Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  As they neared the leaf-and-mud-covered mound, carefully camouflaged among the trees, the dozens of animals who had been accompanying them formed into lines on either side of the path and began to chant. The warriors who had been leading the processional also lined up beside the path and added their powerful voices to the song. A pair of mound doors, about sixty centimeters tall, opened at the end of the path, but none of the alien creatures entered. Soon the leader, after motioning for Johann to stop, walked forward, said something while standing next to the blue sphere and its box, and then led the group in what sounded to Johann like a cheer.

  Two large animals with long, bright streaks of brilliant red and blue hurried out from inside the mound, picked up the box, and carried it back inside. Meanwhile the leader, followed closely by one of the two warrior aliens who had been carrying the sphere through the forest, returned to where Johann was standing. Facing Johann, it rose up to its full height on two back legs, and gestured twice for this particular warrior to move closer to Johann. While the leader was speaking in its strange mixture of growls and whistles, it repeatedly clasped its two middle legs together, and then pointed at Johann and the warrior. To make certain that the message was clear, the warrior also gestured at Johann and himself and appeared to be repeating what the leader had been saying.

  After a final, brief exchange between the two alien animals, the warrior passed by Johann’s side, tapping him lightly on the thigh, and made a “follow me” gesture. The pair of them moved away from the others on a path that led around the side of the mound. When they departed, the leader and all the other animals filed through the open mound door.

  The mound was much larger than Johann had originally thought when he had seen it from a distance. Its peak was considerably above his head, and it extended over several thousand square meters of surface area. As Johann followed the warrior alien around the perimeter of the mound, they crossed two more paths, each of which ended in double doors that led inside the mound. Shortly after they crossed the second path, the warrior barked four short commands and two of the smaller, colorless creatures, who had been doing something in the woods, scurried quickly into a small outbuilding also made of leaves and mud and returned with two gourdlike green fruits. The warrior handed one of the fruits to Johann and sat down opposite him on a patch of grass. It knocked the top off the fruit by banging it on a nearby stump and then stuck its fingers inside. When Johann reached into his pocket to pull out his knife, the alien animal stopped eating and watched Johann with rapt attention.

  Johann opened the blade of the knife and the alien’s eyes widened. The motion in all three of the structures in its forehead indentations increased. When Johann cut through the rind of the fruit, and sliced a piece of the meat for himself, the warrior could not contain itself. It began to bounce up and down on all six legs, uttering both growls and hoots.

  Johann cut several more slices, offered two to the warrior, and then, much to its delight, handed over the knife, handle first. The warrior grasped the knife in its right front leg and held it for a few seconds before touching the blade to its left front leg, cutting itself slightly, and then dropping the knife on the ground.

  The alien picked the knife up again a few seconds later. For a long time it carefully experimented with the implement, first on the fruit, and then later on the leaves and sticks on the ground around it. Its fascination with the knife was so intense that it paid little attention to Johann. For him, this close-up view of the alien warrior’s first exposure to a standard pocket knife was a singular, epiphanic experience.

  Johann and his companion were sitting no more than a meter apart. He had ample time to study the deep, dark eyes, the wrinkles in the white mask, and the variety of motions in all the bizarre forehead structures. This particular animal also had a unique defining mark, a wide, jagged scar on the right side of its face that ran from just below the two tiny, connected balls in the forehead indentation to a spot not far from the edge of its mouth. Johann had not forgotten that his mission was to find and rescue Maria. That was still uppermost in his mind. But as he watched this alien warrior discover what could be done with the pocket knife, Johann felt a powerful surge of delight. At that moment he was profoundly happy to be alive.

  Not just on earth, Johann was thinking, did chemicals evolve to consciousness and intelligence. Our paradigm occurred elsewhere as well, probably many places among the billions of planets and stars. One of those products of evolution has itself created this artificial world, and brought together other similar chemicals, permitting us to glimpse a few of the endless manifestations of the astounding miracle of life.

  AFTER FINISHING THE fruit the warrior alien, still holding Johann’s knife in its right foreleg, rolled over on its side and fell asleep. Heavy lids came down over the large eyes and its mouth closed completely Johann wondered how the creature was breathing until he noticed that the two membranes behind the structures in the side forehead cavities were oscillating in and out with a fairly high frequency. A kind of gill?Johann asked himself. On the forehead?

  Resisting an urge to examine the sleeping alien animal even more closely, Johann decided to stand up and look around. The moment Johann rose, there were shouts and whistles from the forest behind him. Scarface, as Johann had by this time designated his companion, bolted upright on its back four legs, bared its teeth, and snarled. Johann immediately held his hands up in front of his body and backed away Scarface quickly closed its mouth and mimicked Johann’s hand motions, finishing its action with a short burst of whistles and a little side-to-side dance. Johann concluded that he had just witnessed the alien’s equivalent of a laugh. He smiled broadly. Another whistle-burst-cum-dance followed.

  With slow and careful motions, Scarface now extended the knife handle in Johann’s direction. Johann accepted the knife, closed the blade, and returned it to his pocket. Moments later, Scarface dropped down on all six legs and returned to the path around the perimeter of the mound.

  Johann heard many alien animal noises as they neared one of the few sharp corners in the mound structure. Around that corner, dozens of the colorless variety of the creatures were engaged in excavating another of the paths that led inside the mound. Simultaneously, a second group was busy near the mound itself, removing the double doors and widening the entrance. Scarface stopped when it reached the path, gestured toward the mound, and then pointed at Johann.

  He understood immediately. All this industry and effort were under way to make it possible for Johann to enter their habitat. Suddenly concerned that perhaps the alien creatures had not really understood why he had come with them in the first place, Johann cleared some leaves and branches away from a piece of ground and used a stick to draw a crude picture of Maria in the dirt.

  “Where is she?” he said to Scarface.

  Johann’s alien companion sat on the ground and inspected what Johann had drawn for almost a minute. Then, after a growl and a short whistle, Scarface used its front four legs to wipe Johann’s picture out completely. His heart sank. They didn’t understand after all, Johann said to himself. He looked around quickly and started formulating an emergency escape plan.

  Scarface, meanwhile, holding a stick in the fingers of its right foreleg, was meticulously creating a design on the very same patch of dirt that Johann had used earlier. Johann glanced down twice, but didn’t look carefully at Scarface’s drawing because he was already preoccupied with how and when he was going to exit from the woods. When Scarface eventually touched him, and pointed down at the dirt, Johann was dumbfounded. The alien warrior had drawn another, much more accurate, portrait of Maria!

  “Yes,” Johann exclaimed in surprise. “Yes, that’s Maria.”

  Scarface stood up, still surveying his handiwork. Looking at Johann, the alien animal extended one finger on each foreleg in the direction of the mound.

  EVEN THOUGH THE creatures had dug the path deep into the soil and widened the mound door considerably, it was still necessary for Johann to
enter their habitat on his hands and knees. Once inside, he found himself in a long, straight corridor that had also been recently widened. Scar-face was directly in front of him, hooting and barking at the others who were in the way, attempting to sneak a glimpse of their visitor. Down the corridor beyond Scarface, Johann could not see very much—the interior of the mound quickly became very dark.

  Five meters inside the door, Scarface turned to the right through an open portal and Johann squeezed into the large room behind his companion. Although the light here was very dim, Johann eventually could see eight or ten workers still tearing down a few walls and part of an intermediate ceiling to finish what had obviously been a rush expansion job. The rectangular room, perhaps a meter and a half high, five meters long, and three meters wide, had. been several different rooms on two mound levels before it was prepared for Johann.

  Although he could not stand up, Johann was quite comfortable sitting against one of the walls made from mud and leaf As his eyes surveyed the room, he noticed, in addition to the many workers, two warrior aliens over against the opposite wall. Between them was the box that housed the lustrous blue sphere.

  The workers continued their task at a frenetic pace. Johann, deducing that nothing new was going to occur until the room was completed, pulled his water pouch out of his pack. Scarface and the other two warriors exchanged growls and barks and then one of the others hooted sharply. Within a few seconds two ordinary alien citizens entered the room carrying a wooden tureen full of water. They placed the water in front of Johann, stared at him for a few seconds, and then scampered out of the room. Scar-face, thinking that perhaps Johann would not be able to figure out what to do with the elegantly carved ladle that was resting in the tureen, came over beside his visitor. With exaggerated motions, Scarface filled the ladle by dipping it into the water, and then brought it carefully to his mouth. The creature did not drink, however, choosing instead to pour the water back into the tureen and push it closer to Johann.

  Johann, amused by the lesson, smiled at his hosts before picking up the ladle, examining its design, and nodding appreciatively. All the alien animals in the room, including the workers, were watching to see what Johann would do next. With a dramatic flourish, he filled the ladle and drank its contents without spilling a drop. Growls, whistles, and alien chatter greeted his success.

  One of the warrior aliens beside the box barked twice and the workers returned to their tasks. Johann took a second drink and then pushed the tureen over in front of Scarface. This action also prompted an outpouring of approving alien noises.

  When he was through drinking, Scarface lifted the tureen and carried it across the room to the others. Johann’s alien companion stayed with his warrior colleagues while they were drinking and the trio exchanged noises. Johann, temporarily out of the spotlight, leaned back against the wall and tried to relax. This whole place is absolutely amazing, he said to himself, his eyes moving from the conversation among the alien warriors to the workers hauling blocks of mud and leaves out the portal. Where did these creatures come from? And what is their connection to the glowing ribbons?

  These were all questions that Johann could not answer. In time, the purpose of his visit to the mound intruded upon his free-ranging, philosophical meditations and he began to wonder about Maria. Where is she? he asked himself. And why have they brought me in here?

  One of his inner voices counseled patience. To pass the time while the worker aliens finished what they were doing in the room, Johann thought about Vivien and his unborn child. A memory from his childhood, of his father teaching him to ride a bicycle on the paths that wound through the grassy park near his home, evoked a powerful yearning in Johann. The yearning deepened into a heartache and homesickness for a world he had not seen for more than ten years. My son or daughter, he said to himself sadly, may never see the Earth and understand the origin of our species. He or she may be a space child forever.

  Johann’s reverie was cut short by a sequence of hoots from the warrior aliens across the room. Scarface returned to Johann’s side and the workers, who were now finished, departed into the corridor. Several seconds later, the creature Johann recognized as the alien leader walked into the room on its back four legs. It rose to its full stature, made a short speech, and then shouted. A stream of animals, a few warriors but mostly colorless workers, filed into the room made a broad semicircle, with an aisle down the middle, behind the leader, who was facing Johann and Scarface. Warriors carried the box containing the blue sphere across the room and placed it beside the leader, who immediately began a chant.

  All the other aliens joined the chant, which continued for several minutes. When it was over, the creatures dropped into their sitting positions and stared at Johann. “Stop pulling so hard,” Johann heard an indignant voice shouting out in the corridor.

  “Maria?” he called, rising up on his knees in anticipation.

  The aisle between the aliens began at the portal. Two warriors, each holding a single thick vine in its forelegs, entered the room. Maria followed, one of the vines wrapped around each of her arms. “Johann?” the girl cried, her eyes staring in disbelief.

  The two warriors dropped their vines. Maria bolted down the aisle into Johann’s open arms. “You came for me,” she said, the tears flooding down her cheeks.

  Johann hugged her tightly. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” he said.

  The leader began a new chant while Johann and Maria embraced. Then the creatures, still chanting, filed out of the room, leaving only Scarface and the two humans. Johann’s warrior friend quietly moved away from them and sat down against the opposite wall.

  FIVE

  “THE MASKETS CAUGHT me in some kind of net,” Maria said in answer to one of Johann’s first questions. “I was following a brook through the forest and I came to an open, grassy area. Two of the colored ones, carrying the net, came out of the woods. I tried to run but the maskets were everywhere. Finally I went into the brook. I stumbled on a rock and they threw the net over my head. Then they dragged me away into the trees…”

  Johann watched her carefully. Maria no longer seemed to be unduly distressed. Soon after they had first embraced, she had entreated him frantically to take her “home, away from this dark, smelly place.” Now she was much calmer. In truth, Johann had his doubts about whether Maria and he would be allowed to leave, but he did not want to frighten her. No, Johann was thinking, it’s not likely that the maskets are going to stand idly by while we depart. There must have been some reason that they went to all this trouble to bring me in here. Outside, in the forest or any open territory, my superior strength is an important asset. In this mound, however…

  “The net was not really that strong,” Maria was now saying. “I tore it in several places before I became too tired to fight anymore.” She suddenly stopped. “But how did you find me? They certainly didn’t trap you in one of their flimsy nets.”

  Johann reached into his pack and pulled out the two figurines. Maria’s face brightened. “So you have them,” she said, taking them in her hands. “Oh, Johann, this is wonderful! You’re here and I haven’t lost Beatrice and Yasin… You have no idea how angry I was when Hattie—that’s the masket who has been staying with me; I call her Hattie because she has a crease that runs most of the way around. her head—took my figurines away from me while I was sleeping. When I woke up and saw that she had Beatrice and Yasin, I attacked her immediately The maskets sent in those red and blue guys to control me. After that Hattie kept her distance.”

  “You call Hattie ‘her,’” Johann said with a smile. “How do you know she’s a girl?”

  Maria shrugged. “She seems like a girl to me. She’s gentle. She never barks or shouts. or thumps herself like the ones with the colored chests.” She grinned. “And she moves to the other side of the room when she farts or belches…”

  Johann shook his head. Maria rambled on, talking about this and that. She seemed normal, in spite of having spent many hours in the alien
mound. Johann knew that talking was good therapy for her, so he mostly listened and made small talk in response to her chatter. When Maria started to talk about her figurines again, however, there was something that Johann wanted to say.

  “I found your carved Johann and Vivien while I was looking for you,” he said.

  Maria looked sheepish. “I was really mad, Johann,” she said. “First at Beatrice and Keiko, and then at Vivien and you.” The girl sighed. “I’m sorry,” she added. “I just couldn’t accept that everything you told me about my father was a lie.”

  “Everything wasn’t a lie,” Johann said. “Yasin was one of the smartest people that I have ever met.”

  “But he was a bad man, wasn’t he? Beatrice and Keiko said he hurt a lot of women.”

  Johann drew Maria to him and hugged her. She started to cry. “It’s all right,” he said gently. “I’m certain your father would have loved you if he had ever met you. Maria pulled away and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “Can we leave now, Johann?” she said. “I’m sick of this place.”

  Johann turned around and looked at the portal. “Maybe,” he said. “Let me see what I can find out.”

  As Johann stooped and walked toward the portal, Scarface left its position on the opposite wall and came over to stand in the exit. The meaning of the masket’s action was unambiguous. When Johann pointed at the exit, the masket Scarface emphatically gestured toward Maria. Outside the portal, Johann could see half a dozen other warriors.