Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  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 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

  We have had an incredible 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 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 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 hall. 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 Wakefield 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 "Nicole" 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 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 medic
al 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 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 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 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 Wakefield and Michael O'Toole? Was my father actually Pierre des Jardins, the famous writer of historical fiction? Did I 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. I 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 Francesca'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 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.