Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Johann continued to eat his mixture of berries, cereal, and water. He made no comment.

  “Brother Johann,” she said after a minute, with just a hint of pique in her voice, “surely you are not going to sit there and deny that the hand of God was involved this morning? Even a doubter like Thomas would have had his faith restored after being confronted with such majestic power.”

  “Sister Beatrice,” Johann replied, “I will readily admit to you that I have never seen a comparable sight. That wave was as tall as a fifty-story building when it crashed upon the island, and you were not the only one of us who was feeling tingles… However, it is not only God who could have produced such a gigantic wave to put out the fire. Technologically advanced extraterrestrials, like the ones who built this island and the giant sphere in which we reside, could also use their knowledge of physics to maneuver the spacecraft in such a way—”

  “But the wave was perfect, Brother Johann,” Sister Beatrice interrupted. “It was just tall enough to put out the entire fire, and it hit the island at exactly the right spot. No unnecessary damage was done. Your aliens would have to be magicians…”

  “As they very obviously are,” Johann countered. “Think about it, Sister Beatrice. Was the wave more fantastic than Hiroshima, or our excursion into the world of the Nazis?”

  Beatrice was silent for a long time. Then she sighed. “It’s at moments like this that I miss Sister Vivien the most,” she said. “She had her skeptical side, and that kept me on my toes, but in the final analysis she was a dear comrade. We were united in our belief in God, and in our commitment to do His work… You and I, Brother Johann, could never be that close. No matter how fond we become of each other, or how much we share, there will always be a gulf between us. Our different views of the purpose of life and the universe will always separate us.”

  She looked away from Johann. “Despite your care and affection, sometimes I feel so very alone. I know you love me, and that is comforting. But occasionally my heart aches for Sister Vivien, and everything she represents. She would have seen God’s hand in the wave and we would have exulted about it for weeks. We would have talked about God and His miracles late into the night…”

  Sister Beatrice turned back to Johann. There were now tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Brother Johann,” she said, trying to force a smile. “I have no right—”

  “You are human, Sister Beatrice,” he interrupted gently. “And loneliness is a very human emotion… I’m sorry that I cannot fulfill more of your needs. Maybe in time…”

  “Maybe in time, Brother Johann,” she said. “God willing…”

  Johann saw no signs of Yasin the following morning. He stayed at his observation post until midday and then went back to the cave to tell Sister Beatrice the news. He promised her that if he didn’t see Yasin the next day, he would cross the island to find out what had happened to him.

  Sister Beatrice climbed the mountain with Johann the next morning. Yasin did not appear. They continued to watch his cave until after their normal lunch hour.

  “I have this strange feeling that Yasin is dead, Brother Johann,” Beatrice said. “It makes no sense that we have not seen him at all.”

  “Maybe he moved to a higher elevation,” Johann said without conviction. “Maybe he was afraid that there might be another earthquake, and another giant wave.”

  Johann knew that he had no choice except to honor his promise to Sister Beatrice. He packed some food, water, and medicine in a backpack. He grabbed his club and set out an hour later, taking the main path to the top of the mountain so that he would be able to keep Yasin’s cave in view during his entire descent.

  As he drew closer to the caves Johann spent several minutes at each vantage point, listening for telltale sounds as well as looking carefully for Yasin. There was no indication of any human presence in the cave area.

  When he was only about a hundred meters away from the plaza with the perpetual fire, Johann veered toward the beach to make his final approach. This maneuver placed him directly opposite the front of the large cave in which the three of them had once lived. Johann noticed immediately that the large cave, which he had always favored because of its excellent view of the lake, had some kind of gate across its entrance. Puzzled, but remaining careful not to show himself or to make any sound, he crawled slowly toward the large cave.

  At a distance of about twenty meters from the front of the cave, Johann peered around a rock. He saw a lattice of thin white poles with red markings wedged into the rock above and on both sides of the entrance. In the middle was a tall, skinny door, made of the same material as the lattice, that was presently open.

  Someone, probably Yasin, Johann thought, built this gate to control movement in and out of the large cave. He knew that the entrance could only be clearly seen from the lake. Was he protecting himself from us? From me? But if so, why was he still sleeping in the other cave?

  Johann did not have a chance to continue his thoughts or to examine the construction more closely. He felt a powerful blow strike the back of his head and an instant later he was unconscious.

  15

  It was dark outside when Johann awakened. He had a terrible headache. He touched the large knot on the back of his head and felt an excruciating pain.

  Johann looked around. He could see reflected firelight on the far wall. He recognized that he was in the front room of the large cave where Sister Beatrice and he had tended Yasin. He sat up slowly, the painful pounding in his head increasing with his movement. He waited several seconds and then made a heroic effort to stand.

  Johann somehow managed to walk the several meters over to the front of the cave. The door was now closed and locked. He tried unsuccessfully to push it open. Next he grabbed two of the bars that were part of the barrier and tried to bend them. They would not yield.

  The exertion had made his headache worse. Johann walked slowly back into the cave, pulled one of the sleeping mats against the wall into the center of the room, and lay down upon it. He was asleep again in only a few minutes.

  Johann was hungry and thirsty when he awakened the second time. It was daylight. The pain in his head had lessened considerably. He remembered his backpack and wondered what had happened to it.

  He examined the construction across the entrance to the cave more closely. Each set of vertical bars was doubled, and tied together in a dozen places. The pairs of vertical bars were separated from the next pair by about fifteen centimeters, half the length of Johann’s hand. Short horizontal bars scattered in no obvious pattern reinforced the strength of the barrier.

  The narrow door to his cell was a meter or so taller than Johann, but only a meter wide. Two long rods on the other side of the bars ran from the floor to the ceiling and prevented the door from opening. At the bottom of the bars, over next to the rock wall on the left, there was a small square hole.

  Johann’s engineering mind began to look for weaknesses in the barrier. At each contact point where a horizontal or vertical bar touched the wall, floor, or ceiling of the cave, a small groove had been punched into the rock to increase the strength of the connection. All of the contacts Johann tested were absolutely rigid. Whoever had designed his prison had done a careful job.

  Johann was sitting down on his mat again when Yasin appeared on the other side of the bars. He was carrying a long staff in one hand and a bowl of food in the other.

  “Good morning, Ace,” he said, pushing the bowl through the small opening at the bottom of the bars. “I trust you have slept well.”

  Johann approached the bars. “Let me out of here, Yasin,” he said, trying to be as calm as possible.

  “First explain to me what you were doing around here last evening,” Yasin said. He was standing far enough away from the bars that Johann could not reach him with his long arms. “Your last words to me hardly suggested that our next meeting was going to be peaceful.”

  “Sister Beatrice and I were worried when we didn’t see any sign of you after
the wave. We were afraid you might have been killed or injured. I was bringing you food; water, and medicine. You have my backpack. You can verify—”

  “Check, Ace,” Yasin interrupted. “The contents of your backpack were an excellent example of contingency engineering. Perhaps you also have a good explanation for that club you were carrying as well. Are there now dangerous wild animals on our island that I don’t know about?”

  Johann was briefly silent. “I have no good explanation for the club, Yasin,” he said finally.

  “Did you need protection from me, Ace, a man only half your size whom you nearly killed with your bare hands?” Yasin’s voice was laced with bitterness. “And for what reason would you have killed me, my German giant, if crazy Beatrice had not stopped you? Because I, unlike you, was not afraid to take her by force? In your screwed-up Christian mind, is that a legitimate reason to kill another man?”

  Johann knew that Yasin was baiting him. He did not respond. “When we were working together at Valhalla,” Yasin continued, “I thought you were an intelligent man. But I have had my doubts since we boarded that hatbox, and especially since I came to this island.”

  Yasin approached the bars. “Think about it, Siegfried,” he said. “What is the only possible stable configuration of the three of us marooned forever on this island? You and I must share that crazy bitch Beatrice. If she is bonded to either one of us, sooner or later jealousy will explode. That’s the nature of our species. Only if we are both screwing her can a stable equilibrium be reached.”

  Johann fought with his emotions. An inner voice reminded him that he was hardly in a position to argue with Yasin. Nevertheless, he couldn’t hide his disgust.

  “What is it with you, Ace?” Yasin said, probing Johann lightly in the midriff with his staff. “Has that woman cast some kind of a spell over you? You could have taken her whenever you wanted, and your passion for her is obvious, yet for over a hundred days… Are you gay, Ace? Is that your secret? Is it me you would rather screw?”

  “I am not gay, you asshole,” Johann said, no longer able to keep his mouth shut. “But I don’t believe in taking women by force, especially not one who is trusting and compassionate and believes deeply that her chastity is part of her commitment to God.”

  Yasin began to laugh. “What a joke!” he said. “You must be as loony as she is. A woman priestess is a pathetic curiosity even on the earth, but here, in this place, it is absolutely insane… Ace, we’ve discussed this before. Women have two purposes in life, having sex and bearing children. Everything else is nonsense… But I’ve wandered away from the point I was trying to make. What bothers me the most about your nearly killing me is that your action indicates how warped your value system is. No reasonable man would ever try to kill another man for doing what is natural, namely trying to have sex with a woman. Not even if the woman in question was the man’s wife, which was certainly not the case in this situation.”

  Johann was upset with himself for his earlier outburst. He forced himself to be silent and tried to shut out Yasin’s voice. He picked up the bowl that Yasin had pushed through the hole and then returned to his mat.

  Yasin was standing at the bars. “Okay, Ace.” He grinned. “I guess you’re telling me you’ve had enough for now. I assume from your reaction that you’re not yet ready to apologize.”

  Johann looked up from his bowl. “Apologize?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Yasin. “I think an apology from you is in order. After all, you damn near killed me. An apology would be an excellent way to improve our relationship.”

  Johann stared at Yasin but said nothing. Yasin shrugged and then disappeared. He returned a few seconds later with another bowl of food and a water jug. “Here you are, Siegfried,” he said. “This should be enough to hold you until Brunhild and I return.”

  “What are you going to do?” Johann said, not attempting to hide his alarm.

  “I’m going to fetch the fair maiden,” Yasin said. “I have been very lonely this past forty days and I have especially missed the company of a woman. I’m certain that Sister Beatrice will come gladly when I explain the situation to her.”

  Johann came forward to the bars. “Don’t you harm her, Yasin,” he said.

  Yasin grinned. “Under the circumstances, Ace, you’ll just have to trust me… Auf wiedersehen.”

  Yasin turned and walked away. He was wearing Johann’s backpack and whistling one of the tunes from Wagner’s Gotterdämmerung.

  It was a day of agony for Johann. He made an effort not to think about Yasin, and Sister Beatrice, and what might be happening on the other side of the island, but he was unsuccessful. The image of Yasin astride her in this very cave repeatedly tortured him.

  Johann attacked the bars with all his might. He pulled at them until his muscles were sore. He climbed one of the walls and yanked at one bar that did not seem to be firmly embedded in the ceiling. Desperate to escape, he searched through the back rooms of the cave, looking for a large rock that he might be able to hurl against the bars.

  He found nothing. Johann was unable to bend the bars even one iota. The prison that Yasin had designed was secure.

  Johann finished all the food and water soon after the middle of the day. He paced frantically about the cave for over an hour, and then, nearing exhaustion, he collapsed upon his mat. He awakened about half an hour before Yasin and Sister Beatrice returned.

  “Are you all right?” Johann said, rushing to the bars when Sister Beatrice appeared.

  “Yes, Brother Johann,” she said. She touched his hands through the bars. “What about you? Yasin said that he hit you hard.”

  “My head is fine,” Johann said. “But I’ve been worried sick about you… Has he hurt you?”

  Yasin was now within earshot, standing a meter or so behind Beatrice. He was still carrying his staff.

  “Yasin has been a perfect gentleman,” she said. “He asked me to come across so that the three of us could have a discussion about our future. I told him that I also thought it was time for all of us to talk.”

  “We’re going to eat right here, in front of your cell, Ace, and share our food with you,” Yasin said.

  “Couldn’t you let him out?” Sister Beatrice asked. “I give you my word that nothing untoward will occur.”

  “I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Sister,” Yasin said. “Not even if Siegfried gave me his word… My last encounter with him was not exactly pleasant. I don’t want to expose myself to danger until we have all reached our understanding.”

  Sister Beatrice had brought Johann several slices of his favorite melon. Sitting in front of him, she mixed together fruit and berries laced with the sweet leaves of the plant that she called rosemary, because of its resemblance to the earthly herb. The talk during dinner was subdued. Yasin told them his story of the fire and the wave.

  The fire had indeed been started by one of his torches. Yasin had been carrying some heavy wooden beams to his house and had inadvertently knocked one of the torches into the vegetation. He had thought that he had extinguished the fire, but it must have smoldered and then spread after he returned to his cave to sleep. Later he had been outside, not far from the edge of the fire, when he had first seen the huge wave approaching. He had scrambled up a slope out of its path with only a few minutes to spare.

  It was dark by the time they finished dinner. Yasin ignited two torches and stuck them in torch holders on either side of the entrance to Johann’s cell. Then he took Sister Beatrice aside and spoke to her in low tones.

  When they returned Yasin ordered Johann to back away from the door. “I’m going to let her come in and visit you, Ace, but I’m not going to take a chance that you might try something. I want you against the back wall of the cave, but where I can still see you.”

  Johann moved back in the cave. Yasin opened the door cautiously, watching Johann the entire time, and Sister Beatrice entered. Yasin had the two locking rods in place again within seconds. Johann came forward and
took Beatrice in his arms. Yasin stood at the bars watching them.

  The torches provided good lighting in the front of the cave. When Johann looked closely at Sister Beatrice, he could tell that she was deeply troubled. “What’s the matter?” he said softly.

  “Let’s sit down and talk,” she said. Johann pulled a second mat away from the wall and positioned it next to his. He waited for Sister Beatrice to sit first. She sat, cross-legged, and took off her headpiece. She pulled out the pins holding her blond hair against her head and it tumbled down her back.

  “What’s the matter?” Johann repeated.

  “Yasin and I have agreed,” Sister Beatrice said in a strained tone, “that the previous situation that existed on this island is untenable. We were not able to agree, however, on what to do about our problem. Toward the end of our conversation, we had an argument. That’s when Yasin informed me that he intends to keep you prisoner unless his two conditions are met.”

  “What are his two conditions?” Johann said.

  “Yasin wants you to apologize, in my presence, for nearly killing him when he was… forcing himself upon me.”

  “That little bastard,” Johann muttered. “And the second condition, Sister Beatrice, what is it?”

  Beatrice turned away suddenly. Her body was trembling. Johann reached over to her, but she shook him away. “It’s all right, Brother Johann,” she said. “I’ll be okay in a minute.”

  She took two deep breaths and clasped her hands in front of her for a few seconds. Then Sister Beatrice faced Johann again. “Yasin believes,” she said, “that all the potential for trouble among us would be removed if I were not a sexual prize that the two of you were competing for. If I become a wife to each of you, and you share me without competition or jealousy, then we can peacefully coexist.”

  “He explained his insane ideas to me this morning,” Johann said. “But I’m lost… I thought you were going to explain the second condition for my release.”