Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  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 O'Toole," 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 years?"

  Patrick nodded shyly.

  "My friend Goldie says that the whole story is bullshit, that you and your family are really all agents for the IIA. 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, I find it fas-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 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.

  "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

  Again 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 rubbed 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 clothes. 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.

  "Would you like some coffee, Mrs. Wakefield?" he asked, taking the empty water glass from her.

  "No, Linc," 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 and 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.

  Nicole 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 focused 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 they 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 the 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 showers 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 Nakamura'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.

  "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 Niña 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 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 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 be 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, "I 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 corner of the colony. There, after having their identification checked by one human and two Garcias, they were allowed to p
ass 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 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.