would be summarily convicted and
executed.
    "The issue quickly became  clouded. None of  the jewelry was  ever
found. The security guards had marked Carl Tyson's entry and departure
from the  community  on  the  master  log,  but  he  was  only  inside
Greenbriar for  twenty-two  minutes, hardly  enough  time for  him  to
deliver  groceries  and  commit  a  robbery  plus  three  murders.  In
addition, after a famous attorney  decided to defend Tyson and  helped
him prepare his sworn statements, Tyson insisted that Linda had  asked
him to move some furniture that
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    391
    afternoon. This was a perfect explanation for the presence of  his
fingerprints all over the house. . . ."
    Dr. Turner paused, reflecting, the pain obvious in his face. Ellie
squeezed his hand gently and he continued.
    "By the time of  the trial, Ijie  prosecution's argument was  that
Tyson had brought the groceries to the house in the afternoon and  had
discovered, after talking with Linda, that I would be in surgery until
much later  that night.  Since my  wife was  a friendly  and  trusting
woman, it  was not  unlikely  that she  might  have chatted  with  the
delivery boy and mentioned that I would not be home until late. . .  .
Anyway, according to the prosecutor, Tyson returned after he  finished
his shift at the supermarket. He climbed the rock wall that surrounded
the country club development and  walked across the golf course.  Then
he entered the house, intending to steal Linda's jewelry and expecting
everyone in the family to be asleep. Apparently my wife confronted him
and Tyson  panicked, killing  first  Linda and  dien the  children  to
ensure that there were no witnesses.
    "Despite  the  fact   that  nobody   saw  Tyson   return  to   our
neighborhood,  I  thought   the  prosecution's   case  was   extremely
persuasive and that the man would  be easily convicted. After all,  he
had no alibi whatsoever for the time period during which the crime was
committed. The mud that was found on Tyson's shoes exactly matched the
mud in the creek he would have  crossed to reach the back side of  the
house. He did not show up for work for two days after the murders.  In
addition, when Tyson was arrested, he  was carrying a large amount  of
cash that he 'said he won in a poker game.
    "During the defense portion of the  trial, I really began to  have
my doubts about the  American judicial system.  His attorney made  the
case a racial issue, depicting Carl Tyson as a poor, unfortunate black
man who was  being railroaded on  circumstantial evidence. His  lawyer
argued emphatically that all  Tyson had done on  that October day  was
deliver groceries to my house.  Someone else, his attorney said,  some
unknown maniac, had climbed the Greenbriar fence, stolen the  jewelry,
and then murdered Linda and the children.
    392 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "The last two  days of  the trial  I became  convinced, more  from
watching the body language of the jury than anything else, that  Tyson
was going to be acquitted.  I went insane with righteous  indignation.
There was no doubt  in my mind  that the young  man had committed  the
crime. The thought that he might be set free was intolerable.
    "Every day during the trial-which lasted about six weeks-I  showed
up at the courthouse with my small medical bag. At first the  security
guards checked  the  bag each  time  I  entered, but  after  a  while,
especially since most of them  were sympathetic with my anguish,  they
just let me pass.
    "The weekend  before the  trial concluded  I flew  to  California,
ostensibly to attend  a medical seminar  but actually to  buy a  black
market shotgun that would fit in my medical bag. As I expected, on the
day the verdict was being announced,  the guards did not make me  open
my. bag.
    "When the  acquittal was  announced, there  was an  uproar in  the
courtroom. All the black  people in the  gallery shouted hooray.  Carl
Tyson and his  attorney, a  Jewish guy named  Irving Bernstein,  threw
their arms  around  each  other. I  was  ready  to act.  I  opened  my
briefcase, quickly assembled the shotgun, jumped over the barrier, and
killed them both, one with each barrel."
    Or. Turner took a deep breath  and paused. "I have never  admitted
before, not  even to  myself,  that what  I  did was  wrong.  However,
sometime during this operation on  your friend Mr. Diaba I  understood
clearly how much  my emotional outrage  has poisoned my  soul for  all
these years. . . .  My violent act of revenge  did not return my  wife
and children to me.  Nor did it  make me happy,  except for that  sick
animal pleasure 1 felt at. the instant I knew that both Tyson and  his
attorney were going to die."
    There were  now  tears of  contrition  in Dr.  Turner's  eyes.  He
glanced over at Elh'e. "Although I may  not be worthy, I do love  you,
Eliie Wakefield, and very much want to marry you. I hope that you  can
forgive me for what I did years ago."
    Elite looked up at Dr. Turner and squeezed his hand again. "I know
very little  of  romance,"  she  said slowly,  '^for  I  have  had  no
experience with it. But I do know that
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    393
    what I feel when 1 think about  you is wonderful. I admire you,  I
respect you, I may even love you.  I would like to talk to my  parents
about this, of course ... but yes,  Dr. Robert Turner, if they do  not
object I would be very happy to marry you."
    8
    N
    icole leaned over the basin and stared at her face in the  mirror.
She ran her fingers  across the wrinkles under  her eyes and  smoothed
her gray bangs. You're almost an old woman, she said to herself.  Then
she smiled. "I grow old,  I grow old, I shall  wear the bottoms of  my
trousers rolled," she said out loud.
    Nicole laughed  and backed  up from  the mirror,  turning  herself
around so that she could see what  she looked like from the back.  The
kelly green dress  that she  planned to  wear in  Elite's wedding  fit
snugly against her body, which was  still trim and athletic after  all
the years. Not  too bad,  Nicole thought approvingly.  At least  Ellie
won't be embarrassed.
    On the  end table  beside  her bed  were  the two  photographs  of
Genevieve and her French  husband that Kenji  Watanabe had given  her.
After Nicole returned  to the bedroom,  she picked up  the photos  and
stared at them. 1 couldn't be at your wedding, Genevieve, she  thought
suddenly with a burst of sadness. / never even met your husband.
    Struggling with her emotions, Nicole crossed quickly
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    395
    over to the-other  side of the  bedroom. She stared  for almost  a
minute at a photograph of Simone and Michael O'Toole, taken the day of
their wedding at  the Node.  And I  left you  only a  week after  your
wedding. .  . .  You were  so very  young, Simone,  Nicole thought  to
herself, but in many ways you were far more mature than Ellie-
    She did not  let herself finish  the thought. There  was too  much
heartache in remembering either Simone or Genevieve. It was  healthier
to focus on the present. Nicole  purposely reached up and grabbed  the
individual picture of Ellie  that was hanging on  the wall beside  her
brothers and  sisters. So  you will  be my  third daughter  to  marry,
Nicole thought. It  seems impossible.  Sometimes life  moves much  too
fast.
    A montage of images  of Ellie flashed  through Nicole's mind.  She
saw again the  shy little baby  lying beside her  in Rama II,  Ellie's
awestruck little girl face as they approached the Node in the shuttle,
her new adolescent features at the  moment of awakening from the  long
sleep, and finally  Ellie's mature  determination and  courage as  she
spoke in front of the citizens of New Eden in defense of Dr.  Turner's
program. It was a powerful emotional journey into the past.
    Nicole replaced  Ellie's  picture  on  the  wall  and  started  to
undress. She had just hung  her dress in the  closet when she heard  a
strange sound, like someone crying, at the very limit of her  hearing.
What was that? she wondered. Nicole sat still for several minutes, but
didn't hear any other noises. When she stood up, however, she suddenly
had the eerie feeling that both Genevieve and Simone were in the  room
with her. Nicole glanced around her quickly, but she was still alone.
    What is going on with me?  she asked herself. Have I been  working
too hard? Has the  combination of the Marti-nez  case and the  wedding
pushed me over the brink? Or is this another of my psychic episodes?
    Nicole tried to calm herself  by breathing slowly and deeply.  She
was not, however, able to shake the feeling that Genevieve and  Simone
were indeed there in the room with her. Their presence beside her  was
so strong that Nicole had to restrain herself to keep from talking  to
them.
    396 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    She remembered  clearly  the discussions  that  she had  had  with
Simone prior to her marriage to Michael O'Toole. Maybe that's why they
are here, Nicole thought. They've come to remind me that I've been  so
busy with my work,  I haven't had my  wedding talk with Ellie.  Nicole
laughed out loud nervously, but the goose bumps remained on her arm.
    Forgive me, my darlings, Nicole said to both Ellk's photograph and
the spirits  of Genevieve  and  Simone in  the  room. /  promise  that
tomorrow-
    This time  the  shriek  was  unmistakable.  Nicole  froze  in  her
bedroom, the adrenaline  coursing through her  system. Within  seconds
she was  running across  the  house to  the  study where  Richard  was
working.
    "Richard," she said, just before  reaching the door to the  study,
"did you hear-"
    Nicole stopped  herself  in midsentence.  The  study was  a  mess.
Richard was  on the  floor, surrounded  by a  pair of  monitors and  a
jumbled pile of electronic equipment. The little robot Prince Hal  was
in one hand and Richard's  precious portable computer from the  Newton
mission was  in the  other. Three  biots-two Garcias  and a  partially
disassembled Einstein-were bending over him.
    "Why, hello, darling,"  Richard said nonchalantly.  "What are  you
doing here? I thought you'd be asleep by now."
    "Richard, I am certain that I heard an avian shriek. Only about  a
minute ago.  It was  close  by." Nicole  hesitated, trying  to  decide
whether or not to tell him about the visit from Genevieve and Simone.
    Richard's brow  furrowed. "I  didn't hear  anything," he  replied.
"Did any of  you?" he  asked the biots.  They all  shook their  heads,
including the Einstein,  whose chest  was wide open  and connected  by
four cables to the monitors on the floor.
    "I know I heard something," Nicole reiterated. She was silent  for
a moment. Is this another sign of terminal stress? she asked  herself.
Nicole now surveyed the chaos  on the floor in  front of her. "By  the
way, darling, what are you doing?"
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    397
    "This?" Richard said  with a vague  sweep of his  hand. "Oh,  it's
nothing special. Just another project of mine."
    "Richard Wakefield," she said quickly, "you are not telling me the
truth. This mess  all over the  floor could not  possibly be  'nothing
special'-I know you better than that. Now, what's so secret-"
    Richard had  changed  the displays  on  all three  of  his  active
monitors and was now shaking his head vigorously. "I don't like this,"
he mumbled. "Not at all."  He glanced up at  Nicole. "Have you by  any
chance accessed my recent  data files that are  stored in the  central
supercomputer? Even inadvertently?"
    "No, of course not. I don't even  know your entry code. . . .  But
that's not what I want to talk about-"
    "Somebody has."  Richard quickly  keyed in  a diagnostic  security
subroutine and studied one  of the monitors. "At  least five times  in
the last three weeks. You're certain that it wasn't you?"
    "Yes, Richard," Nicole said emphatically. "But you're still trying
to change the subject. I want you to tell me what this is all about."
    Richard set  Prince Hal  down on  the floor  in front  of him  and
looked up at Nicole.  "I'm not quite ready  to tell you, darling,"  he
said after a moment's hesitation. "Please give me a couple of days."
    Nicole was puzzled. At length, however, her face brightened.  "All
right, darling. If it's a wedding present for Ellie, then I'll  gladly
wait."
    Richard returned  to his  work. Nicole  plopped down  in the  only
chair in the room that was not cluttered. As she watched her  husband,
she realized how tired she was. She convinced herself that her fatigue
must have caused her to imagine the shriek. And the visits from Simone
and Genevieve.
    "Darling," Nicole said softly a minute or two later.
    "Yes," he answered, glancing up at her from the floor.
    "Do you ever  wonder what's really  going on here  in New Eden?  I
mean, why have we been left so utterly alone by the creators of  Rama?
Most of the colonists go about their lives with hardly a thought about
the fact that
    398 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    they're traveling  in  an interstellar  spaceship  constructed  by
extraterrestrials. How can this be possible? Why doesn't the Eagle  or
some other  equally marvelous  manifestation of  their superior  alien
technology suddenly appear? Then maybe our petty problems-"
    Nicole stopped when  Richard started laughing.  "What is it?"  she
said.
    "This reminds me of  a conversation that I  had once with  Michael
O'Toole. He was  frustrated because I  would not accept  on faith  the
eyewitness reports of the  apostles. He then told  me that God  should
have known that we were a species of doubting Thomases and should have
scheduled frequent return visits from the resurrected Christ."
    "But that situation was entirely different," Nicole argued.
    "Was it?"  Richard replied.  "What the  early Christians  reported
about Jesus  could  not  have  been any  harder  to  accept  than  our
description of  the  Node  and  our  long,  time-dilating  journey  at
relativistic velocities. . . . It's far more comforting for the  other
colonists to believe that this spaceship was created as an  experiment
by the ISA. Very  few of them understand  science well enough to  know
that Rama is way beyond our technological capability."
    Nicole was silent for a moment. "Then is mere nothing we can do to
convince them-"
    She was interrupted by the triple buzz that indicated an  incoming
phone call was urgent. Nicole stumbled across the floor to answer  it.
Max Puckett's concerned face appeared on the monitor.
    "We  have  a  dangerous  situation  here  outside  the   detention
compound," he said.  "There's an  angry mob, maybe  seventy or  eighty
people, mostly  from Hakone.  They want  access to  Martinez.  They've
already terminated two Garcia biots  and attacked three others.  Judge
Mishkin is trying to  reason with them, but  they're in a nasty  mood.
Apparently Mariko Kobayashi committed suicide about two hours ago. Her
whole family is here, including her father."
    Nicole was dressed in a sweat suit in less than a minute.  Richard
tried vainly to argue with her. "It was my deci-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    399
    sion," she said as  she climbed on her  bicycle. "I should be  the
one to deal with the consequences."
    She eased down the lane to the main bicycle path and then began to
pedal furiously.  At top  speed  she would  be at  the  administrative
center in four or five minutes, less than half the time it would  take
her by train at this time  of night. Kenji was wrong, Nicole  thought.
We should have had a press conference this morning. Then I could  have
explained the decision.
    Almost a hundred  colonists were  gathered in the  main square  of
Central City.  They were  milling  around in  front  of the  New  Eden
detention complex  where Pedro  Martinez had  been held  since he  was
first indicted for  the rape  of Mariko Kobayashi.  Judge Mishkin  was
standing at the top of the steps in front of the detention center.  He
was speaking to  the angry  crowd through a  megaphone. Twenty  biots,
mostly Garcias but with a couple of Lincolns and Tiassos in the group,
had locked arms in front of Judge Mishkin and were preventing the  mob
from climbing the stairs to reach the judge.
    "Now, folks,"  the  gray-haired  Russian  was  saying,  "if  Pedro
Martinez is  indeed  guilty,  then  he  will  be  convicted.  But  our
constitution guarantees him a fair trial-"
    "Shut up, old man," someone shouted from the audience.
    "We want Martinez," another voice said.
    Off to the left, in front of the theater, six young Orientals were
finishing a makeshift scaffold.  There was a cheer  from the crowd  as
one of them tied a thick rope with a noose over the crossbar. A  burly
Japanese man in his early twenties  pushed to the front of the  crowd.
"Move out of the  way, old man," he  said. "And take these  mechanical
dolts with you. Our  quarrel is not  with you. We  are here to  secure
justice for the Kobayashi family."
    "Remember Mariko," a  young woman  shouted. There  was a  crashing
sound as a red-haired boy struck one  of the Garcias in the face  with
an aluminum baseball bat. The Garcia, its eyes destroyed and its  face
disfigured beyond recognition, made  no response but  did not give  up
its place in the cordon.
    "The biots  will not  fight  back," Judge  Mishkin said  into  the
megaphone. "They are programmed to be paci-
    400 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    fists. But destroying  them serves  no purpose.  It is  senseless,
inane violence."
    Two runners coming from Hakone arrived in the square and there was
a momentary  change in  the focus  of the  crowd. Less  than a  minute
later, the unruly mob cheered the appearance of two huge logs, carried
by a  dozen  youths each.  "Now  we will  remove  the biots  that  are
protecting that murderer Martinez," the young Japanese spokesman said.
"This is your last chance, old man. Move out of the way before you are
hurt."
    Many individuals in  me crowd ran  over to take  positions on  the
logs they intended  to use as  battering rams. At  that moment  Nicole
Wakefield arrived in the square on her bicycle.
    She jumped down quickly, walked  through the cordon, and raced  up
the steps to stand beside Judge Mishkin. "Hiro Kobayashi," she shouted
into the megaphone before the crowd  had recognized her. "I have  come
to explain to you why there will be no jury trial for Pedro  Martinez.
Will you come forward so that I can see you?"
    The elder Kobayashi, who had been standing off to the side of  the
square, walked slowly  over to  the bottom of  the steps  in front  of
Nicole.
    "Kobayashi-san," Nicole said  in Japanese,  "I was  very sorry  to
hear about the death of your daughter-"
    "Hypocrite," someone shouted  in English, and  the crowd began  to
buzz.
    "... As a  parent myself,"  Nicole continued in  Japanese, "I  can
imagine how terrible it must be to experience the death of a child.
    "Now," she said,  switching to English  and addressing the  crowd,
"Jet me  explain  my  decision today  to  all  of you.  Our  New  Eden
constitution says that each citizen shall have a 'fan- trial.' In  all
other  cases  since  this  colony  was  originally  settled,  criminal
indictments have led to a trial by jury. In the case of Mr.  Martinez,
however, because of all the publicity, I am convinced that no unbiased
jury can be found."
    A chorus of  whistles and  boos briefly  interrupted Nicole.  "Our
constitution does not define," she continued, "what should be done  to
ensure a 'fair trial' if no jury of
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    401
    peers is to be involved. However, our judges, have supposedly been
selected to implement the law and  are trained to decide cases on  the
basis of  the evidence.  That  is why  I  have assigned  the  Martinez
indictment to the jurisdiction  of the New  Eden Special Court.  There
all the evidence- some of which has never heretofore been made public-
will be carefully weighed."
    "But we all  know the boy  Martinez is guilty,"  a distraught  Mr.
Kobayashi cried in response. "He has even admitted he had sex with  my
daughter. And  we also  know he  raped a  girl in  Nicaragua, back  on
Earth. . . .  Why are you  protecting him? What  about justice for  my
family?"
    "Because the law-" Nicole started  to answer, but was drowned  out
by the crowd.
    "We want Martinez.  We want  Martinez." The chant  swelled as  the
huge logs, which  had been laid  on the pavement  soon after  Nicole's
appearance, were again hoisted by the people in the square. As the mob
struggled to set  up a battering  ram, one of  the logs  inadvertently
crashed into the monument marking the celestial location of Rama.  The
sphere shattered and  electronic parts that  had indicated the  nearby
stars tumbled out onto the pavement. The small blinking light that had
been Rama itself broke into hundreds of pieces.
    "Citizens of New Eden," Nicole  shouted into the megaphone,  "hear
me out. There is something about this  case that none of you know.  If
you will just listen-"
    "Kill the nigger bitch," shouted the red-haired boy who had struck
the Garcia biot with the baseball bat.
    Nicole glared at the  young man with fire  in her eyes. "What  did
you say?" she thundered.
    The chanting suddenly  ceased. The  boy was  isolated. He  glanced
around nervously and grinned. "Kill the nigger bitch," he repeated.
    Nicole was down the steps in an instant. The crowd moved aside  as
she headed straight for  the red-haired boy. "Say  it one more  time,"
she said, her nostrils  flaring, when she was  less than a meter  away
from her antagonist.
    "Kill-" he started.
    She slapped his cheek hard with her open hand. The smack resounded
through the square. Nicole turned around
    402 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    abruptly and started toward the steps, but hands grabbed her  from
all sides. The shocked boy doubled up his fist-
    At that moment two loud booms shook the square. As everyone  tried
to ascertain what was happening, two more blasts were detonated in the
sky over the heads of the crowd. "That's just me and my shotgun,"  Max
Puckett said into the megaphone. "Now, if you folks will just let  the
lady judge pass  . . .  there, that's better  . . .  and then head  on
home, we'll all be better off."
    Nicole broke free from  the hands that were  holding her, but  the
crowd did not disperse. Max raised the gun, aimed it at the thick knot
of rope above the  noose on the makeshift  scaffold, and fired  again.
The rope exploded into pieces, parts of it falling into the crowd.
    "Now, folks," Max  said. "I'm  a lot  more ornery  than these  two
judges. And I already know I'm going  to spend some time in this  here
detention center for violating the colony's gun laws. I'd sure as hell
hate to have to shoot some of you as well."
    Max pointed his gun at  the crowd. Everyone instinctively  ducked.
Max fired blanks over their heads  and laughed heartily as the  people
began to scurry out of the square.
    Nicole could not sleep. Over and over again she replayed the  same
scene. She kept seeing herself walking into the crowd and slapping the
red-haired boy. 'Which makes me no better than he is, she thought.
    "You're still awake, aren't you?" Richard said.
    "Umm-hm."
    "Are you all right?"
    There was a  short silence. "No,  Richard," Nicole answered.  "I'm
not. . . . I'm extremely upset with myself for striking that boy."
    "Hey, come on," he  said. "Stop beating  yourself up. He  deserved
it. He  insulted  you  in  the  worst  way.  People  like  that  don't
understand anything but force."
    Richard reached over and began rubbing Nicole's back. "My God," he
said, "I've never seen you so tense.  You're in knots from one end  to
the other."
    "I'm worried," Nicole said. "I have a terrible feeling
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    403
    that the whole fabric  of our life  here in New  Eden is about  to
come unraveled. . . . And that  everything I have done or am doing  is
absolutely useless."
    "You have done your best, darling. I must confess that Tarn amazed
by how hard ycu  have tried." Richard continued  to rub Nicole's  back
very gently. "But you must remember you're dealing with human  beings.
You can transport them to another world and give them a paradise,  but
they still  pome  equipped  with  their  fears  and  insecurities  and
cultural predilections. A new  world could only really  be new if  all
the humans involved began with totally empty minds, like new computers
with no  software and  no operating  systems, just  loads of  untapped
potential."
    Nicole managed a smile. "You're not very optimistic, darling."
    "Why should I be? Nothing I have seen here in New Eden or on Earth
suggests to me that  humanity is capable of  achieving harmony in  its
relationship with itself, much less  with any other living  creatures.
Occasionally there is an individual, or even a group, that is able  to
transcend  the  basic  genetic  and  environmental  drawbacks  of  the
species. . . . But these people are miracles, certainly not the norm."
    "I don't agree with  you," Nicole said softly.  "Your view is  too
hopeless. I believe that most people desperately want to achieve  that
harmony. We just  don't know how  to do  it. That's why  we need  more
education. And more good examples."
    "Even that red-haired boy? Do you believe he could be educated out
of his intolerance?"
    "I have to think so, darling," Nicole said. "Otherwise ... I  fear
I would simply give up."
    Richard made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh.
    "What is it?" Nicole asked.
    "I was just  wondering," Richard said,  "if Sisyphus ever  deluded
himself into believing that maybe the next time the boulder would  not
roll down the hill again."
    Nicole smiled.  "He  had to  believe  there was  some  chance  the
boulder would stay  at the  summit, or he  could not  have labored  so
hard. ... At least that's what I think."
    9
    A;
    Is Kenji  Watanabe descended  from  the train  at Hakone,  it  was
impossible for him not to recall another meeting with Toshio Nakamura,
years before,  on  a  planet  billions  of  kilometers  away.  He  had
telephoned me that time  too, Kenji thought. He  had insisted that  we
talk about Keiko.
    Kenji stopped in front of a shop window and straightened his  tie.
In the  distorted reflection  he could  easily imagine  himself aS  an
idealistic Kyoto teenager on  his way to a  meeting with a rival.  But
that was long  ago, Kenji thought  to himself, with  nothing at  stake
except our egos. Now the entire fate of our little world . . .
    His wife Nai had not wanted him to meet with Nakamura at all.  She
had encouraged Kenji to call  Nicole for another opinion. Nicole  also
had been  opposed  to any  meeting  between the  governor  and  Toshio
Nakamura. "He's  a dishonest,  power-crazy megalomaniac,"  Nicole  had
said. "Nothing good can come from  the meeting. He just wants to  find
your weaknesses."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    405
    "But he has said that he can reduce tension in the colony."
    "At what price,  Kenji? Watch out  for the terms.  That man  never
offers to do something for nothing."
    So why did you come? a voice  inside Kenji's head asked him as  he
stared at the huge palace his boyhood associate had built for himself.
I'm not  certain  exactly, another  voice  answered. Maybe  honor.  Or
self-respect. Something deep in my heritage.
    Nakamura's palace and the surrounding homes were built of wood  in
the classic Kyoto style. Blue tile roofs, carefully manicured gardens,
sheltering trees, immaculately  clean walkways-even the  smell of  the
flowers reminded Kenji of his home city on a faraway planet.
    He was met  at the  door by  a lovely  young girl  in sandals  and
kimono, who  bowed and  said,  "Ohairi kudasai,"  in the  very  formal
Japanese way. Kenji  left his  shoes on the  rack and  put on  sandals
himself. The girl's eyes  were always on the  floor as she guided  him
through the few Western rooms of  the palace into the tatami mat  area
where, it was  said, Nakamura spent  most of his  free time  gamboling
with his concubines.
    After a  short walk  the girl  stopped and  pulled aside  a  paper
screen decorated with cranes in flight. ' 'Dozo,'' she said, gesturing
inside. Kenji walked into the six-mat room and sat cross-legged on one
of the two cushions in front of  a shiny black lacquer table. He  will
be late, Kenji thought. That's all part of the strategy.
    A different young girl, also pretty, self-effacing, and dressed in
a lovely pastel kimono, came noiselessly into the room carrying  water
and Japanese tea. Kenji  sipped the tea slowly  while his eyes  roamed
around the room. In one corner  was a wooden screen with four  panels.
Kenji could  tell  from his  distance  of a  few  meters that  it  was
exquisitely carved. He rose from nis cushion to take a closer look.
    The side facing toward him featured the beauty of Japan, one panel
for each of the four seasons.  The winter picture showed a ski  resort
in the Japanese  Alps smothered in  meters of snow;  the spring  panel
depicted the cherry
    406 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    trees in  blossom along  the Kama  River in  Kyoto. Summer  was  a
pristine clear day  with Mount Fuji's  snowcapped summit rising  above
the verdant countryside. The autumn panel presented a riot of color in
the trees  surrounding the  Tokugawa family  shrine and  mausoleum  at
Nikko.
    All this amazing  beauty, Kenji thought,  suddenly feeling  deeply
homesick. He has tried to recreate the world we have left behind.  But
why? Why does he spend his sordid money on such magnificent art? He is
a strange, inconsistent man.
    The four panels  on the  backside of  the screen  told of  another
Japan. The rich colors  displayed the battle of  Osaka Castle, in  the
early seventeenth century, after  which leyasu Tokugawa was  virtually
unopposed as  shogun  of Japan.  The  screen was  covered  with  human
figures-samurai warriors in  battle, male  and female  members of  the
court scattered throughout the castle grounds, even the Lord  Tokugawa
himself, larger than the rest  and looking supremely content with  his
victory. Kenji noticed with amusement that the carved shogun bore more
than a passing resemblance to Nakamura.
    Kenji was about to  sit back down on  the cushion when the  screen
opened and his  adversary entered. "Omachido  sama deshita,"  Nakamura
said, bowing slightly in his direction.
    Kenji bowed back, somewhat awkwardly because he could not take his
eyes off his  countryman. Toshio'.Nakamura was  dressed in a  complete
samurai outfit, including the  sword and dagger! This  is all part  of
some psychological ploy, Kenji told himself. It is designed to confuse
or scare me.
    "Ano, hajememashoka," Nakamura said,  sitting down on the  cushion
opposite Kenji. "Kocha ga, oishii desu, ne?"
    "Totemo oishii desu," Kenji replied,  taking another sip. The  tea
was indeed excellent. But he is  not my shogun, Kenji thought. /  must
change this atmosphere before any serious discussion starts.
    "Nakamura-san, we are  both busy men,"  Governor Watanabe said  in
English. "It is important to me that we dispense with the  formalities
and cut straight to the heart
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    407
    of the  matter. Your  representative  told me  on the  phone  this
morning that  you  are  'disturbed'  about  the  events  of  the  last
twenty-four hours and  have some 'positive  suggestions* for  reducing
the current tension in New  Eden. This is why I  have come to talk  to
you."
    Nakamura's face showed nothing; however, the slight hiss as he was
speaking indicated his displeasure with Kenji's directness. "You  have
forgotten  your  Japanese  manners,  Watanabe-san.  It  is  grievously
impolite to start a business  discussion before you have  complimented
your host on the surroundings and inquired about his well-being.  Such
impropriety almost always leads to unpleasant disagreement, which  can
be avoided-"
    "I'm sorry," Kenji interrupted with a trace of impatience, "but  I
don't need a lesson from you,  of all people, on manners. Besides,  we
are not in Japan, we are not  even on Earth, and our ancient  Japanese
customs are about as germane now as the outfit you are wearing-"
    Kenji had not intended to insult  Nakamura, but he could not  have
had a better  strategy for causing  his adversary to  reveal his  true
intentions. The tycoon  rose to his  feet abruptly. For  a moment  the
governor thought Nakamura was going to draw his samurai sword.
    "AH right," said Nakamura, his  eyes implacably hostile, "we  will
do this your way. . . . Watanabe, you have lost control of the colony.
The citizens are very unhappy with your leadership and my people  tell
me there is  widespread talk of  impeachment and/or insurrection.  You
have botched the environmental  and RV-41 issues,  and now your  black
woman judge, after  innumerable delays,  has announced  that a  nigger
rapist will  not be  subject to  a trial  by jury.  Some of  the  more
thoughtful of the  colonists, knowing  that you  and I  have a  common
background, have asked me to intercede, to try to convince you to step
aside before there is widespread bloodshed and chaos."
    This is incredible, Kenji thought as he listened to Nakamura.  The
man is absolutely out of his  mind. The governor resolved to say  very
little in the conversation.
    "So you believe I should  resign?" Kenji asked after a  protracted
silence.
    "Yes," answered Nakamura, his tone growing more
    408 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    imperious. "But  not immediately.  Not until  tomorrow. Today  you
should exercise your  executive privilege to  change the  jurisdiction
for the Martinez case away from  Nicole des Jardins Wakefield. She  is
obviously prejudiced. Judges lannella or Rodriguez, either one,  would
be more appropriate. Notice," he said, forcing a smile, "that I am not
suggesting the case be transferred to Judge Nishi-mura's court."
    "Is there anything else?" Kenji asked.
    "Only one more thing. Tell  Ulanov to withdraw from the  election.
He doesn't  have  any  chance  to win  and  continuing  this  divisive
campaign will only  make it  more difficult  for us  to pull  together
after the Macmillan victory. We need to be united. I foresee a serious
threat to the colony from  whatever enemy inhabits the other  habitat.
The leggies, that you  seem to believe  are 'harmless observers,'  are
just their advance scouts. . . ."
    Kenji was  astonished by  what he  was hearing.  How had  Nakamura
become so warped? Or had he always been this way?
    "... I must  stress that  time is  of the  essence," Nakamura  was
saying, "especially  with  respect  to the  Martinez  issue  and  your
resignation. I have asked Kobayashi-san  and the other members of  the
Asian community not to act too  hastily, but after last night I'm  not
certain I can restrain  them. His daughter  was a beautiful,  talented
young woman. Her suicide note makes  it clear that she could not  live
with the shame  implied by the  continual delays in  the trial of  her
rapist. There is genuine anger throughout-"
    Governor Watanabe  temporarily  forgot his  resolution  to  remain
quiet. "Are you aware,"  he said, also standing  up, "that semen  from
two different  individuals was  found in  Mariko Kobayashi  after  the
night during which she was allegedly  raped? And that both Mariko  and
Pedro Martinez repeatedly insisted that  they were alone together  the
entire evening? Even when Nicole hinted to Mariko last week that there
was evidence of additional intercourse,  the young woman stuck to  her
story."
    Nakamura momentarily  lost his  composure.  He stared  blankly  at
Kenji Watanabe.
    "We have not been able to identify the other party,"
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    409
    Kenji continued. "The semen samples mysteriously disappeared  from
the  hospital  laboratory  before  the  full  DNA  analysis  could  be
completed. All we have is the record of the original examination."
    "That   record   could   be   wrong,"   asserted   Nakamura,   his
self-confidence returning.
    "Very, very  unlikely. But  at any  rate, now  you can  understand
Judge Wakefield's dilemma. Everyone in this colony has already decided
Pedro is guilty. She did not want a jury to convict him wrongly."
    There was a  long silence.  The governor started  to depart.  "I'm
surprised at you, Watanabe," Nakamura  said at length. "You've  missed
the point  of  this meeting  entirely.  Whether or  not  that  jigaboo
Martinez raped Mariko Kobayashi is  really not that important. I  have
promised her  father that  the Nicaraguan  boy will  be punished.  And
that's what counts."
    Kenji Watanabe stared at his boyhood classmate with disgust.  "I'm
going to leave now" he said, "before I become really angry."
    "You will not be  given another chance,"  Nakamura said, his  eyes
again full of hostility. "This was my first and final offer."
    Kenji shook his head,  pulled back the  paper screen himself,  and
walked out into the corridor.
    Nicole was walking along a  beach in beautiful sunlight. Ahead  of
her about fifty meters, Ellie was standing beside Dr. Turner. She  was
wearing her wedding  dress, but  the groom  was dressed  in a  bathing
suit. Nicole's great-grandfather Omen  was performing the ceremony  in
his long green tribal robe.
    Omeh placed  Ellie's hands  in Dr.  Turner's and  began a  Senoufo
chant. He  raised  his  eyes  to the  sky.  A  solitary  avian  soared
overheard, shrieking  in  rhythm with  the  wedding chant.  As  Nicole
watched the avian  flying above  her, the sky  darkened. Storm  clouds
rushed in, displacing the placid sky.
    The ocean began to churn and the wind to blow. Nicole's hair,  now
completely gray, streamed  out behind  her. The wedding  party was  in
disarray. Everyone ran
    410 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    inland to escape the coming storm. Nicole could not move. Her eyes
were fixed on a large object being tossed upon the waves.
    The object was a  huge green bag, like  the plastic bags used  for
lawn trash back in the twenty-first century. The bag was full and  was
coming toward the shore. Nicole would  have tried to grab it, but  she
was afraid of the moiling sea. She pointed at the bag. She yelled  for
help.
    In the upper left-hand corner of her dream screen 'she saw a  long
canoe. As it drew closer, Nicole realized that the eight occupants  of
the canoe  were  extraterrestrials,  orange  in  color,  smaller  than
humans. They looked as  if they were made  from bread dough. They  had
eyes and faces but no bodily  hair. The aliens steered the canoe  over
to the large green bag and picked it up.
    The orange extraterrestrials deposited the green bag on the beach.
Nicole did not approach until they  climbed back into their canoe  and
returned to the ocean. She waved  good-bye to them and walked over  to
the bag. It had  a zipper, which she  carefully opened. Nicole  pulled
back the top half and stared at the dead face of Kenji Watanabe.
    Nicole shuddered, screamed, and  sat up in  bed. She reached  over
for Richard, but  the bed was  empty. The digital  clock on the  table
read 2:48 A.M. Nicole tried to  slow her breathing and clear her  mind
of the horrible dream.
    The vivid image of the dead  Kenji Watanabe lingered in her  mind.
As she walked over to the bathroom, Nicole remembered her  premonitory
dreams about the death of her mother, back when she was only ten years
old. What if Kenji  is really going to  die? she thought, feeling  the
first wave of panic. She forced herself to think about something else.
Now where  is Richard  at this  time of  night? she  wondered.  Nicole
pulled on her robe and left the bedroom area.
    She walked quietly past the  children's rooms toward the front  of
the house. Benjy was snoring, as usual. The light was on in the study,
but Richard was not there. Two of  the new biots plus Prince Hal  were
also gone. One of the monitors on Richard's work table still contained
a display.
    Nicole smiled to herself and remembered their
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    41 1
    agreement. She touched  the keys  NICOLE on the  keyboard and  the
display changed.
    Dearest Nicole  [the message  appeared], If  you awaken  before  I
return, do  not  worry. I  plan  to be  back  by dawn,  eight  o'clock
tomorrow morning at the very latest. I have been doing some work  with
the 300 series biots-you  remember, the ones  that are not  completely
programmed in  firmware  and therefore  can  be designed  for  special
tasks-and have reason to believe that  someone has been, spying on  my
work. Therefore,  I  have accelerated  the  completion of  my  current
project and have gone outside New Eden  for a final test. I love  you.
Richard.
    It was dark and cold out on the Central Plain. Richard tried to be
patient. He had sent his upgraded Einstein (Richard referred to it  as
Super-Al) and Garcia #325 over to the second habitat probe site before
him. They had explained to the night watchman, a standard Garcia biot,
that the published experiment schedule had changed and that a  special
investigation was presently going to be conducted. With Richard  still
out of sight, Super-Al had then  withdrawn all the equipment from  the
opening into  the other  habitat  and placed  it  on the  ground.  The
process had consumed over an hour of precious time. Now that  Super-Al
was finally finished,  he signaled  Richard to  approach. Garcia  #325
cleverly led the watchman  biot off to another  area around the  probe
site so it wouldn't be able to see Richard.
    He wasted no time. Richard pulled Prince Hal out of his pocket and
put him in the opening. "Go quickly," Richard said, setting his  small
monitor up on  the floor of  the passage. The  opening into the  other
habitat had been gradually widened over  the weeks so that it was  now
approximately a square, eighty centimeters  on a side. There was  more
than enough room for the tiny robot.
    Prince Hal hurried through  to the other side.  The drop from  the
passage to the  inside floor  was about  a meter.  The robot  adroitly
attached a small cable  to a stanchion  he glued to  the floor of  the
passage and then let himself
    412 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    down.  Richard  watched  Hal's  every  move  on  his  screen   and
communicated instructions by radio.
    Richard  had  expected  that  there  would  be  an  outer  annulus
protecting the second habitat. He was correct. So the basic design  of
the two habitats is similar, he thought. Richard had also  anticipated
that there would be an  opening of some kind  in the inner wall,  some
gate or door  through which  the leggies must  come and  go, and  that
Prince Hal would be small enough  to enter the inside- of the  habitat
by the same portal.
    It did not take long for Hal to locate the entrance into the  main
part of the habitat. However, what was obviously a door was also  more
than twenty meters above the floor of the annulus. Having watched  the
video recordings of  the leggies  moving up vertical  surfaces on  the
bulldozer biots at the  Avalon survey site,  Richard had prepared  for
this possibility as well.
    "Climb," he  ordered Prince  Hal  after a  nervous glance  at  his
watch. It was  almost six o'clock.  Dawn would be  coming soon in  New
Eden. Soon thereafter  the regular scientists  and engineers would  be
returning to this probe site.
    The entrance to the  inside of the habitat  was one hundred  times
Prince Hal's height above the floor.  The robot's ascent would be  the
equivalent of a  human going  straight up a  sixty-story building.  At
home Richard had had the little  robot practice by scaling the  house,
but he  had always  been  there beside  him.  Were there  grooves  for
hand-and footholds on  the wall  Hal was climbing?  Richard could  not
tell from the monitor. Were all the correct equations in Prince  Hal's
mechanical engineering  subproces-sor?  I'll  find  out  soon  enough,
Richard thought as his star pupil began his climb.
    Prince Hal slipped and dangled  by his hands once, but  eventually
succeeded in making it  to the top. However,  the ascent took  another
thirty minutes. Richard knew he was running out of time. As Hal pulled
himself onto the windowsill of  a circular porthole, Richard saw  that
the robot's ingress  into the habitat  was blocked by  a mesh  screen.
However, a small part  of the interior was  barely visible in the  dim
light. Richard carefully positioned
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    413
    Hal's tiny camera so that it could see through the gridwork.
    "The watchman insists it must return to its main station,"  Garcia
#325 announced to Richard  on the radio. "It  is required to make  its
daily report at 0630."
    Shit, thought  Richard,  that's only  six  minutes. He  moved  Hal
slowly around on the lip of the  porthole to see if he could  identify
any objects  in  the  habitat  interior.  Richard  could  see  nothing
specific. "Shriek," Richard then ordered, switching the robot's  audio
volume to full. "Shriek until I tell you to stop."
    Richard had  not tested  the  new amplifier  he had  installed  in
Prince Hal at its maximum output.  He was therefore astonished at  the
amplitude of Hal's avian  mimicry. It resounded  from the passage  and
Richard jumped back. Pretty damn  good, Richard said after  collecting
himself. At least if my memory is accurate.
    The  watchman   biot  was   soon  upon   Richard,  following   its
preprogrammed instructions  by demanding  his personal  papers and  an
explanation of what he  was doing. Super-Al and  Garcia #325 tried  to
confuse  the  watchman,  but  when  it  could  not  obtain   Richard's
cooperation, the biot insisted  it must make  an emergency report.  On
the monitor, Richard  saw the entire  mesh screen swing  open and  six
leggies swarm onto Prince Hal. The robot continued to shriek.
    The watchman Garcia began to broadcast its emergency. Richard  was
aware that he  had only a  few minutes  before he would  be forced  to
leave. "Come, dammit, come," he said, watching the monitor in  between
furtive glances behind him in the Central Plain. There were no  lights
yet approaching from his home colony in the distance.
    At first Richard thought he had imagined it. Then it repeated, the
sound of  large  wings flapping.  One  of the  leggies  was  partially
obscuring his  view,  but  moments  later  Richard  definitely  saw  a
familiar talon  reaching out  for Prince  Hal. The  avian shriek  that
followed confirmed  the  sighting. The  image  on the  monitor  became
fuzzy.
    "If you have a chance," Richard  screamed into the radio, "try  to
return to the passage. I'll come back for you later."
    414 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    He turned around, quickly packing  his monitor in his bag.  "Let's
go," Richard said to his two biot associates. They began to run toward
New Eden.
    Richard was triumphant  as he  hurried toward home.  My hunch  was
right, he said exultantly to himself.  This changes everything. . .  .
Now I have a daughter to give away.
    10
    T!
    •he wedding was scheduled  to take place at  seven o'clock in  the
evening in the theater  at Central High School.  The reception, for  a
much larger group, was planned for the gymnasium, an adjacent building
no more than twenty  meters away. All day  long Nicole struggled  with
last-minute  items,  rescuing  the  preparations  from  one  potential
disaster after another.
    She did not have time to contemplate the significance of Richard's
new discovery. He had come home full of excitement, wanting to discuss
the avians, and even who might  be spying on his research, but  Nicole
had simply not been able to focus on anything except the wedding. They
had both agreed not to tell  anyone else about the avians until  after
they had had a chance for a lengthy discussion.
    Nicole had gone for  a morning walk in  the park with Ellie.  They
had talked about marriage, love, and  sex for over an hour, but  Ellie
had been so excited about  the wedding that she  had not been able  to
concentrate fully on  what her mother  was saying. Toward  the end  of
their
    416 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    walk, Nicole had stopped under a tree to summarize her message,
    "Remember at  least  this  one thing,  Ellie,"  Nicole  had  said,
holding both  her  daughter's hands  in  hers. "Sex  is  an  important
component of marriage, but  it is not the  most important. Because  of
your lack of experience, it is unlikely that sex will be wonderful for
you at the beginning. However, if  you and Robert love and trust  each
other, and both of  you genuinely want to  give and receive  pleasure,
you will  find that  your physical  compatibility will  increase  year
after year."
    Two hours  before  the ceremony  Nicole,  Nai, and  Ellie  arrived
together at the school.  Eponine was already  there waiting for  them.
"Are you nervous?" the teacher said  with a smile. Ellie nodded.  "I'm
scared  to  death,"  Eponine   added,  "and  I'm   only  one  of   the
bridesmaids."
    Ellie had asked her  mother to be matron  of honor. Nai  Watanabe,
Eponine, and  her  sister  Katie  were  the  bridesmaids.  Dr.  Edward
Stafford, a  man  who  shared  Robert  Turner's  passion  for  medical
history, was the best man. Because  he had no other close  associates,
except for the biots  at the hospital, Robert  picked the rest of  his
attendants from  the Wakefield  family  and friends.  Kenji  Watanabe,
Patrick, and Benjy were his three groomsmen.
    "Mother, I feel  nauseous," Ellie  said soon after  they were  all
gathered in the dressing room. "I'll  be so embarrassed if I throw  up
on my  wedding dress.  Should  I try  to  eat something?"  Nicole  had
anticipated this situation. She handed Ellie a banana and some yogurt,
assuring her daughter  that it  was completely normal  to feel  queasy
before such a big event.
    Nicole's uneasiness about  the day  increased as  time passed  and
Katie did  not  show up.  With  everything  in order  in  the  bride's
dressing room, she decided to cross  the hall to talk to Patrick.  The
men had finished dressing before Nicole knocked on their door.
    "How is the  mother of the  bride?" Judge Mishkin  asked when  she
entered. The  grand  old  judge  was  going  to  perform  the  wedding
ceremony.
    "A little spooked," Nicole answered with a wan
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    41 7
    smile. She  found  Patrick in  the  back of  the  room,  adjusting
Benjy's clothes.
    "How do I look?" Benjy asked his mother as she approached.
    "Very, very handsome,"  Nicole replied to  her beaming son.  "Have
you talked to Katie this morning?" she asked Patrick.
    "No," he  said. "But  I  reconfirmed the  time  with her,  as  you
requested, just last night. ... Is she not here yet?"
    Nicole shook her head. It was already six-fifteen, only forty-five
minutes before the cermony was scheduled  to start. She walked out  in
the hall to use the phone, but  the smell of cigarette smoke told  her
that Katie had finally arrived.
    "Just think, little sister," Katie was  saying in a loud voice  as
Nicole crossed back to the bride's dressing room, "tonight you get  to
have your  first sex.  Oooeee!  I bet  the  thought just  drives  that
gorgeous body of yours absolutely wild."
    "Katie,"  Eponine   said,   "I   don't   think   that's   entirely
appropriate-''
    Nicole walked  into  the  room  and  Eponine  fell  silent.  "Why,
Mother," Katie said,  "how beautiful  you look. I  had forgotten  that
there was a woman lurking behind those judge's robes."
    Katie expelled  smoke into  the  air and  took  a drink  from  the
champagne bottle on the counter beside her. "So here we are," she said
with a flourish, "about to witness the marriage of my 5aby sister-''
    "Stop it, Katie, you've  had too much  to drink." Ni-cole's  voice
was cold and  hard. She picked  up the champagne  and Katie's pack  of
cigarettes. "Just finish dressing and stop the clowning. You can  have
these back after the ceremony."
    "Okay, Judge . . . whatever you say," Katie said, inhaling  deeply
and blowing out smoke rings. She grinned at the other ladies. Then, as
Katie reached for the waste-basket to flick the ash off her cigarette,
she lost  her  balance.  Katie fell  painfully  against  the  counter,
hitting several open bottles of cosmetics before landing on the
    418 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    floor in a mess. Eponine and Ellie both rushed over to help her.
    "Are you all right?" Ellie asked.
    "Watch  out  for   your  dress,  Ellie,"   Nicole  said,   looking
disapprovingly at Katie  sprawled on  the floor.  Nicole grabbed  some
paper towels and began cleaning up what Katie had spilled.
    "Yeah, Ellie," Katie said sarcastically a few seconds later,  when
she was again standing up. "Watch out  for that dress. You want to  be
absolutely spotless when you marry your double murderer."
    Nobody breathed  in the  room. Nicole  was livid.  She  approached
Katie and then  stood directly  in front  of her.  "Apologize to  your
sister," she ordered.
    "I  will  not,''  Katie  replied  defiantly  just  moments  before
Nicole's open hand landed on her cheek. Tears burst into Katie's eyes.
"Ah-hah," she said, wiping at her  face, "it's New Eden's most  famous
slapper. Only two days after resorting to physical violence in Central
City Square, she  strikes her  own daughter in  a replay  of her  most
famous deed-"
    "Mother, don't  . .  . please,"  Ellie interrupted,  fearing  that
Nicole would slap Katie again.
    Nicole turned  around and  looked at  the distraught  bride.  "I'm
sorry," she mumbled.
    "That's right," said  Katie angrily. "Tell  her you're sorry.  I'm
the one you hit, Judge.  Remember me? Your older, unmarried  daughter?
The one you called 'disgusting' only three weeks ago yesterday. . .  .
You told me that  my friends were 'sleazy  and immoral'-are those  the
exact words?-yet your precious Ellie, that paragon of virtue, you hand
over to a double murderer . . . with another murderer as a  bridesmaid
to boot."
    All of the women  realized at roughly the  same moment that  Katie
was not just drunk and truculent.  She was deeply disturbed. Her  wild
eyes condemned them all as she continued her rambling diatribe.
    She is drowning,  Nicole said to  herself, and crying  desperately
for help. Not only have I ignored her cries, I have pushed her  deeper
into the water.
    "Katie," Nicole said quietly, "I'm sorry. I acted fool-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    419
    ishly and without  thought." She walked  toward her daughter  with
her arms outstretched.
    "No," Katie replied, pushing her  mother's arms away. "No, no,  no
... I don't want your pity." She moved back toward the door. "In fact,
I don't want to be in this  goddamn wedding. ... I don't belong  here.
Good luck, little sister. Tell me  someday how the handsome doctor  is
in bed."
    Katie turned around and stumbled through the door. Both Ellie  and
Nicole were silently weeping as she left.
    Nicole tried  to concentrate  on the  wedding, but  her heart  was
heavy after the untoward scene with Katie. She helped Ellie put on her
makeup again,  repeatedly  chastising  herself  for  having  responded
angrily to Katie.
    Just before the  ceremony started,  Nicole returned  to the  men's
dressing room and informed  them that Katie had  decided not to be  in
the wedding. She then peeked briefly at the gathering crowd,  noticing
that there  were about  a  dozen biots  already seated.  My  goodness,
Nicole thought, we weren't specific enough in the invitations. It  was
not abnormal for  some of  the colonists  to bring  their Lincolns  or
Tiassos with  them  to  special  functions,  especially  if  they  had
children. Before she  returned to  the bride's  dressing room,  Nicole
fretted momentarily about whether or  not there would be enough  seats
for everybody.
    Moments later, or so it seemed,  the bridal party was gathered  on
the stage around Judge Mishkin and the music announced the arrival  of
the bride. Like everyone else, Nicole turned around and looked to  the
back of  the  theater.  There  was  her  gorgeous  youngest  daughter,
resplendent in her  white dress  with the  red trim,  coming down  the
aisle on Richard's arm. Nicole fought back the tears, but when she saw
big drops glistening  on the cheeks  of the bride,  she could  control
herself no longer. / love you, my Ellie, Nicole said to herself. How I
hope that you will be happy.
    Judge Mishkin had  prepared an eclectic  ceremony at the  couple's
request. It praised the love  of a man and  a woman, and talked  about
how important their bond was in  the proper creation of a family.  His
words counseled tolerance,  patience, and selflessness.  He offered  a
nonde-
    420 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    nominational prayer, invoking God to  "call forth" from the  bride
and groom that "compassion and  understanding that ennobles the  human
species."
    The  ceremony  was  short,  but  elegant.  Dr.  Turner  and  Ellie
exchanged rings and recited their  vows with strong, positive  voices.
They turned to Judge Mishkin and he placed their hands together. "With
the authority granted me by the colony of New Eden, I pronounce Robert
Turner and Eleanor Wakefield husband and wife."
    As Dr. Turner was gently lifting Ellie's veil for die  traditional
kiss, a shot  rang out, followed  an instant later  by another.  Judge
Mishkin pitched forward on the bridal couple, blood spurting from  his
forehead. Kenji Watanabe  collapsed beside him.  Eponine dove  between
the bridal couple  and the  guests as a  third and  fourth shots  were
heard. Everyone was screaming. There was chaos in the theater.
    Two more shots followed in rapid succession. In the third row  Max
Puckett finally disarmed the  Lincoln biot that  had been the  gunman.
Max had turned around  almost instantly, as soon  as he had heard  the
first shot, and had leapt over the chairs a second later. However, the
Lincoln biot, who had risen from its seat at the word wife, fired  its
automatic gun a total of six times before Max subdued it completely.
    Blood was a!l  over the  stage. Nicole crawled  over and  examined
Governor Watanabe.  He  was already  dead.  Dr. Turner  cradled  Judge
Mishkin as the gracious  old man closed his  eyes for the final  time.
The third  bullet had  apparently been  intended for  Dr. Turner,  for
Eponine had caught it in her side  after her frantic dive to save  the
bride and groom.
    Nicole picked  up  the  microphone  that  had  fallen  with  Judge
Mishkin. "Ladies and gentlemen. This is a terrible, terrible  tragedy.
Please do not panic.  I believe there is  no more danger. Please  just
hold your places until we can tend to the injured."
    The final four bullets had not  done too much damage. Eponine  was
bleeding, but  her condition  was  not critical.  Max had  struck  the
Lincoln just  before  it fired  the  fourth bullet,  almost  certainly
saving Nicole's life, since that par-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    421
    ticular bullet  had missed  her by  only centimeters.  Two of  the
guests had been grazed by the final shots as the Lincoln was falling.
    Richard joined Max  and Patrick, who  were restraining the  killer
biot. "He won't answer a single goddamn question," Max said.
    Richard looked at the Lincoln's shoulder. The biot was number 333.
"Take him  into  the back,"  Richard  said. "I  want  to look  at  him
later.''
    On the stage Nai  Watanabe was sitting on  her knees, holding  the
head of her  beloved Kenji  on her lap.  Her body  was trembling  with
deep, desperate sobs.  Beside her  the twins Galileo  and Kepler  were
wailing with  fright. Ellie,  blood all  over her  wedding dress,  was
trying to comfort the little boys.
    Dr. Turner was attending to Eponine. "An ambulance should be  here
in just a few  minutes," he said after  dressing her wound. He  kissed
her on the forehead. "There's no way  that Ellie and I can ever  thank
you for what you did."
    Nicole was down with  the guests, making  certain that neither  of
the bystanders who had been  struck by bullets was seriously  injured.
She was about to return to the microphone and tell everyone that  they
could begin  to  leave  when  a hysterical  colonist  burst  into  the
theater.
    "An Einstein has gone mad," he shouted before surveying the  scene
in front of him. "Ulanov and Judge lannella are both dead."
    "We should both leave.  And now," Richard said.  "But even if  you
won't,  Nicole,  I  am  going  to  go.  I  know  too  much  about  the
three-hundred-series biots-and  what Nakamura's  people have  done  to
change them. They'll be after me tonight or in the morning."
    "All right, darling," Nicole replied. "1 understand. But I  cannot
go. Someone  must  stay to  take  care of  the  family. And  to  fight
Nakamura. Even if it's hopeless. We must not submit to his tyranny."
    It was three hours after the aborted end of Ellie's wedding. Panic
was sweeping the colony. The television had just reported that five or
six biots had simultaneously gone
    422 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    mad and  that as  many  as eleven  of  New Eden's  most  prominent
citizens had been  killed. Luckily  the Kawabata  biot performing  the
concert in Vegas had failed  in its attack on gubernatorial  candidate
lan Macmillan and noted industrialist Toshio Nakamura.
    "Bullshit," Richard had  said as  he had watched.  "That was  just
another part of their plan."
    He was certain  that the  entire assassination  activity had  been
planned and orchestrated by the  Nakamura camp. Moreover, Richard  had
no doubt that  he and Nicole  had also been  intended targets. He  was
convinced that the day's  events would result  in a totally  different
New Eden under  the control  of Nakamura,  with lan  Macmillan as  his
puppet governor.
    "Won't you at  least say  good-bye to Patrick  and Benjy?"  Nicole
asked.
    "I'd better  not," Richard  answered. "Not  because I  don't  love
them, but because I'm afraid I might change my mind . . ."
    "Are you going to use the emergency exit?" Nicole said.
    Richard nodded. "They'd never let me out the normal way."
    While he was checking  his diving apparatus  Nicole came into  the
study. "It was  just reported  on the  news that  people are  smashing
their biots all over the colony. One of the colonists interviewed said
the entire mass murder was part of an alien plot."
    "Great," Richard said grimly. "The propaganda has already begun."
    He  packed  as  much  food  and  water  as  he  thought  he  could
comfortably carry. When he was  ready, he held Nicole tightly  against
him for over  a minute.  There were  tears in  both their  eyes as  he
departed.
    "Do you know where you're going?" Nicole asked softly.
    "More or less,"  Richard answered as  he stood in  the back  door.
"I'm not telling  you, of course,  so you  can't be implicated  . .  .
Please tell the children good-bye for me."
    "Be careful," she said. They both heard something at
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    423
    the front of the house and Richard dashed out into the backyard.
    The  train  to  Lake  Shakespeare  was  not  running.  The  Garcia
operating an earlier train on the same track had been terminated by  a
group of angry colonists and the  whole system had shut down.  Richard
began walking toward the eastern side of Lake Shakespeare.
    As he  trudged  along  carrying his  heavy  diving  equipment  and
backpack, he had the feeling that he was being followed. Twice Richard
thought he saw  someone out  of the  corner of  his eye,  but when  he
stopped and  looked around,  he saw  nothing. Finally  he reached  the
lake. It was after midnight. He took  one final look at the lights  of
the colony and began to put  on his diving apparatus. Richard's  blood
ran cold as a Garcia came out of the bushes while he was undressing.
    He expected to be  killed. After several  long seconds the  Garcia
spoke. "Are you Richard Wakefield?" it asked.
    Richard did not move or say anything. "If you are," the biot  said
at length, "I am bringing a message from your wife. She says she loves
you and Godspeed."
    Richard took a long  slow breath. "Tell her  I Jove her also,"  he
said.
    THE TRIAL
    1
    In the deepest part of Lake Shakespeare there was an
    open entrance to a long submarine channel that ran under both  the
village of Beauvois  and the habitat  wall. During the  design of  New
Eden, Richard,  who had  had  considerable practical  experience  with
contingency engineering, had stressed  the importance of an  emergency
exit from the colony.
    "But what would you need it for?" the Eagle had asked.
    "I don't know," Richard had said. "But unforeseen situations often
arise in  life. A  robust engineering  design always  has  contingency
protection."
    Richard swam  carefully through  the  tunnel, slowing  down  every
several minutes to check  his air supply. When  he reached the end  he
moved through a  series of  locks that left  him eventually  in a  dry
subterranean passage. He walked for  about a hundred meters before  he
removed his diving apparatus and stored it at the side of the  tunnel.
When he  reached  the exit,  which  was at  the  eastern edge  of  the
enclosed area that included both the habitats in the
    428 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Northern Hemicylinder of Rama,  Richard pulled his thermal  jacket
out of his waterproof pack.
    Even though he realized that  nobody could possibly know where  he
was, Richard  opened  the  round  door in  the  passage  ceiling  very
cautiously. Then he eased out into the Central Plain. So far, so good,
he thought, breathing a sigh of relief. Now for Plan B.
    For four days Richard remained on  the eastern side of the  plain.
Using  his  excellent  small  binoculars,  he  could  see  the  lights
indicating activities around the control center, the Avalon region, or
the second habitat probe site. As Richard had anticipated, there  were
search parties out in  the interhabitat region for  a day or two,  but
only one group came  in his direction  and they were  easy for him  to
avoid.
    His eyes grew accustomed to what he had thought was total darkness
in the Central Plain. Actually there was a small amount of  background
light, due to reflection off the surfaces of Rama. Richard conjectured
that the  source or  sources of  the  light must  be in  the  Southern
Hemicylinder, on the other side of the far wall of the second habitat.
    Richard wished that he could fly, so that he would be able to soar
over the walls  and move  freely in  the vastness  of the  cylindrical
world. The existence of the very low levels of reflected light  piqued
his interest in the rest of Rama. Was there still a Cylindrical Sea to
the south of the barrier wall? Did  New York still exist as an  island
in that sea? And what, if anything, was in the Southern  Hemicylinder,
a region even  larger than  the one  that contained  the two  northern
habitats?
    On the fifth day after his escape Richard awoke from an especially
disturbing dream about his father and started to walk in the direction
of what he now called the  avian habitat. He had shifted his  sleeping
pattern to be directly opposite the diurnal cycle in New Eden, so  the
time inside the colony was about seven in the evening. He assumed that
all the humans who were working at the probe site had already finished
for the day.
    When he was about  half a kilometer away  from the opening in  the
avian habitat wall, Richard stopped to ver-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    429
    ify, using his binoculars, that there were no longer any people in
the region. He then sent Falstaff to decoy the site watchman biot.
    Richard was not certain how uniform the passage was that led  into
the second habitat. He  had drawn an  eighty-centimeter square on  the
floor of his study, and had  convinced himself that he should be  able
to crawl  through  it.  But  what  if the  size  of  the  passage  was
irregular? We'll find out soon enough,  Richard said to himself as  he
approached the site.
    Only one set of  cables and instruments  had been reinserted  into
the passage, so it  was not difficult for  Richard to clear them  out.
Falstaff had also  been successful-Richard neither  heard nor saw  the
watchman biot. He threw his small pack into the opening and then tried
to climb in himself. It was impossible. He took off his jacket  first,
then his  shirt, pants,  and  shoes. Wearing  only his  underwear  and
socks, Richard could barely fit into the passage. He tied his  clothes
together in  a bundle,  affixed them  to  the side  of his  pack,  and
squeezed into the opening.
    It was a very  slow crawl. Richard inched  forward on his  stomach
using his  hands and  elbows, pushing  his pack  in front  of him.  He
brushed his  body  against  the  walls  and  the  ceiling  with  every
movement. He stopped, his muscles already beginning to tire, after  he
was fifteen meters into  the tunnel. The other  side was still  almost
forty meters away.
    As he rested Richard realized that his elbows, knees, and even the
top of his balding head were already scraped and bleeding.  Retrieving
bandages from his pack  was out of the  question-just rolling over  on
his back and looking behind him was a monumental effort in the cramped
quarters.
    He also  realized  that  he  was very  cold.  While  he  had  been
crawling, the energy required  to make forward  progress had kept  him
warm. Once  he had  stopped,  however, his  exposed body  had  chilled
rapidly. Having so  much of  his body resting  against cold,  metallic
surfaces did not help either. His teeth began to chatter.
    Richard pressed on slowly, painfully, for another fifteen minutes.
Then his right hip cramped and in his body's
    430 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    involuntary response he smashed  his head against  the top of  the
passage. A little woozy from the blow, he became alarmed when he  felt
blood running down the side of his head.
    There was no light in front of him. The dim illumination that  had
allowed  him  to  monitor  Prince  Hal's  progress  had  vanished.  He
struggled to roll over and see behind him. It was dark everywhere  and
he was  becoming  cold again.  Richard  felt  his head  and  tried  to
determine how severely  he had  been cut.  His panic  started when  he
realized that he was still hemorrhaging.
    Until that moment he  had not felt claustrophobic.  Now, all of  a
sudden, wedged into a  dark passage that  Richard could feel  pressing
against him from all sides,  he felt as if  he could not breathe.  The
walls seemed to  be crushing  him. He  could not  control himself.  He
screamed.
    In less than half a minute some kind of light was being shone into
the passage from his  rear. He heard the  funny English accent of  the
Garcia biot  but  could not  understand  what it  was  saying.  Almost
certainly, he thought, it  is filing an  emergency report. I'd  better
move quickly.
    He began to crawl again, ignoring his fatigue, his bleeding  head,
and his skinless knees and elbows. Richard estimated that he had  only
ten more meters to go, fifteen at the most, when the passage seemed to
shrink. He couldn't get through! He strained every muscle, but it  was
useless. He was  definitely stymied.  While he  was trying  to find  a
different  crawling  position   that  might   be  more   geometrically
favorable, he  heard a  soft pitter-patter  approaching him  from  the
direction of the avian habitat.
    Moments later they were all  over him. Richard spent five  seconds
of absolute  terror before  his  mind informed  him mat  the  tickling
sensations he  was  feeling all  over  his  skin were  caused  by  the
leggies. He  remembered  seeing them  on  television-little  spherical
creatures about two centimeters in  diameter attached to six  radially
symmetrical, multijointed legs  almost ten centimeters  long if  fully
extended.
    One had stopped and was directly on his face, its legs  straddling
his nose and mouth. He tried to brush it off but
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    431
    bumped his head again. Richard began squirming around to shake off
the leggies and  somehow managed  to make forward  progress. With  the
leggies still all over him, he crawled the final meters to the exit.
    He reached the outer avian annulus just as he heard a human  voice
behind him. "Hello, is mere somebody in there?" it said. "Whoever  you
are, please  identify yourself.  We're  here to  help you."  A  strong
searchlight illuminated the passage.
    Richard now discovered he  had another problem.  His exit was  one
meter above the floor of the annulus. / should have crawled  backward,
he thought, and dragged my pack  and clothes. It would have been  much
easier.
    It was too late  for hindsight. With his  pack and clothes on  the
floor below him  and a second  human voice now  asking questions  from
behind, Richard continued to crawl forward until his body was  halfway
out of the  passage. When  he felt  himself falling,  Richard put  his
hands behind his head, tucked his  chin against his chest, and,  tried
to make himself into a ball. He then bounced and rolled into the avian
annulus. As he was falling the  leggies jumped off and disappeared  in
the darkness.
    The lights the humans were shining into the passage reflected  off
the inner wall of  the annulus. After first  ascertaining that he  was
not injured,  and that  his  head was  no longer  seriously  bleeding,
Richard picked up his belongings and hobbled two hundred meters to the
left. He stopped  just under the  porthole where Prince  Hal had  been
captured by the avian.
    Despite his fatigue, Richard wasted  no time scaling the wall.  As
soon as he had finished dressing and tending to his wounds, he started
the ascent. He  was certain  that a  deployable camera  would soon  be
pushed into the annulus to look for him.
    Fortunately, there was a small ledge in front of the porthole that
was large enough  to accommodate Richard.  He sat there  while he  cut
through the metal mesh  screen and then pushed  it aside. He  expected
the leggies to show up at  any minute, but he remained alone.  Richard
didn't
    432 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    see or hear anything from the habitat interior. Although he  twice
tried to summon Prince Hal on his radio, there was no response to  his
call.
    Richard stared into  the complete darkness  of the avian  habitat.
What is in  there? he  wondered. The  atmosphere in  the interior,  he
reasoned, must be  the same as  that in the  annulus, because air  was
allowed to circulate freely back  and forth. Richard had just  decided
to pull out his flashlight for  a look into the habitat interior  when
he heard sounds  below and behind  him. Seconds later  he saw a  light
beam coming in his direction down on the floor of the annulus.
    He scrunched himself over toward  the interior of .the habitat  as
far as he  dared, to avoid  the light, and  listened carefully to  the
sounds. It's the deploy/able  camera, he thought.  But it has  limited
range. It cannot operate without the tether.
    Richard sat very still. What do I do now? he said to himself, when
it  became  apparent  that  the  light  attached  to  the  camera  was
continuing to sweep the same, area below the porthole. They must  have
seen something. If I turn on my flashlight and there's any reflection,
they'll know where I am.
    He dropped a small object from his pack into the habitat to ensure
that its floor level  was the same as  the annulus. He heard  nothing.
Richard tried another, slightly larger object, but still there was  no
sound of it striking the floor.
    His heart rate surged as his mind  told him that the floor of  the
habitat interior was far below the  floor of the annulus. He  recalled
the basic  structure  of Rama,  with  its thick  external  shell,  and
realized that the habitat bottom could be several hundred meters below
where he was sitting.  Richard leaned over and  stared again into  the
void.
    The deployable  camera  suddenly  stopped  moving  and  its  light
remained focused on a  specific spot in  the annulus. Richard  guessed
that something must have fallen out of his pack while he was hurriedly
hobbling from the passage to the area underneath the porthole. He knew
mat other lights and cameras would  be coming soon. In his mind's  eye
Richard envisioned being captured and taken  back to New Eden. He  did
not know specifically which colony
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    433
    laws he  had broken,  but  he knew  that  he had  'committed  many
violations. A deep resentment coursed  through him as he  contemplated
spending months or even years in detention. Under no circumstances, he
told himself, will 1 let that happen.
    He reached down  the inside wall  of the habitat  to ascertain  if
there were enough irregularities  to find places to  put his feet  and
hands. Satisfied that it was not an impossible descent, he fumbled  in
his pack for  his climbing  line and  anchored one  end of  it to  the
hinges supporting the mesh door. Just  in case I should slip, he  told
himself.
    A second light was  now in the annulus  behind him. Richard  eased
himself into the  habitat with  the line wrapped  securely around  his
waist. He  did not  rappel, but  he did  use the  line for  occasional
support while he was groping for footholds in the dark. The climb  was
not technically  difficult;  there were  many  small ledges  on  which
Richard could place his feet.
    Down and down  he went. When  he estimated that  he had  descended
sixty or  seventy  meters,  Richard  decided  to  stop  and  take  his
flashlight out of  his pack. He  was not comforted  when he shone  the
light down the wall. He still could not see the bottom. What he  could
see, maybe  fifty more  meters below  him, was  very diffuse,  like  a
cloud, or even fog. Great, thought Richard sarcastically, that's  just
great.
    Another thirty meters and he had  reached the end of his  climbing
line. Richard could already feel the moisture from the fog. By now  he
was extremely tired. Since he was not willing to give up the  security
of the line, he backtracked up the wall a few meters, wrapped the line
around himself several times, and went to sleep with his body  pressed
against the wall.
    2
    H
    Us dreams  were very  strange.  Often he  was falling,  head  over
heels, down,  down, and  never hitting  a bottom.  In the  last  dream
before Richard awakened, To-shio Nakamura and two Oriental toughs were
interrogating him in a small room with white walls.
    When he woke  up Richard  did not know  where he  was for  several
seconds. His first movement was to pull his right cheek away from  the
metallic surface  of the  wall.  A few  moments later,  after  Richard
recalled that he had gone to sleep in a vertical position on the  wall
in the interior of  the avian habitat, he  switched on his  flashlight
and looked down. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that the fog was
no longer there.  Instead he  could see  the wall  extending far,  far
below,  and  what  appeared  to  be  water  where  the  wall   finally
terminated.
    He leaned his head back and gazed above him. Since he knew he  was
about ninety  meters  below the  porthole  (the climbing  line  was  a
hundred meters long), he estimated that the distance down to the water
was about two hundred and fifty more meters. His knees became weak
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    435
    as his  brain  began to  comprehend  fully his  predicament.  When
Richard started to untangle himself from  the extra loops he had  made
in the line before going to sleep, he noticed that his arms and  hands
were trembling.
    He had  a  tremendous desire  to  flee,  to ascend  again  to  the
porthole, and then leave this alien world altogether. No, Richard told
himself, fighting his instinctive reaction. Not yet. Only if there are
no other viable options.
    He decided he  would first  have something to  eat. Very  gingerly
Richard freed himself from part of  the line and pulled some food  and
water out of his pack. Then he turned partially around and pointed his
light into the interior of the  habitat. Richard thought he could  see
shapes and forms off in the  distance, but he couldn't be certain.  It
could be just my imagination, he thought.
    When he  was  finished  eating,  he checked  his  food  and  water
supplies and then  made a mental  list of his  options. It's all  very
simple, Richard said to himself with a nervous laugh. I can return  to
New Eden and become a convict. Maybe  even a corpse. Or I can give  up
the security of my  line and continue  on down the  wall. He paused  a
moment, glancing  up and  down. Or  I can  stay here  and hope  for  a
miracle.
    Remembering that an  avian had  come quickly when  Prince Hal  had
shrieked, Richard  began to  shout.  After two  or three  minutes,  he
stopped shouting and started to sing. He sang intermittently for  most
of an hour. He began with tunes from his days at Cambridge  University
and then switched  to songs that  had been popular  during his  lonely
teenage years. Richard was  astonished by how  well he remembered  the
lyrics. The memory  is an amazing  device, he mused  to himself.  What
accounts for its selective reliability? Why can I remember almost  all
the words  of  these dumb  songs  from my  adolescence  and  virtually
nothing from my odyssey in Rama?
    Richard was reaching into his pack for another drink of water when
there was suddenly light in the  habitat. He was so startled that  his
feet slipped off the wall and all his weight was on the climbing  line
for a few seconds.  The light was  not blinding, as  it had been  when
dawn had arrived in Rama II while he was riding the chairlift, but
    436 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    it was light nevertheless. As soon as Richard was again secure, he
surveyed the world that was now unveiled in front of him.
    The source of the  illumination was a  great, hooded ball  hanging
from the ceiling of the habitat.  Richard estimated that the ball  was
about four kilometers away from him and roughly one kilometer directly
above the top of the most prominent structure in sight, a large  brown
cylinder in  the geometrical  center of  the habitat.  An opaque  hood
covered the top  three fourths  of the glowing  ball, so  most of  its
light was directed downward.
    The basic  design principle  of the  habitat interior  was  radial
symmetry. At its center was the upright brown cylinder, looking as  if
it was made from soil,  that probably measured fifteen hundred  meters
from top to bottom. Richard of course  could only see one side of  the
structure, but from its curvature  he estimated that its diameter  was
between two and three kilometers.
    There were no windows or doors on the outside of the cylinder.  No
light escaped anywhere from its interior. The only pattern on the side
of the structure was a set of widely spaced curved lines, each one  of
which started at the top and  ran entirely around the cylinder  before
reaching the bottom directly underneath its point of origination.  The
bottom  of  the  cylinder  was  sitting  on  an  elevated  plateau  at
approximately the same altitude as the porthole through which  Richard
had entered.
    Circumscribing the cylinder was an array of small white structures
that formed a  ring about three  hundred meters in  diameter. The  two
northern quadrants (Richard had entered the avian habitat through  the
north porthole) of this ring  were identical; each quadrant had  fifty
or sixty buildings  that were laid  out in the  same pattern.  Richard
assumed from the symmetry that  the other two quadrants would  conform
to the same design.
    A thin  circular  canal,  maybe seventy  or  eighty  meters  wide,
surrounded the  ring  of structures.  Both  the canal  and  the  white
buildings were located  on the  plateau at  the same  altitude as  the
bottom of  the brown  cylinder. Outside  the canal,  however, a  large
region of  what appeared  to  be growing  things, primarily  green  in
color, occupied most
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    437
    of the rest of the habitat. The ground in this green region sloped
monotonically  down   from   the   canal  to   the   shores   of   the
four-hundred-meter-wide moat that was  just inside the interior  wall.
The four  apparently  identical quadrants  in  the green  region  were
further subdivided into four sectors  each, which Richard, basing  his
designations on Earth analogues, called jungle, forest, grassland, and
desert.
    For about ten minutes Richard stared quietly at the vast panorama.
Because the level of illumination dropped in direct proportion to  the
distance from the cylinder,  he could not see  the closer regions  any
more clearly than  those in  the distance.  Nevertheless, the  details
were still impressive.  The more  he looked,  the more  new things  he
noticed. There were  small lakes and  rivers in the  green region,  an
occasional tiny island in the moat, and what looked like roads between
the white buildings. Of course, he found himself thinking. Why would I
have expected otherwise? We have reproduced a small Earth in New Eden.
This must represent, in some way, the home planet of the avians.
    His last thought  reminded him that  both Nicole and  he had  been
convinced from the beginning that the  avians were no longer (if  they
had ever been) a high-technology, spacefaring species. Richard  pulled
out his binoculars  and studied  the brown cylinder  in the  distance.
What secrets do  you hold?  he wondered, thrilled  momentarily by  the
possibilities for adventure and discovery.
    Richard next searched the  skies for some sign  of the avians.  He
was disappointed. He thought he saw flying creatures once or twice  at
the top of the brown  cylinder, but the flecks  flitted in and out  of
his binocular vision so quickly mat he couldn't be absolutely certain.
Everywhere else he  looked-in all parts  of the green  region, in  the
neighborhood of  the white  buildings, even  in the  moat- he  saw  no
evidence of movement. There was  no positive indication that  anything
was alive in the avian habitat.
    The light disappeared after four hours and Richard was again  left
in the  dark  in the  middle  of the  vertical  wall. He  checked  his
thermometer, including its historical  data base. The temperature  had
not varied more  than half  a degree from  twenty-six degrees  Celsius
since he had en-
    438 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    tered the  habitat. Impressive  thermal control,  Richard said  to
himself. But why so stringent? Why  use so much of the power  resource
to keep a fixed temperature?
    As the darkness  stretched into hours,  Richard became  impatient.
Even though he  regularly rested  each set of  muscles by  temporarily
supporting himself  in different  ways  with his  line, his  body  was
slowly wearing  out. It  was  time for  him  to consider  taking  some
action. Reluctantly he decided that it  would be foolhardy for him  to
abandon the line  and descend  to the  moat. What  would I  do when  I
reached there  anyway? he  thought. Swim  across? And  then what?  I'd
still have to turn around if I didn't find food immediately.
    He began to climb slowly toward the porthole. While he was resting
about halfway to the exit he thought he heard something very faint off
to his right. Richard  stopped and quietly reached  into his pack  for
his receiver set. With  a minimum'of motion he  turned the gain up  to
its highest level and put on the earphones. At first he heard nothing.
But after several minutes he picked up a sound below him, coming  from
the moat. It was impossible to identify exactly what he was hearing-it
could have been several boats  moving through the water-but there  was
no doubt that some kind of activity was occurring down there.
    Was that a faint flapping of wings as well, again somewhere off to
his right? With no warning Richard suddenly screamed at the top of his
lungs, and  then truncated  the scream  abruptly. The  flurry of  wing
sounds  died  out  quickly,  but  for  a  second  or  two  they   were
unmistakable.
    Richard was exultant. "I know you're there," he shouted gleefully.
"I know you're watching me."
    He had a plan. It was certainly a long shot, but it was definitely
better than  nothing.  Richard checked  his  food and  water,  assured
himself that  they were  both  marginally adequate,  and took  a  deep
breath. It's now or never, he thought.
    He practiced descending without relying  on the line for  support.
It made progress more difficult, but  he could do it. When he  reached
the end of the line, Richard  unharnessed himself and shone his  light
down the wall. At least
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    439
    as far as the  top of the  fog, which by  now had returned,  there
were plenty of  ledges available.  He continued  down very  carefully,
admitting to himself that he was frightened. Several times he  thought
he could hear his own heart beating in his earphones.
    Now, if I'm right, Richard thought when he descended into the fog,
I'm going to  have company down  here. The moisture  made the  descent
doubly difficult. Once he slipped and  almost fell, but he managed  to
recover. Richard stopped at a spot where his hand- and footholds  were
unusually solid. He estimated that he was about fifty meters above the
moat. /'//  wait now  until I  hear something.  They'll have  to  come
closer in the fog.
    In a short while he heard the wings again. This time it sounded as
if it was a  pair of avians.  Richard stood where he  was for over  an
hour, until the  fog began to  thin. Several more  times he heard  the
wings of his observers.
    He had planned to wait until it was light again to descend all the
way to the water. But when the fog lifted and the lights still did not
return, Richard began  to worry about  the time. He  started down  the
wall in  the  dark. About  ten  meters above  the  moat he  heard  his
observers fly  away.  Two minutes  later  the interior  of  the  avian
habitat was again illuminated.
    Richard wasted no time. His plan was simple. Based on the boatlike
noises that he had heard in  the dark, Richard assumed that there  was
something happening in  the moat that  was critical to  the avians  or
whoever it was that lived in the brown cylinder. If not, he  reasoned,
why had they proceeded with the  activity, knowing that he might  hear
it? If they had  postponed it for  even a few  hours, he would  almost
certainly have been gone from the habitat.
    Richard intended to enter the moat. If the avians feel  threatened
in any way, he reasoned,  they will take some  action. If not, I  will
immediately begin my ascent and take my chances in New Eden.
    Just before he eased  into the water, Richard  took off his  shoes
and with some difficulty put them  into his waterproof pack. At  least
they wouldn't be wet if he had to climb out. Seconds later, as soon as
he was completely  in the water,  a pair  of avians flew  at him  from
where they
    440 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    had been hiding in the green region directly across the moat.
    They were frantic. They jabbered and shrieked and acted as if they
were going to tear Richard apart with their talons. He was so ecstatic
that his plan had worked that he virtually ignored their displays. The
avians hovered over him  and tried to  herd him back  to the wall.  He
treaded water and studied them closely.
    These two were slightly different from the ones that he and Nicole
had  encountered  in  Rama  II.  These  avians  had  the  velvet  body
coverings, just like the others, but the velvet was purple. The single
ring around  each of  then-necks  was black.  They were  also  smaller
(Perhaps they're younger,  Richard thought) than  the earlier  avians,
and  much  more  frenetic.  One  of  the  creatures  actually  touched
Richard's cheek with its talon when  he didn't move swiftly enough  to
the wall.
    At length Richard did  climb up onto the  wall, barely out of  the
water, but that did not seem to appease the avians. Almost immediately
the two large birds began taking  turns flying narrow patterns up  the
wall, showing Richard that they wanted  him to ascend. When he  didn't
move they became more and more frantic.
    "I want  to go  with you,"  Richard said,  pointing at  the  brown
cylinder in the distance.  Each time he repeated  his hand signal  the
huge creatures shrieked and jabbered and  flew up in the direction  of
the porthole.
    The avians were becoming frustrated  and Richard started to  worry
that perhaps they might attack him. Suddenly he had a brilliant  idea.
But can I remember  the entry code? he  asked himself excitedly.  It's
been so many years.
    When he  reached in  his pack  the avians  flew away  immediately.
"That proves," Richard  said out loud  as he switched  on his  beloved
portable computer, "that the  leg-gies are your electronic  observers.
How else could  you have  possibly known  that human  beings may  keep
weapons in packs like these?"
    He punched five letters  on the keyboard  and then smiled  broadly
when the display activated. "Come  here," Richard said, waving at  the
pair of avians who had retreated
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    441
    almost to the other side of the moat. "Come here," he repeated, "I
have something to show you."
    He held up the monitor and displayed the complex computer  graphic
that he  had  used  many years  before  in  Rama II  to  convince  the
creatures to carry Nicole and him  across the Cylindrical Sea. It  was
an elegant graphic  showing three  avians carrying  two human  figures
across a body of  water in a harness.  The two giant birds  approached
tentatively. That's it, Richard said  to himself excitedly. Come  over
here and take a good look.
    3
    R;
    'ichard did not know  exactly how long he  had been living in  the
dim room. He had lost track of time soon after they had taken his pack
away from him. His routine had been the same, day after day. He  slept
in the comer of the room. Whenever he awakened, whether from a nap  or
a long sleep, two  avians would enter his  room from the corridor  and
hand him a manna melon  to eat. He knew  they came through the  locked
door at the end  of the corridor,  but if he tried  to sleep near  the
door they simply denied him his food.  It had been an easy lesson  for
Richard to learn.
    Every other day or so a  different pair of avians would enter  his
prison and clean  up his wastes.  His clothes were  rank, and  Richard
knew that  he was  unbearably filthy,  but  he had  not been  able  to
communicate to his captors that he wanted a bath.
    He had  been exultant  in  the beginning.  When the  two  juvenile
avians had finally approached close  enough to watch the graphic,  and
then had  made their  first  attempt to  take  the computer  from  him
several minutes later, Rich-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    443
    ard had decided to program the display to repeat indefinitely.
    In less than an hour the largest avian he had ever seen, one  with
a gray velvet  body and three  brilliant cherry red  rings around  its
neck, had returned with the two  juveniles, and the three of them  had
picked Richard up  in their talons.  They had carried  him across  the
moat, put him  down temporarily in  a desert area,  and then, after  a
series of  jabbers among  the three  of  them that  must have  been  a
discussion about the optimal way of carrying him, they had lifted  him
high into the air.
    It had been a breathtaking flight.  The view that Richard had  had
of the landscape in the habitat had reminded him of a ride he had once
taken in a hot  air balloon in  southern France. He  had flown in  the
clutches of the avians all the way  to the top of the brown  cylinder,
directly underneath the  bright hooded ball.  They had been  met by  a
half dozen additional  avians, one holding  Richard's computer,  which
was still repeating its graphics. Later they had been escorted down  a
wide vertical corridor into the interior of the cylinder.
    That first fifteen  hours or so  Richard had been  taken from  one
large group of avians to another.  He had thought that his hosts  were
just introducing him to all  the citizens of avianland. Assuming  that
there were not too many avians who attended more than one of the short
jabber and shriek  sessions, Richard estimated  that there were  about
seven hundred individual birds.
    After his parade through the conference halls of the avian  realm,
Richard had been taken  to a small room  where the three-ringed  avian
and two of its associates, each large creatures as well with three red
neck rings, watched him  day and night for  about a week. During  that
time Richard was allowed access to his computer and all the items  in-
the pack. At  the end of  that observation period,  however, they  had
taken away all his belongings and moved him to his prison.
    That must have been three months ago, give or take a week, Richard
said to himself one day as he began his twice-daily walk that was  his
primary  regular  exercise.   The  corridor  outside   his  room   was
approximately two hun-
    444 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    dred meters long. He  usually made eight  complete laps, back  and
forth from the door at the end  of the corridor to the rock wall  just
outside his room.
    And during this entire period there has not been one single  visit
from the leaders. So the observation period must have been my trial-at
least the avion equivalent. . . . And was I found guilty of something?
Is that why I have been restricted to this dingy cell?
    Richard's shoes  were wearing  out and  his clothes  were  already
tattered. Since the temperature  was comfortable (he conjectured  that
it  must  be  twenty-six  degrees  Celsius  everywhere  in  the  avian
habitat), he wasn't worried about being cold. But for many reasons  he
wasn't looking forward to being naked  all the time after his  clothes
eventually  disintegrated.  He  smiled  to  himself,  remembering  his
modesty during the observation period. Taking a crap when three  giant
birds are watching your every move is certainty not an easy task.
    He had grown tired  of eating manna melon  for every meal, but  at
least it was nourishing. The liquid  at the center was refreshing  and
the moist meat had a pleasant taste. But Richard longed for  something
different to eat. Even  that synthetic stuff from  Rama II would be  a
welcome change, he had told himself several times.
    In his solitude  Richard's greatest challenge  had been to  retain
his mental acumen. He had begun by doing mathematical problems in  his
head. More  recently, worried  that the  sharpness of  his memory  had
already decayed measurably because of his age, he had started to  pass
the time by reconstructing events and even entire major  chronological
segments of his life.
    Of particular interest to him  during these memory exercises  were
the huge gaps associated with his odyssey in Rama II during the voyage
from the Earth to the Node.  Although it was difficult for Richard  to
recall many specific events from  the odyssey, eating the manna  melon
always evoked  memory fragments  from his  long stay  with the  avians
during that journey.
    Once, after a meal, he had suddenly recalled a large ceremony with
many avians. He had remembered a fire in a domelike structure and  all
the avians wailing in unison
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    445
    after the fire was over. Richard had been puzzled. He had not been
able to remember anything about the  context of the memory. Where  did
that  take  place?  Was  that  just  before  I  was  captured  by  the
octospiders? he  had wondered.  But as  usual, when  he had  tried  to
remember something about what he had experienced with the octospiders,
he had ended up with a whopping headache.
    Richard was thinking about his earlier odyssey again when, on  the
last lap of his daily walk, he passed underneath the solitary light in
the corridor. He looked in front of  him and saw that the door to  his
prison was open.  That's it,  he said  to himself,  I've finally  gone
crazy. Now I'm seeing things.
    But the door remained open as he approached it. Richard walked  on
through, stopping to touch the open door and to verify that he had not
lost his sanity. He passed two more  lights before he came to a  small
open storage room on the right. Eight or nine manna melons were neatly
stacked on  the shelves.  Ah-ha, Richard  thought. /  get it.  They've
expanded my prison.  From now on  I'm allowed to  obtain my own  food.
Now, if there's just a bathroom somewhere. . . .
    Farther down the hallway there was indeed running water in another
small room on the left. Richard  drank heartily, washed his face,  and
was sorely tempted to bathe. However, his curiosity was too strong. He
wanted to know the extent of his new domain.
    The  corridor  that  ran  just   outside  his  cell  ended  at   a
perpendicular intersection.  Richard  could go  either  way.  Thinking
perhaps that  he  was  in  some  kind  of  maze  to  test  his  mental
capabilities, he  dropped  his outer  shirt  at the  intersection  and
proceeded to  the right.  There were  definitely more  lights in  that
direction.
    After he had  walked for twenty  meters or  so, he saw  a pair  of
avians approaching in  the distance.  Actually he  heard their  jabber
first, for they  were involved  in an animated  discussion. When  they
were only five meters away Richard stopped. The two avians glanced  at
him, acknowledged him with  a short shriek at  a different pitch,  and
then continued on down the corridor.
    He next encountered a trio of avians with roughly the
    446 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    same interaction. What is  going on here?  Richard wondered as  he
continued to walk. Am I no longer in prison?
    In the first large room that  he passed, four avians were  sitting
together in a circle, passing a set of polished sticks back and  forth
and jabbering constantly. Later, just before the hallway widened  into
a major meeting room, Richard stood in the doorway of another  chamber
and watched with fascination as a pair of leggies did what appeared to
be push-ups on the top  of a square table.  Half a dozen quiet  avians
studied the leggies intently.
    There were twenty of the  birdlike creatures in the meeting  room.
They were all gathered around a table, staring at a paperlike document
that had been spread  out in front  of them. One of  the avians had  a
pointer in its talon  and was using it  to indicate specific items  on
the document.  There were  strange squiggles  on the  paper that  were
totally incomprehensible,  but  Richard  convinced  himself  that  the
avians were looking at a map.
    When Richard tried to  move closer to the  table so that he  could
see better, the avians in front of him graciously moved aside. Once in
the ensuing conversation, Richard even thought from the body  language
around the table that one of the questions had been directed at him. /
really am losing my mind, he told himself, shaking his head.
    But I still  don't know why  I have been  given all this  freedom,
Richard thought as he  sat in his  room and ate  his manna melon.  Six
weeks had passed  since he had  found the door  to his prison  opened.
Many changes had been made in  his cell. Two of the lantemlike  lights
had been installed on his walls and Richard was now sleeping on a pile
of material that  reminded him  of hay.  There was  even a  constantly
filled container of fresh water in the corner of his room.
    Richard had  felt certain,  when his  restrictions were  initially
lifted, that it was  only a matter of  hours or at most  a day or  two
before something really significant happened.  In a sense he had  been
correct, for the  next morning  two juvenile aliens  had awakened  him
from his sleep and begun his avian language lessons. They had  started
with simple items, like the manna melon, water, and Richard
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    447
    himself, at which they would first point and then slowly repeat  a
sound, clearly  the jabberword  for that  particular item.  With  some
effort Richard had learned  a great deal  of vocabulary, although  his
ability to differentiate between  closely related shrieks and  jabbers
was not too sharp. He was  absolutely hopeless when it came to  making
the sounds on his own. He simply didn't have the physical equipment to
speak in the avian language.
    But Richard had expected that somehow his knowledge of the  bigger
picture would become clearer, and that had not happened. Certainly the
avians were trying to educate him,  and they had given him freedom  to
roam anywhere  he  wanted in  their  cylinder-he even  ate  with  them
occasionally when he was  in their midst and  the manna melons  showed
up-but what was it all for? The way they looked at him, especially the
leaders, suggested to Richard  that they were  expecting some kind  of
response. But what response? Richard  asked himself for the  hundredth
time as he finished his manna melon.
    As far as Richard  could tell, the avians  did not have a  written
language. He had seen  no books and none  of the creatures ever  wrote
anything.  There  were  those  strange  maplike  documents  that  they
occasionally studied, or at least that was Richard's interpretation of
their activity, but they  never created any of  them ... or marked  on
any of them. It was a puzzle.
    And what about the leggies? Richard encountered the creatures  two
or three times  a week and  once had a  pair in his  room for  several
hours, but they would never sit still and let him analyze one of them.
One time, when he had tried to grasp a leggie in his hand, Richard had
received a rude shock, an electric current almost certainly, that  had
caused him to release the leggie immediately.
    Richard's mind jumped from image to image as he tried to ascertain
some sensible  pattern to  his  life in  avianland. He  was  extremely
frustrated. Yet he  would not accept  for a minute  that there was  no
plan behind  his capture  and then  subsequent increased  freedom.  He
continued to search for an answer by reviewing all his experiences  in
their domain.
    There was only one major area of the avian living quar-
    448 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    ters that was  off limits to  Richard, and he  probably could  not
have reached it  anyway since he  was unable to  fly. Occasionally  he
would see one or two avians descend in the great vertical corridor and
go below the levels that he normally frequented. Once Richard even saw
a pair of hatchlings,  no larger than a  human hand, being carried  up
from the dark regions below.  On another occasion Richard had  pointed
down at the darkness and his  accompanying avian had shaken its  head.
Most of the creatures had learned  the simple head motions of yes  and
no in Richard's language.
    But  somewhere,  Richard   thought,  there   must  be   additional
information. I must  be missing  some clues.  He vowed  to conduct  an
exhaustive survey of the entire avian living area, including not  only
the dense apartments on  the opposite side  of the vertical  corridor,
where he  usually  felt  unwanted,  but also  the  large  manna  melon
storehouses on the bottom level. /  will make a thorough map, he  said
to himself,  to  make  certain  that  I  haven't  neglected  something
critical.
    As soon  as Richard  had rendered  the avian  living area  in  his
three-dimensional graphics, he knew what he had been overlooking.  The
often disorganized passageways in  the cylinder, including  horizontal
and vertical corridors  for both  walking and flight,  had never  been
synthesized by Richard into one  coherent picture. Of course, he  said
to himself as he projected different views of his complex map onto his
computer monitor. How could I have  been so stupid? More than  seventy
percent of the cylinder is still unaccounted for.
    Richard resolved to take his computer pictures to one of the avian
leaders and request, somehow, to see the rest of the cylinder. It  was
not an easy task. Some kind  of crisis was disturbing the avians  that
particular day, as the  corridors were full  of jabbers, shrieks,  and
avians rushing to and fro. Out hi the great vertical corridor  Richard
watched thirty or forty of the largest creatures fly up and out of the
cylinder in some kind of organized formation.
    Finally Richard  managed to  obtain the  attention of  one of  the
three-ringed giants. It was fascinated by the detail
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    449
    it  saw  on  the  computer  monitor  and  by  all  the   different
geometrical representations of  its home.  But Richard  was unable  to
convey his  primary message-that  he wanted  to see  the rest  of  the
cylinder.
    The leader called  in some colleagues  to watch the  demonstration
and  Richard  was  treated  to  appreciative  avian  jabber.  He   was
dismissed, however, when  another bird broke  into their meeting  with
what must have been important news about their ongoing crisis.
    Richard returned to his cell. He  was dejected. He lay on his  hay
mat and thought of  the family that  he had left  behind in New  Eden.
Maybe it's  time for  me  to leave,  he  thought, wondering  what  the
protocol was in avianland for obtaining permission to depart. While he
was lying down a visitor came into his room.
    Richard had never seen this  particular avian before. It had  four
cobalt blue rings around its neck and the velvet covering of its  body
was  a  deep  black  with  occasional  white  tufts.  Its  eyes   were
astonishingly clear  and-or so  Richard surmised-very  sad. The  avian
waited for Richard to  stand and then  started speaking, very  slowly.
Richard  understood   some  of   the  words,   most  importantly   the
oft-repeated combination "follow me."
    Outside his cell  three other avians  were respectfully  standing.
They walked behind Richard and  his important visitor. The group  left
Richard's cell area, crossed the single bridge that spanned the  great
vertical corridor, and entered the  section of the cylinder where  the
manna melons were stored.
    At  the  back  of  one   of  the  manna  melon  storehouses   were
indentations in the  wall that  Richard had  not noticed  when he  had
conducted his survey. When Richard and the avians approached within  a
few meters of the indentations, the wall slid to the side and revealed
what appeared  to  be  an enormous  elevator.  The  avian  superleader
gestured for him to enter.
    Once he  was inside,  the four  avians each  jabbered goodbye  and
formed into a circle to formalize their parting with a turn and a bow.
Richard tried his best to imitate their jabber for good-bye before  he
also bowed  and backed  into  the elevator.  The wall  closed  seconds
later.
    4
    T;
    •he elevator ride was painfully slow. The immense car had a square
floor approximately twenty meters on a  side, with a ceiling that  was
another eight to ten meters above Richard's head. The floor of the car
was flat everywhere except for two pairs of parallel grooves, one pair
on either side of Richard, that ran  from the door to the back of  the
elevator. They can  certainly transport  huge loads  in this,  Richard
thought, staring at the ceiling far above him.
    He tried to estimate the rate  of descent of the elevator, but  it
was impossible. He had no  frame of reference. According to  Richard's
map of  the cylinder,  the manna  melon storehouses  should have  been
about eleven hundred meters above the base. So if we're going all  the
way to the bottom, at what would be a normal elevator speed on  Earth,
then this trip may take several minutes.
    It was  the  longest  three  minutes  of  his  life.  Richard  had
absolutely no idea what he would find when the elevator doors  opened.
Maybe I'll be outside, he thought suddenly.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    451
    Maybe  I'll  be  on  the  edge  of  that  region  with  the  white
structures. . . . Could they be sending me home?
    He had just  begun to wonder  how life might  have changed in  New
Eden when the elevator came to a stop. The large doors opened and  for
several seconds Richard was certain that  his heart had jumped out  of
his body. Standing directly in front of him, and obviously staring  at
him with all their eyes, were  two creatures far stranger than any  he
had ever imagined.
    Richard could not  move. What  he was seeing  was so  unbelievable
that he was  physically paralyzed  while his mind  struggled with  the
bizarre inputs it was receiving from his senses. Each of the beings in
front of him  had four  eyes on  its "head."  In addition  to the  two
large, milky ovals  on either side  of an invisible  line of  symmetry
that bisected the head, each creature had two additional eyes attached
to stalks  raised ten  to  twelve centimeters  above  the top  of  its
forehead. Behind the large head, their bodies had three segments, with
a  pair  of  appendages  for  each  segment,  giving  them  six   legs
altogether. The aliens were standing  upright on their two back  legs,
their front  four  appendages  neatly  tucked  against  their  smooth,
cream-colored underbellies.
    They moved toward  him in  the elevator and  Richard backed  away,
frightened. The two creatures turned to each other and communicated in
a high-frequency noise that originated  from a small circular  orifice
below the oval eyes. Richard blinked, felt dizzy, and dropped down  on
one knee to steady himself. His heart was still pumping furiously.
    The aliens also changed position, putting their middle legs on the
floor. In that posture they resembled giant ants with their front  two
legs off the ground and their  heads raised high. The entire time  the
black spheres  at  the end  of  the  eye stalks  continued  to  pivot,
scanning the  full three  hundred  and sixty  degrees, and  the  milky
material in the dark brown ovals moved from side to side.
    For several minutes they sat more  or less stationary, as if  they
were encouraging Richard to examine  them. Fighting against his  fear,
he tried to study them in an objective,
    452 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    scientific  fashion.  The  creatures  were  roughly  the  size  of
medium-sized dogs, but they certainly weighed much less. Their  bodies
were thin and quite trim. The front and back segments were larger than
the middle  one, and  all three  body divisions  displayed a  polished
carapace on top that was made of some kind of hard material.
    Richard would have  classified them as  very large insects  except
for their  extraordinary appendages,  which were  thick, perhaps  even
muscled, and covered with a short, very dense, black-and-white-striped
"hair" that made  it appear  as if  the creatures  were wearing  panty
hose. Their hands, if  that was the proper  appellation, were free  of
the , hairy covering and had four fingers each, including an  opposing
thumb on the front pair.
    Richard had just summoned  enough courage to  look again at  their
incredible heads when there was a high-pitched, sirenlike noise behind
the two aliens. They turned around.  Richard stood up and saw a  third
creature approaching  at a  rapid clip.  Its motion  was marvelous  to
watch. It ran like a cat with six legs, stretching out parallel to the
ground and pushing off with a different pair of legs at each point  in
its stride.
    The three  engaged  in  a quick  conversation  and  the  newcomer,
lifting up its head and front legs, motioned unambiguously for Richard
to leave the  elevator. He walked  out behind the  trio and entered  a
very large chamber.
    This room was a manna melon storehouse also, but that was its only
similarity to  the one  in the  avian portion  of the  cylinder.  High
technology and automated equipment were everywhere. In the ceiting ten
meters above them,  a mechanical cherry  picker was moving  on a  rail
system. It would grasp individual melons and load them in freight cars
on grooves  at  one end  of  the room.  While  Richard and  his  hosts
watched, a freight car moved down the groove and came to a stop in the
elevator.
    .The creatures bounced off down one of the aisles in the room  and
Richard hastened to  follow. They  waited for  him at  the door,  then
raced to their left, looking backward to see if he was still in sight.
Richard ran after them  for most of the  next two minutes, until  they
reached a wide
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    453
    open atrium, many meters high, with a transportation device in its
center.
    The device was a  remote cousin of  the escalator. Actually  there
were two of them, one going up and another down, that spiraled  around
the two thick poles in the center of the atrium. The escalators  moved
very quickly at  quite a  steep angle. Every  five meters  or so  they
reached die next  level, or floor,  and the passengers  then walked  a
meter to the.spiral escalator around the other pole. What passed for a
railing on  the  side of  the  escalator  was a  barrier  only  thirty
centimeters high. The alien creatures rode in the horizontal position,
with all  six legs  on tire  moving ramp.  Richard, who  was  standing
originally, quickly dropped  down to  all fours to  keep from  falling
out.
    During the ride  a dozen or  so other aliens,  riding on the  down
half of the  escalator, passed Richard  and gawked at  him with  their
amazing faces. But how do they eat? Richard wondered, noting that  the
circular hole  they used  for communication  was certainly  not  large
enough for much  food. There were  no other orifices  on their  heads,
although there were some small knobs and wrinkles whose purposes  were
unknown.
    Where they were taking Richard was  on the eighth or ninth  level.
All three  of  the creatures  waited  for  him until  he  reached  the
appointed platform. Richard  followed them into  a hexagonal  building
with "bright red markings on the front. That's funny, Richard thought,
staring at the strange squiggles. I've seen that writing before. , . .
Of course, on  the map  or whatever document  it was  the avians  were
reading.
    Richard was placed  in a  room that  was well  lit and  tastefully
decorated in  black  and white  with  geometric patterns.  There  were
objects around him of  all shapes and sizes,  but Richard had no  idea
what any of them were. The aliens used sign language to inform Richard
that this was where he was going to stay. Then they departed. A  weary
Richard studied the furniture, trying to figure out which thing  might
be the bed, and then stretched out on the floor to sleep.
    454 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    Myrmicats. That's what I'll call them. Richard had awakened  after
sleeping for four hours  and could not stop  thinking about the  alien
creatures. He wanted to give them  a good name. After dismissing  both
cat-ant and catsect, he  remembered that someone  who studies ants  is
called a myrmecologist. He chose myrmicat because it looked better  in
his mind when spelled with an i instead of an e.,
    Richard looked around him. Every place he had been in the myrmicat
habitat had had good illumination, which was in marked contrast to the
dark, catacomblike  corridors  of  the upper  portions  of  the  brown
cylinder. / have not seen any  of the avians since the elevator  ride,
Richard was  thinking. So  apparently these  two species  do not  live
together. At least not completely. But they both use manna melons. . .
. What exactly is their connection?
    A pair of  myrmicats bounded  through the entry,  placed a  neatly
sectioned melon  and  a  cup  of  water  in  front  of  him,  and  men
disappeared. Richard  was both  hungry  and thirsty.  Several  seconds
after he  had  finished with  his  breakfast, the  pair  of  creatures
returned. Using the hands on their front legs, the myrmicats  gestured
for him  to stand  up. Richard  stared  at them.  Are these  the  same
creatures as yesterday? he wondered. And  are they the same pair  that
brought the  melon  and  the  water? He  thought  back  over  all  the
myrmicats he had seen, including those  who had passed him going  down
the  escalator.  He  could  not  recall  a  single  distinguishing  or
identifying characteristic in  any individual.  So they  all look  the
same? he thought. Then how do they tell each other apart?
    The myrmicats led him out into the corridor and bolted away to the
right. This is great, Richard said  to himself, starting to jog  after
spending a few seconds  admiring the beauty of  their gait. They  must
think humans  are all  athletes. One  of the  myrmicats stopped  about
forty meters in  front of  him. It did  not turn  around, but  Richard
could tell it  was watching him  because both of  its stalk eyes  were
bent back  in his  direction. "I'm  coming," Richard  shouted. "But  I
can't run that fast."
    It wasn't long before Richard figured out that the pair of  aliens
was giving him a guided tour of the myrmicat
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    455
    domain. The tour  was very  logically planned. The  first stop,  a
very brief one, was at a  manna melon storehouse. Richard watched  two
freight cars filled with  melons slide down  grooves into an  elevator
similar to {or identical with) the  one in which he had descended  the
day before.
    After  another  five-minute  jog,  Richard  entered  an   entirely
different section of the myrmicat den. Whereas the walls in the  other
section had been mostly  metallic gray or white,  except in his  room,
here the rooms and corridors were all decorated profusely, either with
colors or geometric patterns or both.  One vast chamber was about  the
size of a theater  and had three  liquid pools in  its floor. About  a
hundred myrmicats were in this  room, half apparently swimming in  the
pools (with only their stalk eyes and the top half of their  carapaces
above the water line), and the other half either sitting on the ridges
dividing the three pools from each other, or milling around in a weird
building on the far side of the room.
    But were  they actually  swimming?  On closer  inspection  Richard
noticed that the creatures did not  move around in the pool-they  just
submerged in  a given  spot and  stayed under  the water  for  several
minutes. Two of the pools were quite thick, roughly the consistency of
a rich, creamy  soup on Earth,  and the third,  clear pool was  almost
certainly water. Richard followed a  single myrmicat as it moved  from
one of the  thick pools to  the water,  then over to  the other  thick
pool. What are they doing? Richard wondered. And why have they brought
me here?
    As if on cue he was tapped on the back by one of the myrmicats. It
pointed to Richard, then to the pools, and then to Richard's mouth. He
had no idea what  it was telling him.  The guide myrmicat next  walked
down the slope  toward the pools  and submerged itself  in one of  the
thicker pools. When it returned it stood on its back pair of legs  and
pointed to the grooves between the segments of its soft, cream-colored
underbelly.
    It was clearly important to the myrmicats that Richard  understand
what was  going  on at  the  pools. At  the  next stop  he  watched  a
combination of myrmicats and some high-technology machines grinding up
fibrous material and then  mixing it with water  and other liquids  to
create a thin
    456 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    slurry that looked like  what was in one  of the pools. At  length
one of the aliens put its ringer into the slurry and then touched  the
material to Richard's lips. They must be telling me that the pools are
for feeding, Richard thought. So they don't eat manna melon after all?
Or at least they have a more varied diet? This is all fascinating.
    Soon they were off on another jog to another distant comer of  the
den. Here Richard  saw thirty  or forty  smaller creatures,  obviously
juvenile myrmicats, engaged in activities with supervisory adults.  In
physical appearance the little ones resembled their elders except  for
one major difference-they had no carapace. Richard concluded that  the
hard top covering was  probably not exuded by  the creature until  its
growth was  complete.  Although  Richard imagined  that  what  he  saw
occurring with the juveniles was  a rough approximation of school,  or
perhaps a nursery, he of course had no way of knowing for certain. But
at one point  he was  sure that he  heard the  juveniles repeating  in
unison a sequence of sounds made by an adult myrmicat.
    Richard next rode the escalator with  his pair of tour guides.  On
about the twentieth  level the  creatures left the  escalator and  the
open atrium,  racing quickly  down a  corridor that  ended in  a  vast
factory filled with  myrmicats and machines  engaged in an  impressive
array of tasks. His guides always seemed  to be in a hurry, so it  was
difficult for Richard to study any particular process. The factory was
like a machine shop on Earth.  There were noises of all kinds,  smells
of chemicals  and  metals, and  the  whine of  myrmicat  communication
throughout the  room.  At  one  position Richard  watched  a  pair  of
myrmicats repair a cherry  picker similar to the  machine that he  had
seen operating in the manna melon storehouse the day before.
    In one corner of  the factory was a  special area that was  sealed
off from the rest of the work. Although his guides did not lead him in
that direction,  Richard's curiosity  was piqued.  Nobody stopped  him
when he crossed the  threshold of the special  area. Inside the  large
cubicle  a  myrmicat   operator  was  presiding   over  an   automated
manufacturing process.
    Long, skinny, jointed pieces of light metal or plastic
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    457
    •fc
    came into the room  on a conveyor belt  from one direction.  Small
spheres about two  centimeters in  diameter entered  from an  adjacent
cubicle on  another conveyor.  Where the  two belts  merged, a  large,
rectangular machine, mounted in housing that was hanging from the high
ceiling, descended  onto  the parts  with  a peculiar  sucking  sound.
Thirty seconds  later  the myrmicat  operator  caused the  machine  to
withdraw and a pair  of leggies scrambled off  the belt, folded  their
long legs around them, and jumped into positions in a box that  looked
like a gigantic egg carton.
    Richard  watched  the  process   repeat  several  times.  He   was
fascinated. He was also slightly bewildered. So the myrmicats make the
leggies. And the maps. And probably the spacecraft too, wherever  they
and the  avians come  from. So  what is  this? Some  advanced kind  of
symbiosis?
    He shook his head as the  leggie assembly process in front of  him
continued. Moments later Richard heard a myrmicat noise behind him. He
turned around. One of  his guides extended a  slice of manna melon  in
his direction.
    Richard was becoming  exhausted. He had  no idea how  long he  had
been touring, but he felt as if it had been many, many hours.
    There was no way  he could possibly  synthesize everything he  had
seen. After the ride in the small elevator to the upper reaches of the
myrmicat region, where Richard not only had visited the avian hospital
staffed and run  by the  myrmicats, but  also had  watched the  avians
hatching out  of  brown, leathery  eggs  under the  watchful  eyes  of
myrmicat doctors, Richard  knew for  certain that there  was indeed  a
complex symbiotic relationship  between the two  species. But why?  he
wondered as his guides allowed him to rest temporarily near the top of
the escalator. The avians clearly benefit from the myrmicats. But what
do these giant ant-cats get from the avians?
    His guides  led him  down a  broad corridor  toward a  large  door
several hundred  meters  in  the  distance. For  once  they  were  not
running. As they neared  the door, three  other myrmicats entered  the
hallway from smaller side corridors and the creatures began to talk in
their high-frequency language. At one point all five of them stopped
    458 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    and Richard imagined that  an argument was  under way. He  studied
them carefully while  they talked,  especially their  faces. Even  the
wrinkles and folds around the noise-making orifice and oval eyes  were
identical from creature to  creature. There was  absolutely no way  of
distinguishing one myrmicat from another.
    At length the entire  group began again to  walk toward the  door.
From the  distance Richard  had underestimated  its size.  As he  drew
near, he could see that it was twelve to fifteen meters tall, and more
than three meters wide. Its surface was intricately and  magnificently
carved, the central focus  of the artwork  being a square,  four-panel
decoration with a  flying avian in  the upper left  quadrant, a  manna
melon in  the  upper right,  a  running  myrmicat in  the  lower  left
partition, and something that looked like cotton candy with  scattered
thick, clustered lumps in the lower right.
    Richard stopped to  admire the artwork.  At first he  had a  vague
feeling that he had  seen this door, or  at least the design,  before,
but he told himself that it  couldn't be possible. However, as he  was
running his fingers across  the sculpted figure  of the myrmicat,  his
memory suddenly awoke. Yes, Richard  thought excitedly to himself,  of
course. At the back of the avian  lair in Rama II. That was where  the
fire was.
    Moments later the  door swung  open and Richard  was ushered  into
what resembled a  large underground  cathedral. The room  in which  he
found himself was over fifty meters tall. Its basic floor shape was  a
circle, about thirty meters in  diameter, and there were six  separate
naves off to  the side, around  the circle. The  walls were  dazzling.
Virtually  every  square  inch  contained  sculptures  or   supporting
frescoes meticulously created with great  attention to detail. It  was
overwhelmingly beautiful.
    At the center of the cathedral was an elevated platform on which a
myrmicat was standing and speaking. Below him were a dozen others, all
sitting on their  back four legs  and watching the  speaker with  rapt
attention.
    As Richard  wandered  around in  the  room he  realized  that  the
decorations  on  the  wall,  in   a  meter-wide  strip  about   eighty
centimeters above the floor, were telling an
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    459
    orderly story.  Richard  quietly  followed the  artwork  until  he
reached what he  thought was  the beginning  of the  story. The  first
decoration was a  sculptured portrait of  a manna melon.  In the  next
three panels  something  could  be  seen  growing  inside  the  melon.
Whatever was growing was tiny in  the second panel, but by the  fourth
sculpture it occupied almost the entire interior of the melon.
    In the fifth panel  a tiny head with  two milky, oval eyes,  stalk
nubs, and a small circular orifice below the eyes could be seen poking
its way out of the melon. The sixth sculpture, which showed a juvenile
myrmicat very much like the ones Richard had seen earlier in the  day,
confirmed what he  had been  surmising as  he had  been following  the
decorations. Holy shit, Richard said to himself. So a manna melon is a
myrmicat egg! His thoughts raced  ahead. But that doesn't make  sense.
The avians eat the melons. . . . In fact, the myrmicats even feed them
to me. . . . What's going on here?
    Richard was so astonished by what he had discovered (and so  tired
from all the running during the tour) that he sat down in front of the
sculpture containing the  juvenile myrmicats. He  tried to figure  out
the relationship between the myrmicats  and the avians. He could  cite
no parallel  symbiosis  on Earth,  although  he was  well  aware  that
species often  worked together  to improve  each other's  chances  for
survival. But how could one species remain friendly with another  when
its eggs were the sole food for the second species? Richard  concluded
that what he had  thought were fundamental  biological tenets did  not
apply to the avians and the myrmicats.
    While Richard was pondering the strange new things he had learned,
a group of myrmicats gathered around him. They all motioned for him to
stand up. A minute later he was following them down a winding ramp  on
the other side of the room to a special crypt in the basement of their
cathedral.
    For the  first time  since  Richard had  entered the  habitat  the
lighting was  dim.  The  myrmicats beside  him  moved  slowly,  almost
reverently, as  they proceeded  down a  broad passage  with an  arched
ceiling. At the  other end of  the passage  was a pair  of doors  that
opened into a large room
    460 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    filled with a  soft white material.  Although the material,  which
looked  like  cotton  from  a  distance,  was  densely  arrayed,   its
individual filaments were  mostly very  thin, except  where they  came
together in clumps, or  ganglia, that were  scattered in no  definable
pattern throughout the large white volume.
    Richard and the myrmicats stopped in  the entryway, a meter or  so
away from where the  material began. The  cottony network extended  in
all directions for as far as Richard could see. While he was  studying
its intricate mesh  construction, the  elements of  the material  very
slowly began to move, pulling apart to form a lane that would continue
the path  from the  passage into  the interior  of its  network.  It's
alive, Richard thought, his pulse racing as he watched in  fascination
and terror.
    Five minutes later,  an alley had  opened up that  was just  large
enough for Richard to walk ten meters into the material. The myrmicats
around him were all pointing  toward the cottony web. Richard  started
shaking his  head.  I'm sorry,  fellas,  Richard wanted  to  say,  but
there's something about this situation that I don't tike. So I'll just
skip this part of the tour if it's all right with you.
    The myrmicats kept pointing.  Richard had no  choice, and he  knew
it. What is it going to do to  me? he asked as he took his first  step
forward. Eat me? Is that what this has been all about? That would make
no sense at all.
    He turned around. The myrmicats had not moved. Richard took a deep
breath and walked the full ten meters  into the lane, to a spot  where
he could reach  out and touch  one of  the odd ganglia  in the  living
mesh. As he was examining the ganglion carefully, the material  around
him began to move again. Richard whirled around and saw that the  lane
behind him was closing. Momentarily frantic,  he tried to ran in  that
direction, back toward the passage, but it was a waste of energy.  The
net caught him and he resigned himself to accept whatever was going to
happen next.
    Richard stood perfectly still as  the web enveloped him. The  tiny
elements,  like  threads,  were  about  a  millimeter  wide.   Slowly,
steadily, they began to cover  his body. Wait, Richard thought,  wait.
You're going to suffocate me.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    461
    But surprisingly, even though  hundreds of filaments were  already
wrapping around  his  head  and  face, he  was  having  no  difficulty
breathing.
    Before his hands were  immobilized, Richard tried  to pull one  of
the tiny elements off his arm.  It was almost impossible. As they  had
been wrapping around him, the threads had also been making  insertions
in his skin.  After many  tugs, he  finally succeeded  in freeing  the
white filaments from  one small  portion of  his forearm,  but he  was
bleeding in the areas that had  been freed. Richard surveyed his  body
and estimated  that he  probably had  a million  or so  pieces of  the
living mesh underneath the outer layer of his skin. He shuddered.
    Richard was still amazed that he  had not suffocated. As his  mind
began to wonder how air was getting  to him through the web, he  heard
another voice inside his head.  Stop trying to analyze everything,  it
said. You'll never understand  it anyway. For once  in your life  just
experience the incredible adventure.
    5
    A:
    gain Richard had lost track .of time. Sometime during the days (or
had it been weeks?) that he had  been living inside the alien net,  he
had changed positions. His clothes had also been removed by his  hosts
during one  of his  long naps.  Richard  was now  lying on  his  back,
supported by  an extremely  dense  section of  the fine  mesh  network
enveloping his body.
    His mind  no  longer actively  wondered  how he  was  managing  to
survive. Somehow, whenever he  felt hunger or  thirst, his needs  were
swiftly satisfied.  His  wastes  always  disappeared  within  minutes.
Breathing was easy  even though  he was completely  surrounded by  the
living web.
    Richard passed many of his  conscious hours studying the  creature
around him. If  he looked carefully,  he could see  the tiny  elements
constantly in motion. The patterns in the net around him altered  very
slowly, but they definitely did  change. Richard mentally plotted  the
trajectories of the  ganglia that  he could  see. At  one point  three
separate ganglia migrated into his  vicinity and formed a triangle  in
front of his head.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    463
    The net developed a regular cycle of interacting with Richard.  It
would keep its millions  of filaments attached to  him for fifteen  to
twenty hours at a  time, and then release  him completely for  several
hours. Richard slept without dreaming whenever he was not attached  to
the web. If he happened to awaken still in the unattached mode, he was
enervated and listless. But each time the threads began to wind around
him again he felt a renewed surge of energy.
    His dreams were active and vivid if he slept while attached to the
alien net. Richard had never dreamed much before and had often laughed
at Nicole's preoccupation with her dreams. But as his sleeping  images
became more complex, and in some cases quite bizarre, Richard began to
appreciate why Nicole  paid so much  attention to them.  One night  he
dreamed that he  was again a  teenager and was  watching a  theatrical
performance of As You  Like It in  his hometown of  Stratford-on-Avon.
The lovely blond  girl who  was playing  Rosalind came  down from  the
stage and whispered in his ear.
    "Are you Richard Wakefield?" she asked in the dream.
    "Yes," he answered.
    The actress  began  to  kiss  Richard,  first  slowly,  then  more
passionately with a lively, tickling tongue darting around inside  his
mouth. He  felt  a surge  of  overpowering  desire and  then  woke  up
abruptly,  strangely  embarrassed  by  both  his  nakedness  and   his
erection. Now, what was that ail about? Richard wondered, echoing  the
phrase he had often heard from Nicole.
    At some stage in his captivity his recollections of Nicole  became
much sharper, more clearly delineated.  Richard found to his  surprise
mat in the absence of other  stimuli he was able, if he  concentrated,
to recall entire conversations with Nicole, including such details  as
the kind of facial expressions she used to punctuate her sentences. In
the protracted solitude  of his  long period inside  the web,  Richard
often ached with loneliness,  the vivid memories  making him miss  his
beloved wife even more.
    His memories of the  children were equally  sharp. He missed  them
all as well,  especially Katie.  He remembered  his last  conversation
with his special daughter, several
    464 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    days before the wedding, when she had come by the house to pick up
some of her clothes. Katie had been depressed, and needed support, but
Richard had been unable to help her. The connection just wasn't there,
Richard thought. The recent image of  Katie as a sexy young woman  was
replaced by  a  picture of  a  reckless ten-year-old  girl  scampering
across the plazas  of New York.  The juxtaposition of  the two  images
provoked  a  profound  feeling  of  loss  in  Richard.  /  was   never
comfortable with Katie after she awakened, he realized with a sigh.  /
still wanted my little girl.
    The clarity of  his recollections  of Nicole  and Katie  convinced
Richard that something extraordinary was  happening to his memory.  He
discovered that he could also recall  the exact scores of every  World
Cup quarter-final, semifinal, and final between 2174 and 2190. Richard
had known all that useless information as a young man, for he had been
an avid soccer fan. However, during the years before the launch of the
Newton, when so  many new things  had crowded into  his brain, he  had
often been unable, even during soccer discussions with his friends, to
recall even the participants in a key World Cup match.
    As the  visual  images from  his  memories continued  to  sharpen,
Richard found that he  was also recalling the  emotions that had  been
associated with the pictures. It was  almost as if he were  completely
reliving the experiences. In one  long recollection he remembered  not
only die overpowering feelings of love and adoration that he had  felt
for Sarah Tydings when he had first seen her perform onstage, but also
the thrill and excitement of their courtship, including the  unbridled
passion of their first night of love. It had left him breathless then;
and now, many years later, enveloped by an alien creature resembling a
neural net, Richard's response was equally powerful.
    Soon it seemed as if Richard no longer had any control over  which
memories were  activated in  his brain.  In the  beginning, or  so  he
believed, he had  purposely thought  about Nicole or  his children  or
even his courtship with the young Sarah Tydings, just to make  himself
happy. Now, he said one day in an imaginary conversation with the
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    465
    sessile  net,  after  refreshing  my  memory-for  God  knows  what
purpose-it seems that you are reading it all out.
    For  many  hours  Richard  enjoyed  the  forced  memory   readout,
especially those portions covering his life at Cambridge and the Space
Academy, when  his days  were enlivened  by the  constant joy  of  new
knowledge. Quantum physics,  the Cambrian  explosion, probability  and
statistics, even the long-forgotten  vocabulary words from his  German
lessons reminded him how much of his happiness in life had been due to
the  excitement  of  learning.  In  another  particularly   satisfying
remembrance, his mind jumped swiftly from play to play, covering every
live performance of Shakespeare that he  had seen between the ages  of
ten and seventeen. Everyone  needs a hero,  Richard thought after  the
montage of scenes,  as impetus to  bring out the  best in himself.  My
hero was definitely William Shakespeare.
    Some of  the  memories were  painful,  especially those  from  his
childhood. In one of them Richard  was eight years old again,  sitting
on a  bench  at the  small  table in  his  family's dining  room.  The
atmosphere at the table was tense. His father, drunk and angry at  the
world, was  glowering at  all of  them  as they  ate their  dinner  in
silence. Richard accidentally  spilled some  of his  soup and  seconds
later the  back  of his  father's  hand hit  him  hard on  the  cheek,
knocking him off his bench and into  the corner of the room, where  he
trembled from fear and shock. He had not thought about that moment for
years. Richard was  unable to restrain  his tears as  he recalled  how
helpless and scared he had been around his neurotic, abusive father.
    One day Richard suddenly began  to remember details from his  long
odyssey in Rama II and a powerful headache almost blinded him. He  saw
himself in a  strange room, lying  on a floor  surrounded by three  or
four octospiders.  Dozens of  probes and  other instruments  had  been
implanted in him and some kind of test was under way.
    "Stop, stop," Richard shouted, destroying the memory picture  with
his acute agitation. "My head is killing me."
    Miraculously his  headache began  to fade  and Richard  was  again
among the octospiders in his memory. He re-
    466 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AN~D GENTRY LEE
    called the days and  days of testing that  he had experienced  and
the tiny living  creatures that had  been inserted into  his body.  He
recalled also a  peculiar set of  sexual experiments in  which he  had
been subjected to all kinds of external stimulation and rewarded  when
he ejaculated.
    Richard was  startled by  these  new memories  that he  had  never
accessed before, never  once since he  had awakened from  the coma  in
which his  family had  found him  in New  York. Now  I remember  other
things about the octo'spiders too,  he thought excitedly. They  talked
to each other  in colors that  wrapped around their  heads. They  were
basically friendly,  but determined  to  learn everything  they  could
about me. They-
    The mental picture vanished  and Richard's headache returned.  The
threads from the net had just disconnected. Richard was exhausted  and
quickly fell asleep.
    After days  and days  of  one memory  after another,  the  readout
abruptly ceased. Richard's mind  was no longer  driven by an  external
forcing function. The threads of the net remained unattached for  long
periods of time.
    A week passed without  incident. In the  second week, however,  an
unusual spherical ganglion,  far larger and  more densely wrapped  man
the normal clumps  in the living  web, began to  develop about  twenty
centimeters away from Richard's head.  The ganglion grew until it  was
about the  size of  a basketball.  Soon thereafter  the immense  clump
issued hundreds of  filaments that inserted  themselves into the  skin
around the circumference of Richard's skull. At last, Richard thought,
ignoring the  pain caused  by the  invasion of  the threads  into  his
brain, now we will see what this has all been about.
    He began immediately to see  some kind of pictures, although  they
were so  fuzzy  that he  could  not identify  anything  specific.  The
quality of Richard's mental images improved very quickly, however, for
he cleverly devised a rudimentary way of communicating "with the  web.
As soon as  the first image  appeared in his  mind, Richard  concluded
that the net, which had been  reading his memory output for days,  was
now trying to write into his brain.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    467
    But the web obviously had no  way of measuring the quality of  the
images that Richard was  receiving. Remembering his  trips to the  eye
doctor as a  boy and the  communication pattern that  resulted in  the
final specifications  for his  eyeglass  lenses, Richard  pointed  his
thumb up or down to indicate whether  each change the net made in  its
transmission process made the picture better or worse. In that  manner
Richard was soon able to "see"  what the alien was attempting to  show
him.
    The  first  pictures  were  images  of  a  planet  taken  from   a
spacecraft. The  cloud-covered world  with two  smallish moons  and  a
distant, solitary yellow star as its heat and light source was  almost
certainly the home planet of the  sessile webs. The suite of  pictures
that followed showed Richard various landscapes from the planet.
    Fog was ubiquitous on  the home world of  the sessiles. Below  the
fog in most of the images was a brown, rock-less, barren surface. Only
in the littorals where the barren 'ground encountered the waves of the
green liquid lakes and oceans was there any suggestion of life. In one
of these  oases  Richard saw  not  only  several avians,  but  also  a
fascinating melange of other living  things. Richard could have  spent
days examining just one or  two of these pictures,  but he was not  in
control of  the image  sequence.  The net  had  some purpose  for  its
communication, he was certain, and the first set of pictures was  only
an introduction.
    All of  the remaining  images featured  either an  avian, a  manna
melon, a myrmicat, a sessile web, or some combination of the  quartet.
The scenes were all taken from what Richard assumed was "normal  life"
on their home planet, and expanded  on the general theme of  symbiosis
among the species. In several pictures the aliens were shown defending
the subterranean colonies of the myrmicats and sessiles from invasions
by what appeared to be small animals and plants. Other images depicted
the myrmicats ministering  to avian hatchlings  or transporting  large
quantities of manna melons to an avian mound.
    Richard was puzzled when he saw several pictures that showed  tiny
manna melons embedded inside the sessile
    468 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    creatures. Why  would the  myrmicats lay  their eggs  in here?  he
wondered. For protection? Or are these  weird webs a kind of  thinking
placenta?
    One definite  impression  left upon  Richard  by the  sequence  of
images was  that  the sessiles  were,  in a  hierarchical  sense,  the
dominant species of the  three. The pictures  all suggested that  both
the myrmicats and  the avians  paid homage  to the  web creatures.  Do
these nets, then, somehow do all the important thinking for the avians
and rriyr-micats?  Richard asked  himself. What  incredible  symbiotic
relationships. .  .  . How  in  the  world could  they  possibly  have
evolved?
    There were  several thousand  frames altogether  in the  sequence.
After it  repeated  twice,  the  filaments  detached  themselves  from
Richard and returned to the giant ganglion. In the days that  followed
Richard was essentially left alone, the attachments to his host  being
limited to those necessary for him to survive.
    When a  lane formed  in the  web  and Richard  could see  me  door
through which he had entered many weeks before, he thought that he was
going to be released. His  momentary excitement, however, was  quickly
dampened. At his first attempt to move, the sessile net tightened  its
grip on all parts of his body.
    So what is the purpose of the lane? As Richard watched, a trio  of
myrmicats entered from the hallway. The creature in the middle had two
broken legs, and its back segment was  crushed, as if it had been  run
over by a heavy car or truck. Its two companions carried the  disabled
myrmicat into the web  and then departed.  Within seconds the  sessile
began to wrap itself around the new arrival.
    Richard was about two meters away from the crippled myrmicat.  The
region between him and the  injured creature emptied of all  filaments
and clumps.  Richard had  never  before seen  such  a gap  inside  the
sessile. So my  education continues, he  mused. What is  it that I  am
supposed to learn  now? That  sessiles are doctors  to the  myrmicats,
just as the myrmicats are doctors to the avians?
    The web did not limit its attention to the injured portions
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    469
    of the myrmicat. In  fact, during one  long waking period  Richard
watched the net completely enclose the creature in a tight cocoon.  At
the same  time, the  large ganglion  in Richard's  immediate  vicinity
migrated over to the cocoon.
    Later, after a nap, Richard noticed that the ganglion had returned
to his side. The cocoon across the gap had almost finished unraveling.
Richard's pulse rate doubled as the cocoon completely disappeared  and
there was no trace of the myrmicat.
    Richard didn't have much time to  wonder what had happened to  the
myrmicat. Within minutes  the filaments from  the large ganglion  were
again attached  to his  skull  and another  picture show  was  playing
inside his  brain. In  the very  first image  Richard saw  five  human
soldiers camping on the  shore of the moat  inside the avian  habitat.
They were  eating a  meal. Beside  them were  an impressive  array  of
weapons, including two machine guns.
    The pictures that followed showed humans on the attack  throughout
the second habitat. Two of the early scenes were especially  gruesome.
In the first a juvenile avian  had been decapitated in midair and  was
falling to the ground. A  pair of satisfied humans congratulated  each
other in the lower  left portion of the  same frame. The second  image
depicted a large square  hole in one of  the grassland sectors of  the
green region. Inside  the hole could  be seen the  remains of  several
dead avians. A  human with  a wheelbarrow containing  another pair  of
avian corpses was approaching the mass grave from the left.
    Richard was  staggered  by what  he  was seeing.  What  are  these
pictures anyway? he wondered. And why am I seeing them now? He quickly
reviewed all the  recent events  in his sessile  world and  concluded,
with considerable shock, that the disabled myrmicat must have actually
seen everything Richard was being shown, and that the web creature had
somehow  removed  the  images  from  the  mind  of  the  myrmicat  and
transferred them into Richard's brain.
    Once he understood what he was seeing, Richard paid more attention
to the pictures themselves. He was completely outraged by the invasion
and slaughter that he saw.
    470 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    In one of the later images three human soldiers were shown raiding
an avion apartment complex  inside the brown  cylinder. There were  no
survivors.
    These poor creatures are doomed, Richard said to himself, and they
must know it. . . .
    Tears suddenly formed  in Richard's eyes  and a profound  sadness,
deeper than any he  had ever known,  accompanied his realization  that
members of  his  own  species were  systematically  exterminating  the
avians. No, no, he shouted silently. Stop, oh, please stop. Can't  you
see what'you are  doing? These  avians, too, proclaim  the miracle  of
chemicals raised  to consciousness.  They are  like us.  They are  our
brothers.
    In the next several seconds  Richard's many interactions with  the
birdlike creatures flooded  his memory and  chased away the  implanted
images. They  saved my  life, he  thought, his  mind focusing  on  the
flight long ago across the Cylindrical Sea. With absolutely no benefit
to themselves. What  human, he  said to himself  bitterly, would  have
done such a good deed for an avian?
    Richard had rarely  sobbed in  his life.  But his  sorrow for  the
avians overpowered him. As he wept, all his experiences since entering
the avian habitat filed through his mind. Richard recalled  especially
the sudden  change  in  their  treatment of  him  and  his  subsequent
transfer to the realm of the myrmicats. Then came the guided tour  and
my eventual placement here. . .  . It's obvious they have been  trying
to communicate with me. But why?
    At that instant Richard had an  epiphany of such power that  tears
rushed into his eyes  again. Because they  are desperate, he  answered
himself. They are begging me to help.
    6
    gain a large  void was cremated  in the interior  of the  sessile.
Richard watched carefully as thirty small ganglia formed into a sphere
with a diameter of  about fifty centimeters on  the other side of  the
gap. An unusually thick  filament connected each  of the ganglia  with
the center  of the  sphere.  At first,  Richard could  detect  nothing
inside the sphere. After  the ganglia had  moved to another  location,
however, he saw, where the sphere  had been, a tiny green object  with
hundreds of infinitesimal threads anchoring it to the rest of the web.
    It grew very slowly. The ganglia had already finished migrating to
three new positions, repeating  the same spherical configuration  each
time, before Richard recognized that  what was growing in the  sessile
was a manna melon. He was thunderstruck. Richard could not imagine how
the vanished myrmicat could  possibly have left  behind eggs that  had
taken so long to germinate. And they  must have been only a few  cells
then. Tiny, tiny embryos somehow nurtured here. . . .
    His own thoughts were interrupted by his realization
    472 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    that these new  manna melons were  developing in a  region of  the
sessile that was almost twenty meters away from where the myrmicat had
been cocooned.  So this  web creature  transported the  eggs from  one
place to another? And then retained them for weeks?
    Richard's logical mind  began to  reject the  hypothesis that  the
vanished myrmicat had  laid any  eggs at  all. Slowly  but surely,  he
developed an alternative  explanation for  what he  had observed  that
suggested a biology more complex than  any he had ever encountered  on
Earth. What if,  he asked  himself, the manna  melons, myrmicats,  and
this sessile web are all manifestations of what we would call the same
species?
    Staggered by  the ramifications  of this  simple thought,  Richard
spent two long waking periods reviewing everything he had seen  inside
the second habitat.  As he  stared at  the four  manna melons  growing
across the gap from him,  Richard envisioned a cycle of  metamorphosis
in which the  manna melons gave  birth to the  myrmicats, who in  turn
came to die and add new matter to the sessile net, which then laid the
manna melon eggs that  began the process again.  There was nothing  he
had  observed  that  was  inconsistent  with  this  explanation.   But
Richard's brain was  exploding with thousands  of questions, not  only
about how this  intricate set  of metamorphoses took  place, but  also
about why this species  had evolved into such  a complex being in  the
first place.
    Most of Richard's  academic study had  been in fields  mat he  had
always proudly called "hard science." Mathematics and physics had been
the primary elements of his  education. As he struggled to  understand
the possible life cycle  of the creature in  which he had been  living
for many weeks,  Richard was  bewildered by his  ignorance. He  wished
that he had learned much more about biology. For how can I help  them?
he asked himself. / have no idea even where to start.
    Much later,  Richard would  wonder if  by this  time in  his  stay
inside the sessile, the creature had learned not only how to read  his
memory, but also how to interpret his thoughts. His visitors arrived a
few days  afterward.  Again  a  lane formed  in  the  sessile  between
Richard's posi-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    473
    tion and the original entry  way. Four identical myrmicats  walked
down the  lane  and gestured  for  Richard  to join  them.  They  were
carrying his clothes. When Richard made  an effort to move, his  alien
host did not  try to  restrain him. His  legs were  wobbly, but  after
dressing, Richard  managed  to  follow the  myrmicats  back  into  the
corridor deep within the brown cylinder.
    The large chamber had obviously  been recently modified. The  vast
mural on its walls was  not yet completed. In  fact, at the same  time
that Richard's myrmicat teacher was pointing to specific items in  the
painting that had already been  finished, myrmicat artists were  still
at work on the remainder of the mural. During Richard's early  lessons
in the room,  as many  as a  dozen of  the creatures  were engaged  in
sketching or painting the other sections.
    Only one visit to the mural  chamber was necessary for Richard  to
ascertain its purpose. The entire room  was being created to give  him
information on how  he could help  the alien species  survive. It  was
clear these extraterrestrials knew that they were about to be  overrun
and destroyed by  the humans. The  paintings in this  room were  their
attempt to provide Richard with the  data he might need to save  them.
But could he learn enough simply from the pictures?
    The artwork was brilliant. From time to time Richard would suspend
the activity  in his  left  brain that  was  trying to  interpret  the
messages in the paintings so that his right brain could appreciate the
talent of the myrmicat  artists. The creatures  worked in the  upright
position, their back two legs on  the floor and their four front  legs
operating together to  implement the sketch  or painting. They  talked
among themselves, apparently  asking questions,  but did  not make  so
much noise that Richard was disturbed across the chamber.
    The entire  first  half of  the  mural  was a  textbook  in  alien
biology. It  proved that  Richard's fundamental  understanding of  the
strange creature was  correct. There  were over  a hundred  individual
paintings in the main  sequence, of which  two dozen showed  different
stages  in  the   development  of  the   myrmicat  embryo,   expanding
considerably the
    474 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    knowledge that Richard had gleaned from the sculptures inside  the
myrmicat cathedral. The  primary panels  explaining the  embryologicai
progression followed a straight line around the walls of the  chamber.
Above and  below  these  main sequence  pictures  were  supporting  or
supplementary  frames,   most   of   which   were   beyond   Richard's
comprehension.
    For example, a quartet of  supporting paintings had been  arranged
around a picture of a manna melon that had recently been removed  from
a sessile web, but had not yet begun any myrmicat development activity
in its  interior.  Richard  was certain  that  these  four  additional
pictures were  trying  to  give him  specific  information  about  the
ambient conditions  required for  the  germination process  to  begin.
However, the myrmicat artists had used scenes from their home  planet,
illustrating the desired conditions with landscapes of fogs and  lakes
and their native  flora and  fauna, to communicate  the data.  Richard
just shook  his  head  when  the myrmicat  teacher  pointed  at  these
paintings.
    A diagram across the top of the main sequence used suns and  moons
to specify time scales. Richard  understood from the arrangement  that
the lifetime of  the myrmicat  manifestation of the  species was  very
short when compared with the lifetime of the sessiles. He was  unable,
however, to figure out anything else the diagram was trying to convey.
    Richard  was   also   somewhat  confused   about   the   numerical
relationships among the  different manifestations of  the species.  It
was clear that each manna melon  resulted in a single myrmicat  (there
were no examples  of twins shown),  and that a  sessile could  produce
many manna melons'. But what was  the ratio of sessiles to  myrmicats?
In one frame  a large  sessile was  presented with  a dozen  different
myrmicats in its  interior, each  in a different  phase of  cocooning.
What was that supposed to indicate?
    Richard slept in a small room not far from the mural chamber.  His
lessons lasted three to four hours  each, after which he would be  fed
or allowed to sleep. Sometimes,  when he entered the chamber,  Richard
would glance  over at  the paintings,  some still  incomplete, in  the
second half of the mural. If that happened, the lights in the chamber
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    475
    would immediately  be extinguished.  The  myrmicats wanted  to  be
certain that Richard learned his biology first.
    After about ten days  the second half of  the mural was  finished.
Richard was  stunned when  he was  finally allowed  to study  it.  The
renderings of  the many  human beings  and avians  were  exceptionally
accurate.  Richard  himself  appeared  half  a  dozen  times  in   the
paintings. With his long hair and  beard, both of them more than  half
white, he almost didn't recognize himself. / could pass for Christ  in
these pictures, he joked as he wandered around the chamber.
    Part of  the  remaining mural  was  a historical  summary  of  the
invasion of the  alien habitat by  the humans. There  was more  detail
than Richard had seen in his  mental picture show while he was  inside
the sessile, but he did not learn anything substantively new. He  was,
however, again disturbed  emotionally by the  horrible details of  the
continuing massacre.
    The pictures also triggered an  interesting question in his  mind.
Why had the contents  of this mural not  been transferred directly  to
him by  the  sessile,  thereby  obviating the  entire  effort  by  the
myrmicat artists? Perhaps, Richard mused,  the sessile is a  recording
device only, and is incapable of  imagination. Maybe it can only  show
me what has already been seen by one of the myrmicats.
    What  was  left   of  the  mural   explicitly  defined  what   the
myrmicat/sessile creatures were asking Richard  to do. In each of  his
portraits he was  wearing a large  blue pack over  his shoulders.  The
pack had two large  pockets in the  front, and two  more in the  back,
each containing  a manna  melon. There  were two  additional,  smaller
pockets on  the sides  of the  pack.  One was  stuffed with  a  silver
cylindrical  tube  about  fifteen  centimeters  long  and  the   other
contained two small, leathery avian eggs.
    The mural  showed  Richard's  suggested  activity  in  an  orderly
sequence. He would leave the brown cylinder through an exit below  the
ground level, and come out  in the green region  on the other side  of
both the ring of white buildings and the thin canal. There, guided  by
a pair of avians, he would descend to .the shore of the moat, where he
would be picked up by a small submarine. The subma-
    476 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    rine would  dive under  the module  wall, enter  a large  body  of
water,  and  then  surface  on  the  shore  of  an  island  with  many
skyscrapers.
    Richard smiled as he  studied the mural.  So both the  Cylindrical
Sea and New York  are still here, he  thought. He remembered what  the
Eagle had  said about  not making  unnecessary changes  to Rama.  That
means our lair may be there as well.
    There were many  additional pictures surrounding'Richard's  escape
sequence, some giving more details about the alien plants and  animals
in the green region, and others providing explicit instructions on how
to operate the submarine. When Richard  tried to copy what he  thought
was the most important of this information into his portable  computer
from the  Newton,  the  myrmicat teacher  suddenly  seemed  impatient.
Richard wondered if the crisis situation had worsened.
    The next day,  after a long  nap, Richard was  outfitted with  his
pack and ushered into the sessile chamber by his hosts. There the four
manna melons he had  watched growing two  weeks previous were  removed
from the web by the myrmicats and placed in his pack. They were  quite
heavy.  Richard   estimated  that   they  weighed   twenty   kilograms
altogether. Another  myrmicat then  used an  instrument similar  to  a
large scissors  to  remove  from  the  sessile  a  cylindrical  volume
containing four ganglia and  their associated filaments. This  sessile
material was placed in a silver tube and inserted in one of  Richard's
smaller side pockets.  The avian  eggs were  the last  elements to  be
loaded.
    Richard took a deep breath. This  must be good-tye, he thought  as
the myrmicats pointed down the corridor. For some reason he remembered
Nai Watanabe's insistence  that the  Thai greeting called  the wai,  a
small bow with hands clasped together in front of the upper chest, was
a universal sign of respect.  Smiling to himself, Richard performed  a
wai to the half dozen myrmicats surrounding him. To his  astonishment,
each of them placed its four  forward legs together in pairs in  front
of its underbelly and made a slight bow in his direction.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    477
    The deep basement of the brown cylinder was obviously uninhabited.
After leaving the  sessile chamber,  Richard and his  guide had  first
passed many other myrmicats, especially in the vicinity of the atrium.
But once they  had entered the  ramp that descended  to the  basement,
they had never encountered even a single myrmicat.
    Richard's guide dispatched  a leggie  in front of  them. It  raced
along the final  narrow tunnel  and through  the vault-like  emergency
exit into the green region. When the leggie returned, it stood on  the
back of the  myrmicat's head  for several seconds  and then  scampered
down to the floor. The guide motioned for Richard to proceed into  the
tunnel.
    Outside, in the green region, Richard was met by two large  avians
who immediately became airborne. One of  them had an ugly scar on  its
wing, as if it had  been hit by a spray  of bullets. Richard was in  a
moderately dense forest, with  growth around him up  to three or  four
meters off  the ground.  Even though  the light  was dim,  it was  not
difficult for Richard to find a pathway or to follow the avians  above
him. Occasionally he heard sporadic gunfire off in the distance.
    The first  fifteen minutes  passed  without incident.  The  forest
thickness lessened. Richard had  just estimated that  he should be  at
the moat for the rendezvous with the submarine in another ten  minutes
when, without any warn-  * ing, a  machine gun began  to fire no  more
than a hundred  meters away. One  of the guide  avians crashed to  the
ground. The other  avian disappeared.  Richard hid himself  in a  dark
thicket when he heard the soldiers coming in his direction.
    "Two rings for certain," one of them said. "Maybe even three. That
would give me twenty rings this week alone."
    "Shit, man, that was no contest. It shouldn't even count. The damn
bird didn't even know you were there."
    "That's his problem, not mine. I still get to count his rings. Ah,
here he is. ... Crap, he only has two."
    The men were only about fifteen meters away from Richard. He stood
absolutely still, not daring to move, for
    478 ARTHUR C, CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    more than five  minutes. The  soldiers, meanwhile,  stayed in  the
vicinity of the avian corpse, smoking and talking about the war.
    Richard began  to feel  pain in  his right  foot. He  shifted  his
weight ever so slightly, thinking he would relieve whatever muscle was
being strained, but the pain only increased. At length he glanced down
and discovered to his horror that  one of the rodentlike creatures  he
had seen in the mural chamber had  eaten through what was left of  his
shoe and was now chomping on his foot. Richard tried to shake his  leg
vigorously but noiselessly. He was not completely successful. Although
the rodent released his foot, the soldiers heard the sound and started
moving toward him.
    Richard could not run. Even if there had been an escape route, the
extra weight he  was carrying would  have made him  easy prey for  the
soldiers. Within a minute one of the men yelled, "Over here, Bruce,  I
think there's something in this thicket."
    The man  was  pointing  his gun  in  Richard's  direction.  "Don't
shoot," Richard said. "I'm a human."
    The second soldier had just joined his comrade. "What the fuck are
you doing out here alone?"
    "I'm taking a hike," Richard answered.
    "Are you crazy?" the  first soldier said. "Come  on out of  there.
Let us take a look at you."
    Richard slowly walked out of the underbrush. Even in the dim light
he must have been  an astonishing sight with  his long hair and  beard
plus the bulging blue jacket.
    "Jesus  Christ.  Who  the  hell  are  you?  Where's  your   outfit
positioned?"
    "This ain't no goddamn soldier," the other man said, still staring
at Richard. "This here's a loony  tune. He must have escaped from  the
facility in  Avalon and  wandered over  here by  mistake. .  . .  Hey,
asshole, don't  you know  this is  dangerous territory?  You could  be
killed-"
    "Look at  his  pockets,"  the  first  soldier  interrupted.  "He's
carrying four huge goddamn melons-"
    Suddenly they struck from the sky. There must have been a dozen of
the  avians  altogether,  consumed  by  fury  and  shrieking  as  they
attacked. The two human soldiers
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    479
    were knocked to  the ground. Richard  started to run.  One of  the
avians landed on the face  of the first soldier  and began to tear  it
apart with  its  talons. Gunfire  erupted  as other  soldiers  in  the
vicinity, hearing  the  fracas, hurried  into  the area  to  help  the
patrol.
    Richard did not know  how he was going  to find the submarine.  He
raced downhill as fast as his feet  and his load would allow him.  The
gunfire behind him  increased. He  heard the  screams of  pain of  the
soldiers and the death shrieks of the avians.
    He found the moat but there was no sign of the submarine.  Richard
could hear human voices coming down the slope behind him. Just when he
was about to panic, he heard a  short shriek from a large bush on  his
right. The leader avian with the four cobalt rings flew past his head,
not far off the ground,  and continued down the  shore of the moat  to
the left.
    They located the small submarine  in three more minutes. The  ship
had already submerged before the pursuing humans broke into the  clear
in the green region. Inside, Richard  took off his pack and placed  it
behind him in the  small control compartment. He  looked at his  avian
companion and  tried a  couple  of simple  jabber phrases.  The  avian
leader  replied,  very  slowly  and  very  clearly,  with  the  jabber
equivalent of "We all thank you very much."
    The journey took slightly more than an hour. Richard and the avian
said very little to each other.  During the early part of the  voyage,
Richard carefully watched the avian leader operating the submarine. He
made notes in his  computer and, during the  second half of the  trip,
even took over the controls himself  for a short period of time.  When
he was  not  too  busy,  Richard's mind  was  asking  questions  about
everything he had  experienced in  the second habitat.  Above all,  he
wanted to know why  it was he  in the submarine  with the melons,  the
avian eggs, and  the sessile slice,  and not one  of the myrmicats.  /
must be missing something, he mused to himself.
    Soon thereafter the submarine surfaced and Richard was in familiar
territory. The skyscrapers of New York loomed
    480 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    above him. "Hallelujah," Richard said out loud, carrying his  full
pack onto the island.
    The avian leader anchored the submarine just offshore and  quickly
prepared to leave.  He turned around  in a circle,  bowed slightly  to
Richard, and then took  off toward the north.  As he was watching  the
birdlike creature fly away, Richard  realized that he was standing  in
the exact spot where he and Nicole had waited, many many years  before
in Rama  II, for  the three  avians who  would-carry them  across  the
Cylindrical Sea to freedom.
    7
    D:
    Iuring the first second that Richard  stood on the surface in  New
York, a hundred  billion billion  bits of  data were  acquired by  the
infinitesimal Raman sensors scattered throughout the giant cylindrical
spacecraft.  These  data  were   transmitted  in  realtime  to   local
data-handling centers,  still microscopic  in  size, where  they  were
stored until the allocated time for them to be relayed to the  central
telecommunications processor buried beneath the Southern Hemicylinder.
    Every second of every hour of every day the Raman sensors  acquire
these  hundred  quintillion  data  bits.  At  the   telecommunications
processor, the  data are  labeled, sifted,  analyzed, compressed,  and
stored in recording  devices whose individual  components are  smaller
than an atom. After  storage, the data are  accessed by the dozens  of
distributed  processors,  each  managing  a  separate  function,  that
together control the Rama  spacecraft. Thousands of algorithms  spread
among the processors then  operate on the  data, extracting trend  and
synthesis information in preparation for the regularly scheduled
    482 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    483
    data  bursts  that  transmit  the  mission  status  to  the  Nodal
Intelligence.
    The  data  bursts  contain  a  mixture  of  raw,  compressed,  and
synthesized data,  depending  on the  exact  formats selected  by  the
different processors. The  most important  part of each  burst is  the
narrative report, in which the unified but distributed intelligence of
Rama presents its prioritized summary of the progress of the  mission.
The rest of the burst is essentially supporting information, images pr
measurements  or  sensor  outputs   that  either  provide   additional
background data or directly support  the conclusions contained in  the
summary.
    The language used  for the  narrative summary  is mathematical  in
structure, precise in definition, and highly coded. It is also rich in
footnotes, each equivalent phrase or  sentence containing, as part  of
its  transmission  structure,   the  pointers  to   the  actual   data
buttressing the particular statement being made. The report could not,
in the truest sense, be translated  into any language as primitive  as
the ones used by human beings.  Nevertheless, what follows is a  crude
approximation of the summary report received by the Nodal Intelligence
from Rama soon after Richard's arrival in New York.
    REPORT #298
    Time of Transmission: 156 307 872 491.5116 Time Since  First-Stage
Alert: 29.2873 References: Node  23-419 Spacecraft 947 Spacefarers  47
249 (A & B) 32 806 2666
    During the  last interval  the humans  (Spacefarer #32  806)  have
continued to wage a successful war against the avian/sessile symbiotic
pair (#47 249-A & B). The  humans now control almost all the  interior
of the avian/sessile habitat, including the upper portion of the brown
cylinder where  the  avians formerly  lived.  The avians  have  fought
courageously but vainly against the human
    !T
    invasion. They  have been  killed unmercifully,  and less  than  a
hundred of them now remain.
    Thus far the humans have not breached the integrity of the sessile
domain. They have, however, found  the elevator shafts leading to  the
lower parts of the brown cylinder. The humans are currently developing
plans for an attack on the sessile lair.
    The sessiles are a  defenseless species. There  are no weapons  of
any kind  in their  domain.  Even their  mobile  form, which  has  the
physical dexterity  to  use  weapons, is  essentially  nonviolent.  To
protect themselves from what they fear will be an inevitable  invasion
by the  humans, the  sessiles have  directed the  mobile mvrmicats  to
build fortresses surrounding  the four  oldest and  most developed  of
their species. Meanwhile, no  more manna melons  are being allowed  to
germinate and  those  myr-micats  not  involved  in  the  construction
process are co-cooning early. If the humans delay their attack several
more intervals, as seems  likely, it is  possible they will  encounter
only a few myrmicats during their invasion.
    The human habitat  continues to be  dominated by individuals  with
characteristics decidedly different from the human contingent observed
inside Rama n and at the Node. The focus of the current human  leaders
is the retention of personal  power, without serious consideration  of
the welfare of  the colony.  Despite both  the video  message and  the
presence of messenger humans  in their group,  these leaders must  not
believe they are actually being watched, for their behavior in no  way
reflects the possible  existence of a  set of values  or ethical  laws
that supersedes their own dominion.
    The humans  have  continued  to  prosecute  the  war  against  the
avian/sessiles primarily because it distracts attention from the other
problems in their colony, including the human-initiated  environmental
degradation and the  recent precipitous decline  in living  standards.
The human leaders,  and indeed most  of the colonists,  have shown  no
remorse whatsoever over the destruction and possible extermination  of
the avians.
    The human family  that remained  for over a  year at  the Node  no
longer has any significant impact on the
    484 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    affairs of the colony. The woman who was the primary messenger  is
still imprisoned, essentially because she  opposes the actions of  the
existing leaders, and is in danger of being executed. Her husband  has
been living  with  the avians  and  sessiles  and is  now  a  critical
component in  their  attempt  to  survive  the  human  onslaught.  The
children are not yet mature enough to  be a major factor in the  human
colony.
    Very recently, the husband escaped from the sessile domain to  the
island in the  middle of  the spacecraft.  He carried  both avian  and
sessile embryos  with  him. He  is  currently located  in  a  familiar
environment, and  therefore should  be  able both  to survive  and  to
nurture the young of the other species. His successful escape may have
been at least partly due to the noninvasive intercession that began at
the time of  the first-stage  alert. The  intercession signals  almost
certainly played a role in the decision by the sessiles to trust their
embryos to a human being.
    There is no evidence, however, that the intercession transmissions
have affected the  behavior of any  of the humans.  For the  sessiles,
information processing is a primary activity and, therefore, it is not
surprising  that  they   would  be   susceptible  to   intercessionary
suggestions. The humans, however,  especially the leaders, have  their
lives so filled with activity that there is very little, if any,  time
for cogitation.
    There is  an  additional  problem  with  humans  and  non-invasive
intercession. As  a species  they are  so varied,  from individual  to
individual, that a transmission package cannot be designed with  broad
applicability. A  set  of signals  that  might result  in  a  positive
behavior modification  for one  human will  almost certainly  have  no
impact  on   anyone  else.   Experiments  with   different  types   of
intercession processes are currently being conducted, but it may  well
be that  humans belong  to that  small group  of spacefarers  who  are
immune to noninvasive intercession.
    In the south of the spacecraft, the octospiders (#2 666)  continue
to thrive in a colony almost indistinguishable from any of their other
isolated colonies in space.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    485
    The full range of  possible biological expression remains  latent,
primarily because  of restricted  territorial  resources and  no  true
competition. However,  they are  carrying  with them  the  significant
potential  for  expansion   that  has   characterized  their   several
successful transfers from one star system to another.
    Until the humans probed through the wall of their own habitat  and
broke the seal on  their enclosure, the  octospiders paid very  little
attention to the other two species in the spacecraft. Since the humans
began to explore, however, the octospiders have watched the events  in
the north with increasing interest.  Their existence is still  unknown
to the humans, but the octospiders have already started formulating  a
contingency plan to cover a possible interaction with their aggressive
neighbors.
    The potential loss of  the entire avian/sessile community  greatly
reduces the value of the mission. It is possible that the only sessile
and avian  survivors  of  the  voyage  will  be  those  in  the  small
octospider zoo and, perhaps, those raised by the human on the  island.
Even irrevocable  loss  of  a  single species  does  not  call  for  a
stage-two  alert;  nevertheless,   the  continued  unpredictable   and
life-negative behavior  of  the  current  human  leaders  provides  an
unmitigated worry  that  the  mission may  suffer  additional  serious
losses. Intercessionary activity in the near future will be focused on
those humans who both oppose  the present leaders and have  indicated,
by their behavior, growth beyond territoriality and aggression.
    8
    M
    Iy country was called Thailand. It had a king, whose name was also
Rama, like our spaceship.  Your grandmother and grandfather-my  mother
and father- probably still live there, in a town called Lamphun. . . .
Here it is."
    Nai pointed at a  spot on the faded  map. The boys' attention  had
started to  wander. They're  still too  young, she  thought. Even  for
bright children it's too much to expect at four.
    "All right,  now," she  said, folding  up the  map', "you  can  go
outside and play."
    Galileo and Kepler put on their  heavy jackets, picked up a  ball,
and raced  out the  door into  the street.  Within seconds  they  were
engaged in a one-on-one soccer match. Oh, Kenjif Nai thought, watching
the boys from the en-tryway. How they have missed you. There's just no
way one parent can be both mother and father.
    She had  begun  the  geography  lesson,  as  she  always  did,  by
reminding the boys  that all  of the colonists  in New  Eden had  come
originally from a planet called Earth. Nai
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    487
    had then shown the boys a  world map for their home planet,  first
discussing the  basic  concept  of continents  and  oceans,  and  then
identifying Japan,  their father's  native country.  The activity  had
made Nai both homesick and lonely.
    Maybe these  lessons aren't  for you  at all,  she thought,  still
watching the soccer game under the dim streetlights of Avalon. Galileo
dribbled around Kepler and fired  at an imaginary goal. Maybe  they're
really for me.
    Eponine was coming down the street in their direction. She  picked
up the ball and threw it back  to the boys. Nai smiled at her  friend.
"What a delight to see you," she  said. "I can definitely use a  happy
face today,"
    "What's the matter, Nai?" Eponine  asked. "Life in Avalon  getting
you down? ... At least  it's a Sunday. You're  not working in the  gun
factory and the boys aren't over at the center."
    The two women walked inside. "And certainly your living conditions
cannot be the  cause of your  despair." Eponine waved  her arm at  the
room. "After all, you have a large  room for the three of you, half  a
toilet, and a bath you share with five other families. What more could
you want?''
    Nai laughed and hugged Eponine. "You're a big help," she said.
    "Mommy, Mommy."  Kepler  was standing  in  the door-way  a  moment
later. "Come quickly," the little boy said. "He's back . . . and  he's
talking to Galileo."
    Nai and  Eponine returned  to  the door.  A  man with  a  severely
disfigured face was kneeling down in the dirt next to Galileo. The boy
was obviously frightened. The man was holding a sheet of paper in  his
gloved hand. On it a large human face with long hair and a full  beard
had been carefully drawn.
    "You know this face, don't  you?" the man said insistently.  "It's
Mr. Richard Wakefield, isn't it?"
    Nai and Eponine approached the  man cautiously. "We told you  last
time," Nai said firmly, "not to  bother the boys anymore. Now go  back
to the ward or we will call the police."
    The man's eyes were wild. "I saw him again last
    488 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    night," he  said.  "He  looked  like Jesus,  but  he  was  Richard
Wakefield all right. I started to shoot him and they attacked me. Five
of them. They tore my face apart. ..." The man started to weep.
    An orderly came running  down the street. He  grabbed the man.  "I
saw him," the  wild man shouted  as he was  led away. "I  know I  did.
Please believe me."
    Galileo was crying. Nai bent down to comfort her son. "Mama,"  the
boy said, "do you think that man really saw Mr. Wakefield?"
    "I don't know," she answered. Nai glanced at Eponine. "But some of
us would like to believe it."
    The boys had finally fallen asleep in their beds in the comer. Nai
and Eponine sat next to  each other in the  two chairs. "The rumor  is
she's very ill," Eponine said quietly.  "They hardly feed her at  all.
They make her suffer in every possible way."
    "Nicole will never give up," Nai  said proudly. "I wish I had  her
strength and courage."
    "Neither Ellie nor Robert has been allowed to see her for over six
months. . . . Nicole doesn't even know she has a granddaughter."
    "Ellie told me last week that she has filed another petition  with
Nakamura to visit  her mother," Nai  said. "I worry  about ElJie.  She
continues to push very, very hard."
    Eponine smiled. "Ellie is so wonderful, even if she is  incredibly
naive. She insists  that if she  obeys all the  colony laws,  Nakamura
will leave her alone."
    "That's not surprising  . .  . especially when  you consider  that
Ellie still thinks  her father is  alive," Nai said.  "She has  talked
with every one of the people who  claim to have seen Richard since  he
disappeared."
    "All the stories about Richard  give her hope," Eponine said.  "We
can still use a dosage of hope from time to time. ..."
    There was a momentary lull  in the conversation. "What about  you,
Eponine?" Nai asked. "Do you allow yourself-"
    "No," Eponine interrupted. "I am always honest with myself. ...  I
am going to die soon; I just don't know
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    489
    when. Besides, why should I fight to keep living? Conditions  here
in Avalon are far worse than they  were even in the detention camp  at
Bourges. If it weren't for the few children in the school-"
    They both heard the noise outside  the door at the same time.  Nai
and Eponine  sat  completely still.  If  their conversation  had  been
recorded by one of Nakamura's roving biots, then-
    The door suddenly swung open. The  two women nearly jumped out  of
their skins. Max Puckett stumbled in, grinning. "You're under arrest,"
he said, "for engaging in seditious conversation."
    Max was carrying  a large  wooden box.  The two  women helped  him
place it in the corner. Max took off his heavy jacket. "Sorry to  show
up so late, ladies, but I couldn't help it."
    "Another food run to the troops?"  Nai asked in a soft voice.  She
pointed at the sleeping twins.
    Max nodded. "The  king Jap,"  he said  in a  lower voice,  "always
reminds me that an army travels on its stomach."
    "That was one of Napoleon's maxims." Eponine looked at Max with  a
sarcastic smile. "I don't suppose you  ever heard of him out there  in
Arkansas."
    "Uh-oh," Max replied. "The  lovely lady teacher  is in a  smartass
mood tonight." He  pulled an unopened  pack of cigarettes  out of  his
shirt pocket. "Maybe I should just keep her gift for myself."
    Eponine laughed  and jumped  up to  grab the  cigarettes. After  a
short mock  struggle,  Max surrendered  them  to her.  "Thanks,  Max,"
Eponine said  in a  genuine  manner. '  "There aren't  many  pleasures
allowed to those of us-''
    "Now, look here," Max said, still grinning. "I didn't come all the
way out here to listen to you feeling sorry for yourself. I stopped in
Avalon to be inspired  by your beautiful face.  If you're going to  be
depressed, I'll just take my com and tomatoes-"
    "Corn and  tomatoes!" Nai  and Eponine  exclaimed in  unison.  The
women ran over to the box. "The children haven't had any fresh produce
in weeks," Nai said excitedly as Max opened the box with a steel bar.
    "Be very, very careful with these," Max said seriously.
    490 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "You know  that what  I am  doing is  absolutely illegal.  There's
barely enough fresh food for the army and the government leaders.  But
I decided you deserved something better than leftover rice."
    Eponine gave Max a hug. "Thank you," she said.
    "The boys and I are very  grateful, Max," Nai said. "I don't  know
how we'll ever repay you."
    "Fll find some way," Max said.
    The two women  returned to their  chairs and Max  sat down on  the
floor between  them.  "Incidentally," he  said,  "I ran  into  Patrick
O'Toole over in the second habitat. He  asked me to say hello to  both
of you."
    "How is he?" Eponine asked.
    "Troubled, I would say," Max replied. "When he was drafted, he let
Katie talk him into reporting to the army- which I'm certain he  would
never have done if either Nicole  or Richard could have spoken to  him
even once- and  I think he  realizes now  what a mistake  he made.  He
didn't say anything, but I  could sense his distress. Naka-mura  keeps
him in the front line because of Nicole."
    "Is this war almost over?" Eponine asked.
    "I think so," Max said. "But it's not clear the king Jap wants  it
to be  over. From  what  the soldiers  told  me, there's  very  little
resistance left. They're mostly mopping up inside the brown cylinder."
    Nai leaned forward.  "We heard  a rumor  that another  intelligent
species was also living in the cylinder-something altogether different
from the avians."
    Max laughed.  "Who  knows  what to  believe?  The  television  and
newspaper say whatever  Nakamura tells  them, and  everyone knows  it.
There are always hundreds  of rumors. I  myself have encountered  some
bizarre alien plants and animals inside that habitat, so nothing would
surprise me."
    Nai stifled a yawn.  "I best be leaving,"  Max said, standing  up,
"and let our  hostess go to  bed." He glanced  at Eponine. "Would  you
like someone to walk you home?"
    "Depends on who the someone is," Eponine said with a smile.
    A few minutes later, Max and Eponine reached her tiny
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    491
    hut on  one  of  the  side streets  of  Avalon.  Max  dropped  the
cigarette they had been  sharing and ground it  into the dirt.  "Would
you like someone . . ." he started.
    "Yes, Max, of course I would,"  Eponine replied with a sigh.  "And
if that someone were anyone, it  would definitely be you." She  looked
directly in his eyes. "But if you shared my bed, even one time, men  I
would want more. And if, by  some awful chance, no matter how  careful
we were, you were ever, ever to test positive for RV-41, I would never
forgive myself."
    Eponine pressed herself against him to hide her tears. "Thanks for
everything," she said. "You're a good man, Max Puckett, maybe the only
one left in this crazy uni verse,"
    Eponine was  in  a  museum  in Paris  surrounded  by  hundreds  of
masterpieces. A large  group of  tourists passed  through the  museum.
They spent a total of  forty-five seconds looking at five  magnificent
paintings by Renoir and Monet.  "Stop," Eponine shouted in her  dream.
"You can't possibly have seen them.''
    The knocking  on  her  door  chased  the  dream  away.  "It's  us,
Eponine," she heard Ellie say. "If it's too early, we can try to  come
back later, before you go to school. Robert was worried that we  might
get tied up in the psychiatric ward."
    Eponine leaned over  and grabbed  the robe hanging  on the  room's
solitary chair. "Just a minute," she said, "I'm coming."
    She opened the  door for  her friends.  Ellie was  in her  nurse's
uniform, with little Nicole  in a makeshift carrier  on her back.  The
sleeping baby was wrapped cleverly in  cotton to protect her from  the
cold.
    "May we come in?"
    "Of course," replied Eponine. "I'm  sorry," she said, "I must  not
have heard you."
    "It's a ridiculous time  for us to visit,"  Ellie said. "But  with
all our woric at the hospital, if we didn't come out here early in the
morning, we'd never make it."
    "How have you been feeling?" Dr. Turner asked a few seconds later.
He was holding a scanner in front of Epo-
    492 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    nine and data was already being displayed on the portable computer
monitor.
    "A  little  tired,"   Eponine  said.   "But  it   could  be   just
psychological. Since you  told me  two months  ago that  my heart  was
beginning to show some  signs of degradation,  I have imagined  myself
having a heart attack at least once a day."
    During the  examination  Ellie  operated  the  keyboard  that  was
attached to the  monitor. She  made certain, that  the most  important
information from the  checkup was  recorded in  the computer.  Eponine
craned around  to  see the  screen.  "How's the  new  system  working,
Robert?"
    "We've had  several failures  with the  probes," he  replied.  "Ed
Stafford says that's to be expected because of our inadequate testing.
And we don't yet have a good data management scheme, but on the  whole
we're very pleased."
    "It's been a savior, Eponine," Ellie said without glancing up from
the keyboard. "With our  limited funds, and all  the wounded from  the
war, there would have been no way  we could have kept the RV-41  files
current without this kind of automation."
    "I only wish we had been able to use more of Nicole's expertise in
the original design," Robert Turner  said. "I hadn't realized she  was
such an  expert  on  internal  monitoring  systems."  The  doctor  saw
something unusual in  a graph that  appeared on the  screen. "Print  a
copy of that, will you, darling? I want to show it to Ed."
    "Have you heard  anything new  about your  mother?" Eponine  asked
Ellie as the examination neared its completion.
    "We saw Katie two nights ago," Ellie replied very slowly. "It  was
a  difficult  evening.  She  had  another  'deal'  from  Nakamura  and
Macmillan she  wanted  to discuss.  .  .  ." Her  voice  trailed  off.
"Anyway, Katie  says that  there  will definitely  be a  trial  before
Settlement Day."
    "Has she seen Nicole?"
    "No," Ellie answered. "As far as we know, nobody has. Her food  is
brought in by a Garcia and her monthly checkups are done by a Tiasso."
    Baby Nicole stirred and whimpered on her mother's
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    493
    back. Eponine reached down and touched the portion of the  child's
cheek that was exposed  to the air. "They  are so unbelievably  soft,"
she said. At that moment the  little girl's eyes opened and she  began
to cry.
    "Do I have time to nurse her, Robert?" Ellie asked.
    Dr. Turner glanced  at his  watch. "All right,"  he said.  ''We're
basically finished here.  Since both Wilma  Mar-golin and Bill  Tucker
are in the next  block, why don't  I call on them  by myself and  then
come back?"
    "You can handle them without me?"
    "With difficulty," he said grimly. "Especially poor Tucker."
    "Bill Tucker  is dying  very  slowly," Ellie  said to  Eponine  in
explanation. "He's alone and in  great pain. But since the  government
has now outlawed euthanasia, there's nothing we can do."
    "There's no indication  of additional atrophy  in your data,"  Dr.
Turner said to  Eponine a  few moments later.  "I guess  we should  be
thankful."
    She didn't hear him. In her mind's eye, Eponine was imagining  her
own slow and painful  death. / will  not let it  happen that way,  she
told herself. Never. As soon as I am  no longer useful . . . Max  will
bring me a gun.
    "I'm sorry, Robert," she said. "I must be sleepier than I thought.
What did you say?"
    "You're no worse."  Robert gave Eponine  a kiss on  the cheek  and
started for the door. "I'll be back in about twenty minutes," he  said
to Ellie.
    * 'Robert looks very tired,' * Eponine said when he departed.
    "He is," Ellie replied.  "He still works  all the time  . . .  and
worries when he's not  working." Ellie was sitting  on the dirt  floor
with her back against the wall of  the hut. Nicole was cradled in  her
arms, suckling at a breast and cooing intermittently.
    "That looks like fun," Eponine said.
    "Nothing I have  ever experienced  is even  remotely similar.  The
pleasure is indescribable."
    It's not for me, Eponine's inner voice said. Not now. Not ever. In
a fleeting moment Eponine recalled a night of passion when she  almost
hadn't said no to Max Puckett.
    494 ARTHUR C. ClARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    A deep feeling of bitterness  welled up inside her. She  struggled
to fight it. .
    "I had a nice walk with  Benjy yesterday," she said, changing  the
subject.
    "I'm sure he'll tell  me all about it  this morning," Ellie  said.
"He loves his Sunday walks with you. It's all he has left, except  for
my occasional visits. . . . You know that I am very grateful."
    "Forget it. I like Benjy. I also need to feel needed, if you  know
what I mean. . . .  Benjy actually has adjusted surprisingly well.  He
doesn't complain as much as the forty-ones, and certainly not as  much
as the people assigned here to work at the gun factory."
    "He hides his  pain," Ellie  replied. "Benjy's  much smarter  than
anyone thinks. He  really dislikes the  ward but knows  that he  can't
take care of himself. And he doesn't want to be a burden to anybody-"
    Tears suddenly  formed  in  Ellie's eyes  and  her  body  trembled
slightly. Baby Nicole stopped nursing  and stared at her mother.  "Are
you all right?" Eponine asked.
    Ellie shook her  head affirmatively  and wiped her  eyes with  the
small cotton cloth that she was  holding next to her breasts to  catch
any leakage. Nicole resumed nursing. "Suffering is difficult enough to
watch," Ellie said. "Unnecessary suffering tears your heart out."
    The guard  looked carefully  at  their identification  papers  and
handed them to another uniformed man sitting behind him at a  computer
console. The second man made an  entry into the computer and  returned
the documents to the guard.
    "Why," Ellie said, when they were out of earshot, ' 'does that man
stare at our  photographs every  single day?  He must  have passed  us
through this checkpoint personally a dozen times in the last month."
    They were walking along the lane that led from the module exit  to
Positano. "It's  his  job," Robert  replied,  "and he  likes  to  feel
important. If he doesn't make a ceremony out of it each time, then  we
might forget the power he has over us."
    "The process was much  smoother when die  biots were handling  the
entrance."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    495
    "The ones that are still functioning  are too critical to the  war
effort.  Besides,  Nakamura  is  afraid  that  the  ghost  of  Richard
Wakefield will appear and somehow confound the biots."
    They walked in silence  for several seconds.  "You don't think  my
father is still alive, do you, darling?"
    "No, dear,"  Robert  answered after  a  short hesitation.  He  was
surprised by the directness of the question. "But even though I  don't
think he's alive, I still hope mat he is."
    Robert and Ellie finally reached the outskirts of Positano. A  few
new houses, European in style, lined the lane that sloped gently  down
into the  heart of  the village.  "By the  way, Ellie,"  Robert  said,
"talking about  your  father reminded  me  of something  I  wanted  to
discuss with you. ... Do you  remember that project I was telling  you
about, the one that Ed Stafford is doing?"
    Ellie shook her head.
    "He's trying to classify and categorize the entire colony in terms
of general  genetic groupings.  He thinks  that such  classifications,
even though they are completely arbitrary, may offer clues about which
individuals are  likely to  have which  diseases. I  don't  completely
agree with his approach-it seems too forced and numerical, rather than
medical-but parallel studies have been  done on Earth and they  showed
that  people  with  similar  genes  do  indeed  have  similar  disease
tendencies."
    Ellie stopped walking and looked at her husband quizzically.  "Why
did you want to discuss this with me?"
    Robert laughed. "Yes,  yes," he said.  "I'm coming to  mat. . .  .
Anyway, Ed defined a difference metric-a numerical method of measuring
how different any two individuals are, using the way in which the four
basic amino  acids are  chained in  the genome-and  then, as  a  test,
divided all the  citizens of  New Eden  into groups.  Now, the  metric
didn't really mean anything-"
    "Robert Turner," Ellie  interrupted. She was  laughing. "Will  you
please get to the point? What are you trying to tell me?"
    "Well, it's weird," he said. "We don't quite know what to make  of
it. When Ed made his first classification structure, two of the people
tested did not belong to any
    496 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    group. By fiddling with the definitions of the categories, he  was
eventually able to define  a quantitative spread  that covered one  of
them. But the amino acid chaining structure of the final person was so
different from every  other person in  New Eden that  she couldn't  be
placed into any of the groups. . . ."
    Ellie was staring at Robert as if he had lost his mind.
    "The two  individuals were  your brother  Benjy and  you,"  Robert
concluded awkwardly. "You were the,one outside all the groupings."
    "Should I be worried about this?" Ellie said after they had walked
another thirty meters in silence.
    "I don't think so," Robert  said casually. "It's probably just  an
artifice of the particular metric that Ed chose. Or perhaps a  mistake
was made.  .  .  . But  it  would  be fascinating  if  somehow  cosmic
radiation might  have  altered  your  genetic  structure  during  your
embryological development.' *
    By this time  they had  arrived at  the main  square of  Positano.
Ellie leaned over and kissed her husband. "That was very  interesting,
dear," she said,  teasing him  a little, "but  I must  admit that  I'm
still not sure what it was all about.''
    A large bicycle rack occupied most  of the square. Two dozen  rows
and as many columns of parking positions were spread out over the area
in front of what had been  the train station. All the colonists,  with
the exception of the  government leaders, who  had electric cars,  now
used bicycles for transportation.
    The train service in New Eden had been discontinued soon after the
war  began.  The  trains  had  originally  been  constructed  by   the
extraterrestrials from very light  and exceptionally strong  materials
that the  human  factories  in  the colony  had  never  been  able  to
duplicate. These  alloys were  extremely  valuable in  many  different
military functions. By the  middle stages of  the war, therefore,  the
defense agency had requisitioned all the cars in the train system.
    Ellie and Robert rode their bicycles, side by side along the banks
of Lake  Shakespeare.  Little  Nicole had  awakened  and  was  quietly
watching the landscape around her.
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    497
    They passed the park, where  the Settlement Day picnic was  always
held, and turned toward the north.
    "Robert," Ellie said  very seriously, "have  you thought any  more
about our long discussion last night?"
    "About Nakamura and politics?"
    "Yes," she  answered. "I  still think  we should  both oppose  his
edict suspending elections until after the war is over. . . . You have
a lot of stature in the colony. Most of the health professionals  will
follow your lead. Nai even thinks  that the factory workers in  Avalon
might strike."
    "I can't do it," Robert said after a long silence.
    "Why not, darling?" Ellie asked.
    "Because I don't think  it will work. In  your idealistic view  of
the world,  Ellie,  people act  out  of commitment  to  principles  or
values. In reality, they don't behave that  way at all. If we were  to
oppose Nakamura,  the most  likely result  is that  we would  both  be
imprisoned. What would happen then  to our daughter? In addition,  all
the support for the RV-41 work would be withdrawn, leaving those  poor
people in even worse shape than  they are. The hospital would be  more
shorthanded. . . . Many people  would suffer because of our  idealism.
As a doctor, I find these possible consequences unacceptable."
    Ellie drove off  the bicycle  path into  a small  park about  five
hundred meters from the first buildings  of Central City. "Why are  we
stopping here?" Robert asked. "They're expecting us at the hospital."
    "I want to take five minutes to see the trees, smell the  flowers,
and hug Nicole."
    After Ellie  dismounted,  Robert  helped her  disengage  the  baby
carrier from her back. Ellie men sat  on the grass with Nicole in  her
lap. Neither of  the adults  said anything while  they watched  Nicole
study the three blades of grass  that she had grabbed with her  chubby
hands.
    At length Ellie spread out a blanket and laid her daughter  gently
upon it. She approached her husband and put her arms around his  neck.
"I love you, Robert, very, very much," she said. "But I must say  that
sometimes I do not agree with you at all."
    9
    T:
    •he light from the solitary window  in the cell made a pattern  on
the dirt wall opposite Nicole's bed. The bars on the window created  a
reflected  square   with  a   tic-tac-toe  design,   a  near   perfect
three-by-three matrix. The light in  her cell signaled to Nicole  that
it was time  to rise. She  crossed the  room from the  wooden bunk  on
which she had been sleeping and washed her face in the basin. She then
took a deep breath and tried to summon her strength for another day.
    Nicole was fairly certain  that her latest  prison, where she  had
been for about  five months,  was somewhere  in the  New Eden  farming
strip between Hakone and  San Mi-guel. She  had been blindfolded  when
they had  moved  her the  last  time. Nicole  had  quickly  concluded,
however, that she was in a rural location. Occasionally a strong smell
of animals drifted into  her cell through the  forty-centimeter-square
window just  below  the ceiling.  In  addition, Nicole  could  see  no
reflected light of any  kind outside the window  when it was night  in
New Eden.
    These last months have been the worst, Nicole thought
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    499
    as she  stood on  tiptoe to  push  a few  grams of  flavored  rice
through the  window. No  conversation, no  reading, no  exercise.  Two
meals a day of rice and water. The little red squirrel who visited her
each morning  appeared  outside. Nicole  could  hear him.  She  backed
across the cell so she could see him eating the rice.
    "You are my  only company,  my handsome friend,"  Nicole said  out
loud. The squirrel stopped eating  and listened, always alert for  any
possible danger. "And you have never  understood a single word that  I
have said."
    The squirrel didn't  stay long.  When he had  finished eating  his
ration of rice, he departed, leaving Nicole alone. For several minutes
she stared out the window where the squirrel had been, wondering  what
was happening with her family.
    Until six months  earlier, when  her trial for  sedition had  been
"indefinitely postponed" at the last  minute, Nicole had been  allowed
one visitor each week for one  hour. Even though the conversation  had
been chaperoned by a guard, and any discussion of politics or  current
events had been  strictly prohibited,  she had  eagerly awaited  those
weekly sessions with Ellie or Patrick.  Usually it had been Ellie  who
had come.  From some  very  carefully worded  statements by  both  her
children, Nicole had deduced that Patrick was involved in some kind of
government work and was only available at limited times.
    Nicole had  been first  angry, and  then depressed,  when she  had
learned that  Benjy  had  been  institutionalized  and  would  not  be
permitted to see her. Ellie had tried to assure her mother that  Benjy
was all  right, considering  the circumstances.  There had  been  very
little discussion of Katie. Neither Patrick nor Ellie had known how to
explain to Nicole that then- older sister had really shown no interest
in visiting her mother.
    Ellie's pregnancy was always a  safe topic of conversation  during
those earlier  visits. Nicole  was thrilled  to touch  her  daughter's
stomach, or to talk about the  special feelings of a mother-to-be.  If
Ellie would mention how  active the baby was,  Nicole would share  and
compare her  own  experiences ("When  I  was pregnant  with  Patrick,"
Nicole said one time, "I was never tired. You, on the other hand,
    500 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    were a mother's nightmare-always thrashing around in the middle of
the night when  I wanted to  sleep"); if Ellie  was not feeling  well,
Nicole would prescribe  foods or physical  activities that had  helped
her deal with the same conditions.
    Elite's last visit had been two months before the due date for the
baby. Nicole had been  moved to her new  cell the following week,  and
had not  talked  to a  human  being since  then.  The mute  biots  who
attended Nicole never  gave any  indication that they  even heard  her
questions. Once, in  a pique of  frustration, she had  shouted at  the
Tiasso giving her  the weekly  bath. "Don't you  understand?" she  had
said. "My  daughter  was  supposed  to have  a  baby,  my  grandchild,
sometime last week. I need to know if they are all right."
    In her previous cells Nicole had always been allowed to*read.  New
bookdiscs had been brought  to her from the  library whenever she  had
asked, so the days between visits  had passed fairly quickly. She  had
reread almost  all her  father's historical  novels, as  well as  some
poetry, history,  and a  few of  her more  interesting medical  books.
Nicole had been  especially fascinated  by the  parallels between  her
life and the  lives of  her two childhood  heroines, Joan  of Arc  and
Eleanor of Aquitaine.  Nicole buttressed  her own  strength by  noting
that neither of  the two other  women allowed her  basic attitudes  to
change despite long and difficult periods in prison.
    Right after she was moved, when the Garcia who attended her in the
new cell  did  not return  her  electronic reader  with  her  personal
effects, Nicole thought that a simple mistake had been made.  However,
after she  asked for  the  reader several  times  and it  still  never
appeared, she realized that she was now being denied the privilege  of
reading.
    The time  passed very  slowly  for Nicole  in  her new  cell.  For
several hours each day  she deliberately paced  about, trying to  keep
her body  and mind  active.  She attempted  to organize  these  pacing
sessions, steering them  away from  thoughts about  her family,  which
inevitably  caused  her  feelings  of  loneliness  and  depression  to
intensify, and  toward more  general  philosophic concepts  or  ideas.
Often at
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    501
    the conclusion  of these  sessions she  would focus  on some  past
event in her  life and try  to derive some  new or meaningful  insight
from it.
    During one such  session Nicole remembered  sharply a sequence  of
events that had taken  place when she was  fifteen years old. By  that
time she and her father were already comfortably ensconced at Beauvois
and Nicole was performing brilliantly at school. She decided to  enter
the national competition to select three girls to play Joan of Arc  in
the set of pageants  that would commemorate  the 750th anniversary  of
the maid's martyrdom at Rouen.  Nicole threw herself into the  contest
with a passion and sin-gle-mindedness  that both thrilled and  worried
her father. After  Nicole won  the regional contest  at Tours,  Pierre
even stopped working on his novels  for six weeks to help his  beloved
daughter prepare for the national finals at Rouen.
    Nicole  placed  first  in  both  the  athletic  and   intellectual
components of the  contest. She even  scored very high  in die  acting
evaluations. She and her father had been certain that she was going to
be selected. But when  the winners were announced,  Nicole had been  a
second runner-up.
    For years, Nicole  thought as she  walked around her  cell in  New
Eden, / thought that  I had failed. What  my father said about  France
not being ready for a copper-skinned Joan of Arc did not matter. In my
mind I was a failure. I was devastated. My self-esteem did not  really
recover until the  Olympics, and then  it was only  a few days  before
Henry knocked me down again.
    The  price  was  terrible,  Nicole  continued.  /  was  completely
self-absorbed for years because of my lack of self-esteem. It was much
later before I was finally happy with myself. And only then was I able
to give to others. She paused for a moment in her thoughts. Why is  it
that so many of  us go through  the same experience?  Why is youth  so
selfish, and why must we first find ourselves to realize how much more
there is to life?
    When the Garcia who always  brought her meals included some  fresh
bread and a  few raw carrots  with her dinner,  Nicole suspected  that
there was about to be a
    502 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    change in her  regimen. Two days  later the Tiasso  came into  her
cell with a portable bathtub, a hairbrush, some makeup, a mirror,  and
even a small bottle of perfume. Nicole took a long, luxurious bath and
freshened herself for the first time in months. As the biot picked  up
the wooden tub and prepared to leave, it handed her a note. "You  will
have a visitor tomorrow morning," the note said.
    Nicole could not sleep. In the morning she chattered like a little
girl to her  friend the squirrel,  discussing both her  hopes and  her
anxieties about the coming  rendezvous. She fussed  with her face  and
hair several times before declaring both  of them to be hopeless.  The
time went by very slowly.
    At long last, just before lunch, she heard human footsteps  coming
down the corridor toward her cell. Nicole rushed forward  expectantly.
"Katie," she yelled when she saw her daughter walking around the final
corridor.
    "Hello, Mother," Katie said, unlocking  the door and entering  the
cell. The two  women hugged for  many seconds. Nicole  did not try  to
restrain the tears that were pouring from her eyes.
    They sat on  Nicole's bed,  the only  furniture in  the cell,  and
talked amiably for  several minutes about  the family. Katie  informed
Nicole that she had a new granddaughter ("Nicole des Jardins  Turner,"
she said.  "You should  be very  proud"), and  then pulled  out  about
twenty photographs. The pictures included recent snapshots of the baby
with her  parents,  Ellie and  Benjy  together in  a  park  somewhere,
Patrick in a uniform, and even a couple of Katie in an evening  dress.
Nicole studied them, one  by one, her  eyes brimming repeatedly.  "Oh,
Katie," she exclaimed several times.
    When she was finished, Nicole  thanked her daughter profusely  for
having brought the  photographs. "You  can have  them, Mother,"  Katie
said, standing up and walking over to the window. She opened her purse
and pulled out cigarettes and a lighter.
    "Darling," Nicole said hesitantly, "would you please not smoke  in
here? The ventilation is terrible. I would smell it for weeks."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    503
    Katie stared at her mother for  a few seconds and then placed  her
cigarettes and lighter  back in her  purse. At that  moment a pair  of
Garcias arrived outside the cell with a table and two chairs.
    "What's this?" Nicole asked,
    Katie smiled.  "We're going  to have  lunch together,"  she  said.
"I've had something  special prepared  for the  occasion-chicken in  a
mushroom and wine sauce.''
    The food, which smelled divine, was soon carried into the cell  by
a third Garcia and placed on  the covered table beside the fine  china
and silver. There was even a bottle of wine and two crystal glasses.
    It was difficult for Nicole  to remember her manners. The  chicken
was so  delicious, the  mushrooms so  tender, that  she ate  her  meal
without talking. Every so often, when she took a swallow of the  wine,
Nicole would murmur "Umm"  or "This is  fantastic," but she  basically
said nothing until her plate was completely clean.
    Katie, who had become a very light eater, nibbled at her food  and
watched her mother. When Nicole was finished, Katie called in a Garcia
to take away the dishes  and bring some coffee.  Nicole had not had  a
good cup of coffee for almost two years.
    "So, Katie," Nicole said with a warm smile after thanking her  for
the meal, "how about you? What are you doing with yourself?"
    Katie laughed  coarsely.  "Same  old shit,"  she  said.  "I'm  now
director of entertainment for the whole  Vegas resort. ... I book  all
the acts into the clubs. . .  . Business is great even though-"  Katie
caught herself, remembering that her mother knew nothing of the war in
the second habitat.
    "Have you found  a man  who can appreciate  all your  attributes?"
Nicole asked tactfully.
    "Not one who will stay around." Katie was self-conscious about her
answer and suddenly became agitated. "Look, Mother," she said, leaning
across the table. "I didn't come here  to discuss my love life. ...  I
have a proposition for you-or rather, the family has a proposition for
you that we all support."
    Nicole looked at her daughter with a puzzled frown.
    504 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    She noticed for the first time that Katie had aged considerably in
the two  years since  she had  last seen  her. "I  don't  understand,"
Nicole said. "What kind of a proposition?"
    "Well, as you may know, the government has been preparing its case
against you for  some time. They  are now  ready to go  to trial.  The
charge of course is sedition, which carries a mandatory death penalty.
The  prosecutor  has  told  us  that  the  evidence  against  you   is
overwhelming, and  that  you are  certain  to be  convicted.  However,
because of your past services to the colony, if you will plead  guilty
to the lesser charge of involuntary sedition, he will drop-"
    "But I am not guilty of anything," Nicole said firmly.
    "I know that, Mother," Katie  replied with a trace of  impatience.
"But we-ElUe, Patrick, and I-all agree that there is a high likelihood
that you will be convicted. The prosecutor has promised us that if you
will simply plead  guilty to  the reduced  charge, you  will be  moved
immediately to  nicer  surroundings and  allowed  to visit  with  your
family, including your new granddaughter.  ... He even hinted that  he
might intercede  with the  authorities  to allow  Benjy to  live  with
Robert and Ellie. ..."
    Nicole was in turmoil. "And all of you think that I should  accept
this plea  bargain  and  acknowledge  my guilt,  even  though  I  have
steadfastly proclaimed my innocence since the moment I was arrested?"
    Katie nodded. "We don't  want you to  die," she said.  "Especially
for no reason."
    "For no reason.''  Nicole's eyes  suddenly flashed.  "You think  I
would be dying for no reason!"  She pushed away from the table,  stood
up, and paced around the, cell. "I would be dying for justice," Nicole
said, more to herself  than to Katie,  "in my mind  at least, even  if
there is  not a  single soul  anywhere else  in the  universe who  can
understand it."
    "But Mother," Katie now interjected, "what purpose would it serve?
Your children  and granddaughter  would be  deprived forever  of  your
company, Benjy would remain in that foul institution-"
    "So now here's the deal," Nicole interrupted, her voice rising, "a
more insidious version of Faust's pact with the
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    505
    devil. . . . Abandon your principles, Nicole, and acknowledge your
guilt, even though you have not  transgressed at all. And do not  sell
your soul for mere personal Earthly reward. No, that would be too easy
to reject. . . .  You are asked to take  the deal because your  family
will benefit. Can  there be any  possible appeal to  a mother that  is
more likely to sway her?"
    Nicole's eyes were on fire.  Katie reached into her purse,  pulled
out a cigarette, and lit it with a trembling hand.
    "And who is it that comes  to me with such a proposition?"  Nicole
continued. She was  now shouting.  "Who brings me  delicious food  and
wine and pictures of my family to soften me up for the  self-inflicted
knife that will surely kill me  with much more pain than any  electric
chair? Why, it is my own daughter, the beloved issue of my womb."
    Nicole suddenly  moved forward  and grabbed  Katie. "Do  not  play
Judas for them, Katie," Nicole said, shaking her frightened  daughter.
"You are so much better than mat. In time, if they convict and execute
me on these specious charges, you will appreciate what I am doing."
    Katie  freed  herself  from  her  mother's  grasp  and   staggered
backward. She  took a  drag  from her  cigarette. "This  is  bullshit,
Mother," she said a moment  later. "Total bullshit. You're just  being
your usual self-righteous  . . .  Look, I  came here to  help you,  to
offer you a chance to  go on living. Why  can't you listen to  someone
else just one time in your goddamn life?"
    Nicole stared at Katie for  several seconds. Her voice was  softer
when she spoke again. "I have been  listening to you, Katie, and I  do
not like what I have heard. I have also been watching you. ... I don't
think for a moment that you came here today to help me. That would  be
completely inconsistent with what I have seen of your character  these
last few years. There must be something in all this for you.
    "Nor do I believe that you in any way represent Ellie and Patrick.
If that were the case, they would  have come with you. I must  confess
that for a while earlier I was confused and feeling that perhaps I was
causing too  much pain  for all  my children.  But in  these last  few
minutes I
    506 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    have seen what is going on here very clearly. . . . Katie, my dear
Katie-"
    "Don't you touch  me again,"  Katie snouted  as Nicole  approached
her,  Katie's  eyes   were  full   of  tears.  "And   spare  me   your
self-righteous pity."
    The ceH was  momentarily quiet. Katie  finished her cigarette  and
tried to compose herself. "Look," she said at length, "I don't give  a
shit what you feel about me- that's not important-but why, Mother, why
can't you think  about Patrick and  Ellie and even  little Nicole?  Is
being a saint so important to  you that they should suffer because  of
it?"
    "In time," Nicole replied, "they will understand."
    "In time," Katie said  angrily, "you'll be dead.  In a very  short
time. ... Do you realize that the  moment I walk out of here and  tell
Nakamura that there's no  deal, the date for  your trial will be  set?
And that you have no chance at all, absolutely no fucking chance?"
    "You cannot scare me, Katie."
    "I cannot scare you, I cannot  touch you, I cannot even appeal  to
your judgment. Like all good saints, you listen to your own voices."
    Katie took a deep breath. "Then I guess this is it. ...  Good-bye,
Mother." Despite herself, fresh tears appeared in Katie's eyes.
    Nicole wept openly. "Good-bye, Katie," she said. "I love you."
    10
    T!
    •he defense may now make its closing statement."
    Nicole rose from her  chair and walked around  the table. She  was
surprised that  she  was  so  tired.  The  two  years  in  prison  had
definitely diminished her legendary stamina.
    She slowly approached  the jury  of four  men and  two women.  The
woman in  the  front  row,  Karen  Stolz,  had  been  originally  from
Switzerland. Nicole had known  the woman fairly  well when Mrs.  Stolz
and her husband had  owned and operated the  bakery around the  corner
from the Wakefield home in Beauvois.
    "Hello again, Karen,"  Nicole said quietly,  stopping directly  in
front of the  jurors. They  were sitting in  two rows  of three  seats
each. "How are John and Marie? They must be teenagers by now."
    Mrs. Stolz  squirmed  in her  seat.  "They're fine,  Nicole,"  she
replied very softly.
    Nicole smiled. "And  do you  still make  those wonderful  cinnamon
rolls every Sunday morning?"
    The crack  of the  gavel resounded  through the  courtroom.  "Mrs.
Wakefield," Judge Nakamura said, "this is
    508 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    hardly the time for small talk. Your closing statement is  limited
to five minutes and the clock has already started."
    Nicole ignored the  judge. She leaned  across the barrier  between
her and the jury, her eyes  focusing on a magnificent necklace  around
Karen Stolz's neck. "The jewels are beautiful," she said in a whisper.
"But they would have paid much, much more."
    Again the gavel cracked. Two guards quickly approached Nicole, but
she had already backed away from Mrs. Stolz. "Ladies and gentlemen  of
the jury,"  Nicole said,  "all  this week  you  have listened  as  the
prosecution has repeatedly insisted that I have incited resistance  to
the legitimate government of New Eden. For my putative actions I  have
been charged with sedition. You must  now decide, on the basis of  the
evidence presented at this trial, if  I am guilty. Please remember  as
you deliberate that  sedition is  a capital  offense-a guilty  verdict
carries with it a mandatory death penalty.
    "In my closing statement,  I would like  to examine carefully  the
structure of the prosecution's case.  The testimony on the first  day,
all of which was totally irrelevant  to the charges against me and,  1
believe, was permitted  by Judge  Nakamura in clear  violation of  the
colony codicils .covering testimony in capital offense trials-"
    "Mrs. Wakefield," Judge Nakamura  angrily interrupted, "as I  have
told you  before  this  week, I  cannot  tolerate  such  disrespectful
comments in my courtroom. One more similar remark and I will not  only
cite you for contempt,  I will also  terminate your closing  statement
altogether.''
    "That entire day, the prosecution attempted to show,that my sexual
morality was questionable, and that  therefore I was somehow a  likely
candidate  to  engage  in  political  conspiracy,"  Nicole  continued,
without so much  as glancing at  the judge. "Ladies  and gentlemen,  I
would be happy to discuss privately with you the unusual circumstances
associated with the conception of each of my six children. However, my
sex life-past, present,  or even future-has  no bearing whatsoever  on
this trial. Except for its possible value as entertainment, that first
day of testimony was absolutely meaningless."
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    509
    There were a  few titters in  the packed gallery,  but the  guards
quickly quieted the crowd. "The prosecution's next set of  witnesses,"
Nicole  continued,  "spent  many  hours  implicating  my  husband  for
seditious activities.  I freely  admit that  I am  married to  Richard
Wakefield. But his guilt-or lack of it, for that matter-is not of  any
importance at this trial either.  Only evidence that purports to  show
me guilty of sedition is germane to your verdict here.
    "The prosecution has suggested  that my seditious acts  originated
with my  involvement in  the  video that  eventually resulted  in  the
establishment of this colony.  I acknowledge that  I did help  prepare
the video  that  was  transmitted  from  Rama  to  the  Earth,  but  I
categorically deny that I either conspired from the beginning with the
aliens or in any way schemed with the extraterrestrials who built this
spaceship against my fellow humans.
    "I participated  in  the making  of  that video,  as  I  indicated
yesterday when I allowed the prosecutor to cross-examine me, because I
felt I  had no  choice.  My family  and  I were  at  the mercy  of  an
intelligence and  power  far  beyond  anything  any  of  us  had  ever
imagined. There was a  significant concern that  failure to accede  to
their request for help with the video would have resulted in reprisals
against us."
    Nicole returned to the defense table briefly and drank some water.
She then turned around to face  the jury again. "That leaves only  two
possible sources for any  real evidence to  convict me of  sedition-my
daughter  Katie's  testimony  and  that  strange  audio  recording,  a
disjointed collection of comments that I  made to other members of  my
family after I was imprisoned, that you heard yesterday morning.
    "You are all  well aware how  easily recordings like  that can  be
twisted and manipulated. The two, key audio technicians both  admitted
yesterday on the witness stand that  they had listened to hundreds  of
hours of conversation between my children and me before coming up with
that thirty  minutes of  'damaging evidence,'  no more  than  eighteen
seconds of which were taken from any single conversation. To say  that
my comments on that recording were  presented out of context would  be
an understatement.
    510 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "With respect to the testimony  of my daughter Katie Wakefield,  I
can only  say, with  great sorrow,  that she  lied repeatedly  in  her
original remarks. I  have not  ever had  any knowledge  of my  husband
Richard's supposedly  illegal activities  and I  have certainly  never
supported him in them.
    "You recall  that  under  cross-examination by  me,  Katie  became
confused  about  the  facts  and  ultimately  repudiated  her  earlier
testimony before  collapsing  on  the witness  stand.  The  judge  has
advised you  that my  daughter  has recently  been in  fragile  mental
health, and  that  you  should  ignore the  comments  she  made  under
emotional duress  during my  questioning. I  beseech you  to  remember
every word that Katie  said, not only when  the prosecutor was  asking
her questions, but also  during the time that  I was trying to  obtain
the specific dates and places for  the seditious actions that she  had
ascribed to me."
    Nicole approached the jurors one final time, carefully making  eye
contact with each of them. "Ultimately, you must judge where the truth
lies in this  case. I face  you now with  a heavy heart,  disbelieving
even as I stand here the events  that have led to my being accused  of
these serious crimes.  I have  served both  the colony  and the  human
species well.  I am  not guilty  of  any of  the charges  against  me.
Whatever power or  intelligence exists in  this amazing universe  will
recognize that fact, regardless of the outcome of this trial."
    The outside  light  was  fading quickly.  A  contemplative  Nicole
leaned against the wall  in her cell, wondering  if this would be  the
last night of her life. She shuddered involuntarily. Since the verdict
had been announced, Nicole had gone  to sleep each night expecting  to
die the next day.
    The Garcia brought her dinner soon after it was dark. The food had
been much better the last few days. As she slowly ate her grilled fish
Nicole reflected on the  five years since she  and her family had  met
that first scouting party from the Pinta. What went wrong here? Nicole
asked herself. What were our fundamental mistakes?
    She could hear  Richard's voice  in her head.  Always cynical  and
distrustful of human behavior, he had sug-
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    51 1
    gested at the end of the first year that New Eden was too good for
humanity. "We'll eventually  ruin it  as we  have the  Earth," he  had
said. "Our genetic baggage-the whole bit, you know, territoriality and
aggression and  reptilian behavior-is  too  strong for  education  and
enlightenment to overcome.  Look at  O'Toole's heroes,  both of  them,
Jesus and  that  young  Italian,  St.  Michael  of  Siena.  They  were
destroyed because they  suggested that  humans should try  to be  more
than clever chimpanzees."
    But  here,  in  New  Eden,  Nicole  thought,  there  was  so  much
opportunity for a better world. The  basics of life were provided.  We
were surrounded by unambiguous evidence that there was intelligence in
the universe far beyond ours. That should have produced an environment
in which . . .
    She finished her fish and pulled the small chocolate pudding  over
in front  of  her. Nicole  smiled  to herself,  remembering  how  much
Richard had loved chocolate. / have missed him very much, she thought.
Especially his conversation and his insight.
    Nicole was startled to  hear footsteps coming  toward her cell.  A
deep chill of  fear coursed through  her body. Her  visitors were  two
young men,  each of  them  carrying lanterns.  They were  wearing  the
uniforms of Nakamura's special police.
    The men came into the celi in a very businesslike manner. They did
not introduce themselves. The older one, probably in his mid-thirties,
quickly pulled out a document and began to read. '.'Nicole des Jardins
Wakefield," he said, "you have been convicted of the crime of sedition
and will be executed at 0800 tomorrow morning. Your breakfast will  be
served at 0630,  ten minutes after  first light, and  we will come  to
take you to the execution chamber  at 0730. You will be strapped  into
the electric chair  at 0758 and  current will be  applied exactly  two
minutes later. ... Do you have any questions?"
    Nicole's heart was  beating so rapidly  she could hardly  breathe.
She struggled  to  calm herself.  "Do  you have  any  questions?"  the
policeman repeated.
    "What is your name, young man?" Nicole asked, her voice breaking.
    512 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    "Franz," the man answered after a puzzled hesitation.
    "Franz what?" Nicole said.
    "Franz Bauer," he replied.
    "Well, Franz Bauer," Nicole  said, trying to  force a smile.  "Can
you please tell me how  long it will take me  to die? After you  apply
the current, of course."
    "I don't really know," he  said, somewhat flustered. "You'll  lose
consciousness almost instantly,  in just  a couple of  seconds. But  I
don't know how long-" :
    "Thank you," Nicole said,  starting to feel  faint. "Could you  go
now, please? I would like to be alone." The two men opened the door to
the cell. "Oh, by  the way," Nicole added,  "could you possibly  leave
the lantern?  And  maybe  a  pen and  paper,  or  even  an  electronic
notebook?"
    Franz Bauer shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said. "We cannot."
    Nicole waved him away and crossed to the far side of her cell. Two
letters, she said to herself,  breathing slowly to gather strength.  /
only wanted to  write two letters.  One to Katie  and one to  Richard.
I've made my final peace with everyone else.
    After the policemen  had departed Nicole  recalled the long  hours
that she had spent in the pit  in Rama I! many years before, when  she
had expected to die from starvation. She had passed what she had  then
thought were her  last days reliving  the happy moments  of her  life.
That's not necessary now, she thought. There is no event from my  past
that has not been thoroughly  scrutinized already. That's the  benefit
of two years in prison.
    Nicole was  surprised to  discover that  she was  angry about  not
being able to write the final  two letters, /'// bring the subject  up
again in  the morning.  They'll let  me write  the letters  if I  make
enough noise. Despite herself, Nicole smiled. "Do not go gently. .  ."
she quoted out loud.
    Suddenly she felt her pulse rate increase again. In her mind's eye
Nicole saw an electric chair in a dark room. She was sitting in it;  a
strange helmet was wrapped around her  head. The helmet began to  glow
and Nicole saw herself slump forward.
    Dear God, she thought, wherever and whatever you
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    513
    are. Please give me some courage now. I am very frightened.
    Nicole sat down on her bed in  the darkness of her room. In a  few
minutes she felt better, almost calm. She found herself wondering what
the instant of death would  be like. Is it  just like going to  sleep,
and then there's  nothing? Or  does something special  happen at  that
very last moment, something that no living person can ever know?
    There was a voice  calling her from far  away. Nicole stirred  but
did not wake up completely. "Mrs. Wake-field," the voice called again.
    Nicole sat up  quickly in her  bed, thinking it  was morning.  She
felt a surge of fear as her mind  told her that she had only two  more
hours to live. "Mrs. Wakefield,"  the voice said, "over here,  outside
your cell. . . . It's Amadou Diaba."
    Nicole rubbed her eyes and strained to see the figure in the  dark
by the door. "Who?" she said, slowly walking across the room.
    "Amadou Diaba. Two  years ago you  helped Dr. Turner  do my  heart
transplant."
    "What are you doing here, Amadou? And how did you get inside?" ,
    "I came to bring  you something. I  bribed everybody necessary.  I
had to see you."
    Even though the  man was only  five meters away  from her,  Nicole
could see only his vague outline in the darkness. Her tired eyes  were
playing tricks on her as well. Once, when she tried especially hard to
focus, she momentarily thought  her visitor was her  great-grandfather
Omeh. A sharp chill raced through her body.
    "All right, Amadou," Nicole said at  length. "What is it that  you
have brought me?"
    "I must explain it first," he said. "And even then it may not make
any sense. ... I don't understand it fully myself. I just know that  I
had to bring it to you tonight."
    He paused a moment. When Nicole did not say anything, Amadou  told
his story  very rapidly.  "The day  after I  was selected  for  Lowell
Colony, while I was  still in Lagos, I  received this strange  message
from my Senoufo
    514 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    grandmother, telling me that it was very urgent that I come to see
her. I went at my first opportunity, which was two weeks later,  after
I had received  still another  message from  my grandmother  insisting
that my visit was a matter of life and death.
    "When I arrived  at her  village in the  Ivory Coast,  it was  the
middle of the night. My grandmother awakened and dressed  immediately.
Accompanied by our village  medicine man, we took  a long trek  across
the savanna that very  night. I was exhausted  by the time we  reached
our destination, a little village named Nidougou."
    "Nidougou?" Nicole interrupted.
    "That's right,"  Amadou replied.  "Anyway,  there was  a  strange,
wizened man there  who must have  been some kind  of super Shaman.  My
grandmother and our medicine man stayed in Nidougou while this man and
I made the strenuous climb up a nearby barren mountain to the side  of
a small lake. We arrived just before sunrise. 'Look,' the old man said
when the first rays of  the sun hit the lake.  'Look into the Lake  of
Wisdom. What do you see?'
    "I told him I saw thirty or forty melonlike objects resting on the
bottom of one side of the lake. 'Good,' he said with a smile. 'You are
indeed the one.'
    " 't am the one what?' I asked.
    "He never answered. We walked around the lake, nearer to where the
melons had been submerged-we couldn't see  them any longer as the  sun
rose higher in the sky-and the  super shaman pulled out a small  vial.
He dipped it into the water, put a cap on it, and handed it to me.  He
also gave  me a  small stone,  which looked  and was  shaped like  the
melonlike objects on the bottpm of the lake.
    " "These are the most important  gifts you will ever receive,'  he
said.
    " 'Why?' I said.
    "A few seconds later his eyes became completely white and he  fell
into a trance,  chanting in  rhythmic Senoufo. He  danced for  several
minutes and then suddenly jumped into the cold lake for a swim.
    " 'Wait a minute,' I shouted. 'What shall I do with your gifts?'
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    515
    " 'Take them  with you everywhere,'  he said. 'You  will know  the
time to use them.' "
    Nicole thought that the beating of her heart was so loud that even
Amadou could hear  it. She extended  her arm through  the bars of  her
cell and touched his shoulder. "And last night," she said, "a voice in
a dream, or maybe it wasn't a  dream after all, told you to bring  the
vial and the stone to me tonight."
    "Exactly/1 Amadou said. He paused. "How did you know?"
    Nicole did not answer.  She could not speak.  Her entire body  was
trembling. Moments  later, when  Nicole felt  the two  objects in  her
hand, her knees were so weak that  she thought she was going to  fall.
She thanked  Amadou  twice  and  urged him  to  leave  before  he  was
discovered.
    She walked slowly across the cell to  her bed. Can it be? And  how
can it be? All this somehow known from the beginning? Manna melons  on
the Earth? Nicole's system  was overloaded. /  have lost control,  she
thought, and I have not even drunk from the vial yet.
    Just holding the vial and the stone reminded Nicole vividly of the
incredible vision she had experienced at the bottom of the pit in Rama
II. Nicole opened the vial. She took two deep breams and swallowed its
contents hurriedly.
    At first  she thought  nothing was  happening. The  blackness  all
around her did not seem to  change. Then suddenly a great orange  ball
formed in the  middle of the  cell. It exploded,  spreading color  all
across the darkness.  A red  ball followed,  men a  purple one.  While
Nicole was recoiling from the brilliance of the purple explosion,  she
heard a loud laugh outside her window. She glanced in that  direction.
The cell disappeared. Nicole was outside in a field.
    It was dark, but she could  still see outlines of objects. Off  in
the distance Nicole heard the laugh  again. Amadou, she called in  her
mind. Nicole  raced  across  the  field at  blinding  speed.  She  was
catching the man.  As she drew  closer, his face  changed. It was  not
Amadou at all. It was Omeh.
    He laughed again and Nicole stopped. Ronata, he
    516 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    called. His face was growing. Larger,  ever larger, it was as  big
as a car, then as big as  a house. His laughter was deafening.  Omeh's
face was a huge balloon, rising high, ever higher into the dark night.
He laughed once more and  his balloon face exploded, showering  Nicole
with water. She was drenched.  She was submerged, swimming  underneath
the water. When Nicole surfaced she was in the oasis pond in the Ivory
Coast, where as a seven-year-old  girl she had confronted the  lioness
during the Poro. The  same lioness was prowling  the perimeter of  die
pond. Nicole was a little girl again. She was very frightened.
    / want my mother, Nicole thought. Lay  thee down I Now and rest  I
May thy slumber be  blessed, she sang. Nicole  started to walk out  of
the water.  The lioness  did not  bother her.  Nicole glanced  at  the
animal once more and the face of the lioness had changed into the face
of her mother. Nicole ran over to embrace her mother. Instead,  Nicole
became the lioness herself, prowling on the shore of the oasis pond in
the middle of the African savanna.
    There were now six swimmers altogether in the pond,, all children.
As lioness Nicole continued to sing the Brahms Lullaby, one by one the
children emerged from the  water. Genevieve was  first, men Simone,  .
Katie, Benjy,  Patrick,  and Ellie.  Each  of them  walked  past  her,
heading into the savanna. Nicole raced after them.
    She was running on  an infield in a  packed stadium. Nicole was  a
human again, young and athletic. Her final jump was announced. As  she
headed for  the  top of  the  triple  jump runway,  a  Japanese  judge
approached her. It was Toshio Nakamura. You are going to foul, he said
with a scowl.
    Nicole thought she was flying as  she sped down the approach.  She
hit the board perfectly,  soared into the air  on her hop, executed  a
balanced skip, and  powered far out  into the pit  with her jump.  She
knew it had been a good one. Nicole bounded over to where she had left
her warm-ups. Her father and Henry both  came over to give her a  hug.
Well done, they said  in unison. Very well  done. Joan of Arc  brought
the gold medal to the victory stand and hung it around Nicole's  neck.
Eleanor of  Aquitaine handed  her a  dozen roses.  Kenji Watanabe  and
Judge
    THE GARDEN OF RAMA
    51 7
    Mishkin stood beside  her and offered  their congratulations.  The
announcer said that  her jump was  a new world  record. The crowd  was
giving her a standing ovation. Nicole  looked out at the sea of  faces
and noticed that there weren't just humans in the crowd. Hie Eagle was
there,  in  a  special  box,  sitting  beside  an  entire  section  of
octo-spiders. Everyone  was  saluting her,  even  the avians  and  the
spherical creatures with  the gossamer tentacles  and the dozen  caped
eels pressed against the  window of a  gigantic enclosed bowl.  Nicole
waved to them all.
    Her arms changed to wings and she began to fly. Nicole was a  hawk
soaring high above the farming strip  in New Eden. She looked down  on
the building where  she had  been imprisoned. Nicole  turned west  and
found Max Puck-ett's farm. Even though it was the middle of the night,
Max was outside, working on what appeared to be an addition to one  of
his barns.
    Nicole continued to fly west, heading toward the bright lights  of
Vegas. She descended when she  reached the complex, flying behind  the
big nightclubs, one  by one. Katie  was sitting outside  on some  back
steps, all by herself. She  had her face buried  in her hands and  her
body was shaking. Nicole tried to comfort her but the only sound was a
hawk's cry in the night. Katie looked up at the sky, puzzled.
    Nicole flew over to  Positano, near the  habitat exit, and  waited
for the  outside  door  to  open. Startling  the  guard,  hawk  Nicole
departed from New  Eden. She  reached Ava-lon  in less  man a  minute.
Robert, Ellie, little  Nicole, and  even an  orderly were  all in  die
lounge with Benjy in the  ward. Nicole had no  idea why they were  all
awake in the middle of the night. She cried to mem. Benjy came over to
the window and gazed out into the darkness.
    Nicole heard a voice calling her. It was faint, far to the  south.
She flew rapidly to  the second habitat,  entering through the  gaping
hole that the humans  had cut into the  exterior wall. After  speeding
through the annulus and  finding a portal, she  soared over the  green
region in the interior. She could no longer hear the voice. But Nicole
could see her son Patrick camped with other soldiers near the base  of
the brown cylinder.
    518 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
    An avian with four cobalt rings  met her in midair. He's not  here
anymore, it said. Try New York. Nicole exited quickly from the  second
habitat and returned to the Central Plain. She heard the voice  again.
Up, up she went. Hawk Nicole could barely breathe.
    She flew  south over  the perimeter  wall enclosing  the  Northern
Hemicylinder. The Cylindrical  Sea was  below her. The  voice was  now
more distinct. It was Richard. Her hawk heart was pounding furiously.
    He was standing on the shore, in front of the skyscrapers,  waving
at her. Come to  me, Nicole, his  voice said. She  could see his  eyes
even in the dark. Nicole flew down and landed on Richard's shoulder.
    There was blackness around her. Nicole  was back in her cell.  Was
that a bird she  heard flying just outside  her window? Her heart  was
still fluttering.
    She walked across the small room. Thank you, Amadou, she said.  Or
Omeh. She smiled. Or God.
    Nicole stretched  out on  her bed.  A few  seconds later  she  was
asleep.
    About the Authors
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE  is one  of the most  celebrated science  fiction
authors of our time, winner of all the field's highest honors. He  was
named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in  1986.
The author  of more  than fifty  books with  more than  fifty  million
copies in  print, his  bestsellers include  Childhood's End,  2001:  A
Space Odyssey,  2010:  Odyssey Two,  2061:  Odyssey Three,  and,  most
recent, Rama II (with Gentry Lee) and The Ghost from the Grand  Banks.
He co-broadcast  the  Apollo  11,  12, and  15  missions  with  Walter
Cronkite and Captain  Wally Schirra,  and shared  an Oscar  nomination
with Stanley Kubrick for the film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
    GENTRY LEE has been chief engineer on Project Galileo, director of
science analysis and  mission planning  for NASA's  Viking mission  to
Mars, and  partner with  Carl Sagan  in the  design, development,  and
implementation of the television series Cosmos. He is coauthor of Rama
II.
    ARTHUR C. CLARKE  is one  of the most  celebrated science  fiction
authors of our time, winner of all the
    field's highest honors. He was  named Grand Master by the  Science
Fiction Writers of America in
    1986. The author of more than fifty books, with
    more than fifty million copies in print, his bestsellers
    include Childhood's End, 2001: A Space Odyssey,
    2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, and most
    recent, Rama //(with Gentry Lee) and The Ghost
    from the Grand Banks. He cobroadcast the Apollo 11,
    12, and 15 missions with Walter Cronkite and
    Captain Wally Schirra, and shared an
    Oscar nomination with Stanley Kubrick for the film
    version of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
    GENTRY LEE has been chief engineer on
    Project Galileo, director of science analysis and
    mission planning for NASA's Viking mission to Mars,
    and partner  with  Carl  Sagan in  the  design,  development,  and
implementation of the television
    series Cosmos. He is co-author of Rama II.