Rama: The Omnibus

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Although Eric was much younger and quicker than Johann, he was a man of ordinary size and strength. Biologically nearing sixty, Johann remained an awesome physical specimen, with muscles that were nearly as imposing as his height. His daily exercise regimen and regular manual labor had kept him in great shape. There was no way that Eric by himself could have prevented Johann’s entry into the village.

  When Johann drew closer to him on the path, Eric stepped forward and lunged awkwardly with the club. Johann dodged the blow and struck Eric hard across the back with his hand and forearm, knocking the younger man to the ground. Immediately afterward Johann stepped on Eric’s hand that was still holding the club.

  “Don’t you ever try something like that again,” Johann said matter-of-factly, looking down at the grimacing Eric. Johann reached down and picked up the club, letting Eric go so that he could scramble to his feet.

  “Get out of here… We don’t want you here,” Eric sputtered.

  “Well, well,” Maria said, suddenly appearing out of the fields, “if it isn’t Johann the magnificent. Tell me, of wise one, to what do we owe the honor of your visit?”

  “I came to talk,” Johann said simply. “There are some issues we need to discuss.”

  “Maybe you didn’t understand, old man,” Eric said now, emboldened by Maria’s arrival. He thrust himself into the space between Johann and Maria. “You better—“

  With amazing celerity, Johann grabbed Eric under the armpits and lifted him off the ground. “You are beginning to annoy me,” Johann said as Eric squirmed and flailed. “I suggest you go away before I become angry.”

  He deposited the flustered Eric on the ground beside the path, Maria did not try to suppress her laughter. She shook her head and looked at her husband. “I can hear Stephanie crying,” she said. “Why don’t you see if you can give Satoko a hand?”

  Eric started to protest his dismissal but decided against it. He walked quickly down the path that led to the village. “So how have you been?” Johann asked casually when Maria and he were alone.

  “Comme ci, comme ça,” she said, speaking the French phrase he had taught her when she was a young girl. Her eyes were much softer than they had been when Eric was present. “And you?” she added.

  “As well as can be expected,” he answered.

  They stared at each other for what seemed like forever. Johann did not let his eyes wander from hers. He did not dare allow Maria the pleasure of seeing him appreciate her half-naked woman’s body, now richer and fuller with her breasts swollen with milk.

  “Well,” Maria said awkwardly, finally breaking the silence, “don’t I at least rate a hug?”

  Johann took her in his arms and held her close. Maria’s arms moved up his bare back. I know what she is doing, he told himself. This is the child I raised from infancy. I will not play her game.

  “Kiss me, Johann,” Maria said, looking up at him.

  In one continuous motion Johann leaned down and kissed her on the forehead and then pushed her gently away. “We have a problem to discuss, Maria,” he said, as he took her hand and walked toward the village. “It seems someone has been stealing our food. Yesterday it was grain, and last week it was fruit… This is absolutely unacceptable.”

  MARIA, ERIC, JOMO, and Satoko were sitting on the dirt in front of Johann, who was standing up and rocking the baby Stephanie in his arms. Keiko was nursing Kwame over on the side. “I know that you have been having trouble with your crops,” Johann said evenly. “But stealing food from us just creates more problems that it solves.”

  “we weren’t really stealing the food,” Maria said coyly. “We always intended to pay you back from our next harvest.”

  Johann looked directly at Maria. “You know that we would gladly have made an arrangement with you,” he said. “I have countless times offered to help you irrigate and replant your fields so that you would have more robust crops. Unfortunately, you have always rejected our attempts to help.”

  “We’re not helpless,” Eric said indignantly. “We’ve just had some bad luck. And we don’t want to be dependent upon you…”

  “I think that maybe we might be willing to take some advice, Johann,” Maria said. “But we don’t want you to do it for us, or even come over here and supervise…”

  “Especially if you’re going to treat us as if we’re stupid,” Eric added.

  Baby Stephanie started to squirm in Johann’s arms so he changed her to a different position. “Forgetting what has already occurred,” he then said, “we still have important issues to address. You do not have enough to eat over here, and will not until the tarrier fruit ripens next month. We have plenty over in the West Village, but we could use some help with the rest of the harvest. If you will give us a hand with our work, then we will supply you with enough food to last until the tarrier ripens.”

  “We’re not moving back to the West Village,” Maria said immediately, “where you can scrutinize and criticize everything we do.”

  “Certainly not,” Eric added needlessly.

  Meanwhile, Jomo slipped over to where Keiko was nursing Kwame and they had a brief conversation. “Uncle Johann,” Jomo said a few moments later, “what you are suggesting sounds fair to Keiko and me.” He glanced over at Maria and Eric. “But we have a question. Is it all right if all four of us come? Then Keiko could help in the fields while her mother takes care of the baby.”

  “Certainly, Jomo,” Johann said. He looked pointedly at Maria and Eric. “Any and all of you are welcome at West Village whenever you would like to come.”

  “It will take a day or two to finish up what we’re doing here,” Jomo said.

  “That’s fine,” Johann said. “That will give us time to prepare Maria and Keiko’s old hut for your family.”

  “We’re still not coming, Johann,” Maria said.

  Johann shrugged. “I understand,” he said. “Jomo and Keiko will certainly do enough work to earn plenty of food for all of you… But I still want your commitment that you will not steal again from us.”

  Eric was about to give an unpleasant answer when Maria stepped in front of him and took Stephanie from Johann. “All right,” she said, still treating the subject lightly. “We won’t borrow any more food without your permission.” She held Stephanie on her waist and touched Johann’s forearm with her other hand. “By the way, can I have a couple of words with you in private before you go?”

  JOHANN AND MARIA traipsed down the path in the direction of Black Rock Promontory. When they were out of sight of the others, Maria stopped and sighed heavily.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” Johann asked.

  Maria was looking at her daughter, whom she was cradling tenderly in her arms. “Eric is such an immature boy,” she said at length. “You spoiled me, Johann. You showed me what a man should be like.”

  “Eric is still very young,”Johann said, shifting the thrust of the conversation. “Give him time. It must be difficult for him to suddenly be both a husband and a father with no more life experience than he has had.”

  “You don’t understand, Johann,” Maria said, shaking her head vigorously “I don’t love him. I don’t want to have any more children with him—what I’d really like to do is give him back to whiny Beatrice. They deserve each other. I never should have interfered in the first place.”

  “It saddens me, Maria,” Johann said softly, “that you are so selfish and have such little regard for anyone else. Do you really think that it’s all right for you to toy with people’s feelings and disrupt their lives simply to please yourself? Have you forgotten all the things that I have told you about your mother? Why, she would deny herself anything—”

  “Spare me another lecture about my perfect mother,” Maria said sharply. Stephanie had now fallen asleep. Maria placed the baby gently on the ground and pirouetted, shirtless, in front of Johann. “Look at my body, Johann, and try to tell me that you don’t find it attractive. How many children could I produce for you
? Three? Five? Maybe more?”

  She moved closer to him. “We have spent most of our lives together, Johann. We love each other. It would make perfect sense for me to marry you and give birth to your children… I would not insist on any change in your relationship with Vivien. We could both be your wives, and you could sleep with either of us whenever you wanted. This way you could have the best of both possible worlds. A young, ardent wife, eager to bear you more children, and a barren, older woman, a companion of your own age, with whom you could reflect on the mysteries of the universe.”

  Johann was speechless for quite a while. Maria’s proposition had caught him completely unprepared. He could not deny that she was a beautiful young woman and that he was sexually stirred by the thought of making love to her. Nor could he deny that there was a bizarre kind of logic in Maria’s proposal. If their small group was to survive and flourish, they would need to reproduce more, and her plan, assuming Eric and Beatrice would be together again, certainly held promise for a significant number of new children.

  But Johann was deeply bothered by Maria’s total lack of concern for the other people who would be affected by her proposal. It was clear that she considered the wants and desires of Eric, Beatrice, and even Vivien essentially irrelevant. Maria wanted to optimize her life. Whatever anyone else might feel was of no weight in her decision.

  Johann took both her hands in his. “Dear Maria,” he said, “you are certainly correct in saying that you and I love each other. Except possibly for your mother, I care more about you than any person I have ever known. And given an entirely different set of circumstances, I would be delighted at the prospect of marrying you and producing many children. But I’m afraid I cannot accept your proposal. Too many others would be hurt, or have their lives diminished, by our actions. It’s a question of fairness.”

  He paused, still holding her hands, before continuing in the same gentle voice. “Your mother’s final words to me on this subject were not ambiguous. ‘Above all, Johann,’ she said to me, ‘teach her by precept, and show her by example, the importance of having solid personal values. Without those values, she will never be able to develop her own sense of self-worth, or to recognize that each and every one of us has importance in God’s overall design. It is correct for us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us not simply because a great and wonderful teacher told us to behave that way, but also because the universe becomes more harmonious when its creatures follow this simple teaching.’”

  Maria’s face was soft, and tears were streaming down her cheeks, when Johann finished. “In my heart of hearts,” she said, “I knew what your answer would be.” She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “Otherwise you would not be the Johann I love so much.”

  She let go of his hands and bent down to pick Stephanie up from the ground. Maria took a few steps with her baby daughter and then turned back toward Johann. “In a few minutes I will be angry with you again. Go now, before my mood changes.”

  THREE

  JOHANN PAUSED NEAR the top of Black Rock Promontory to take a drink from the trickling creek that dropped out of the hills behind Maria’s village. It had been a long day. He felt mentally and physically exhausted. I grow old, I grow old, he mused to himself. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

  The sun was starting to set behind the western mountains. Desiring a break before returning to Vivien and the others, Johann strolled out along the barren rock toward the ocean and sat down on the edge of the cliff. In front of him, the endless expanse of ocean was broken only by a solitary slender island, a kilometer or two offshore, where he could see the outlines of trees and bushes in the late afternoon sunlight. A couple of hundred meters below him, big waves crashed against the jagged black rocks, sending white spray in all directions.

  As the light continued to fade in the west, the stars filled the sky with their splendor, touching Johann with that same combination of joy and awe he had known since he had first examined, the clear night sky as a schoolboy. “The stars are your parents,” he could still hear his earnest elementary-school teacher Herr Yeager saying. “Every important element in your body, from the iron in your hemoglobin to the calcium in your bones and teeth, was created in the death throes of stars like these and blasted across the galaxy to be present here at that special moment when the Earth first accreted.”

  Where is Herr Yeager now? Johann wondered, his eyes scanning the moonless sky vainly for some clue, perhaps never recognized before, that would identify for him the Sun that was the home star for his native planet. And what would Herr Yeager think if he could have known that those same chemicals created by dying stars had made other life, and other intelligence as well, at different locations and epochs throughout our galaxy?

  As his eyes alternately feasted on the star-filled sky and the waves crashing against the rocks below him, Johann thought, as he often did, about the extraordinary sequence of events that had taken him from Germany to Mars to an astonishing spherical alien worldlet and finally to this new planet, located somewhere in the local neighborhood of his Sun, where it appeared it would be his destiny to die. The many amazing scenes from his life swarmed through his mind. He saw again the initial apparition of the particles in the falling snow in the park in Berlin, the ice caverns beneath the Martian polar ice, the endless train of suffering humans during his strange boat ride with Sister Beatrice, the blast from the simulated Hiroshima bomb, Beatrice singing love songs to him on the beach in paradise, the moment that he killed Yasin, Maria’s birth, Beatrice’s death and astonishing reincarnation as ghost and angel, his masket friend Scarface, the charge of the elevark, the nozzlers and their grotto, and finally, since it was very much on his mind, his scene with Maria that very afternoon.

  Overwhelmed by his memories and his feelings, Johann stood up on the edge of the promontory and raised his arms to the heavens. “But what is it all for?” he shouted. “When the last human ever to be alive perishes, and never again does this unique combination of chemicals risen to consciousness grace the glories that nature has created, what will have been accomplished? What purpose will we have served?”

  Unaware of the tears now filling his eyes, Johann continued to speak to the sky. “I do not ask all these questions for myself, for I have certainly been shown my personal insignificance in the greater scheme of the universe. But do all of us, taken together, not only every human who has ever lived, but also all those who have not yet been born, also amount to nothing? Will it have been only a completely random event that for one brief epoch a strange, sentient, bipedal creature dominated a small, insignificant blue planet orbiting an inauspicious stable yellow star in one of the spiral arms of the galaxy?”

  Johann paced back and forth along the edge of the promontory for several seconds before raising his arms and invoking the sky again. “And if none of our activities has any meaning whatsoever, how is it possible that I am so filled with anguish at my inability to bestow happiness upon the child that I have raised and treasured? Why do I strive so hard not just to survive, but to understand this amazing universe that surrounds me? And why do I still miss so desperately one single person whom I loved with all my being, who filled my life with a glory beyond anything I could have ever dreamed possible?”

  Johann fell down on his knees, trembling. “So tell me God, if You know, and if You exist, how these two completely inconsistent concepts can possibly both be true? How can absolutely nothing human, past, present, or future, have any meaning at all and yet, at the same time, each and every one of us who lives is touched so much by the miracle of our existence that we feel passionately about the importance of our lives and our actions?”

  Exhausted by his harangue, Johann fell silent, staring absently at the natural beauty that surrounded him. His disquiet about Maria and, in fact, all his other worries, had temporarily been dispelled. It was one of the rare moments in Johann’s life when he was at peace with himself.

  He must have sat on the promontory for
an hour before he reluctantly decided that it was time for him to return to the West Village and share his news for the day.

  Johann stood up, and started walking away from the ocean. As he approached the path that descended to the fields and orchards adjacent to their living area, he turned one last time to look back at the magnificent night sky Off to his left, one of the twin moons, barely a crescent, had just crossed the horizon. But what caught his attention immediately was a new, glowing light, low in the sky off the end of the promontory, that appeared to be growing and moving in his direction.

  A surge of joy and delight energized Johann and chased away the weariness he was feeling. He had no doubt that somewhere in that light headed toward him would be his beloved Beatrice.

  THE RIBBON OF particles was so bright, even several hundred meters away from the edge of the promontory, that Johann could see nothing at all except the blinding white light. When the pain in his eyes became unbearable, he looked away, toward the hills, which were now clearly visible themselves in the reflected light. Johann heard a sequence of unidentifiable mechanical sounds behind him and a few seconds later the hills in front of him began to dim.

  “You may turn around now, Brother Johann,” he heard Beatrice say.

  She had never looked so beautiful to him. She was wearing along, flowing gown that fell all the way to her ankles, just above her bare feet, and a small, sparkling crown on her head. Her blond hair, which reached almost to her waist, was long and full of wonderful curls. In spite of the white glow that surrounded her, Johann could still see the magnificent blue of her eyes.

  As always, she was smiling. “So we meet again, Brother Johann,” she said, “one final time, on a new and different world.”

  “One final time?” Johann asked haltingly, still awestruck by her presence.

  “Yes,”

  Johann forced himself to stop staring at the woman he adored and to pay attention to what she was saying. “There is a terrible danger here on this planet when both moons are full,” she said. “Only by taking extreme precautions can any of you Survive.”