Rama 3 – The Garden of Rama by Clarke, Arthur C.

“Someone has to cany on the tradition,” he said vaguely.

“So you believe that there will be a tradition to carry

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on, that we are not going to drift forever in space and die one by one in terrifying loneliness.”

“I believe that God has a plan for all human beings,” he answered.

“But what is His plan for us?” I asked. “We don’t know,” Michael replied. “Any mor,e than those billions of people still back on Earth know what His plan is for them. The process of living is searching for His plan.”

I shook my head and Michael continued. “You see, Nicole, it should be much easier for us. We have far fewer distractions. There is no excuse for our not remaining close to God. That’s why my earlier preoccupations with food and art history are so difficult to forgive. In Rama, human beings have to make a major effort to fill up their time with something other than prayer and devotion.”

I admit that his certitude annoys me at times. In our present circumstances, the life of Jesus seems to have no more relevance than the life of Attila the Hun or any other human being who has ever been alive on that distant planet two light-years away. We are no longer part of the human race. We are either doomed, or the beginning of what will essentially be a new species. Did Jesus die for all our sins as well, those of us who will never see the Earth again? If Michael had not been a Catholic and programmed from birth in favor of procreation, I never would have convinced him to conceive a child. He had a hundred reasons why it was not the right thing to do. But in the end, maybe because I was disturbing his nightly devotions with my persistent attempts to persuade him, he finally consented. He warned me (hat it was highly likely that “it would never work” and that he “would not take any responsibility” for my frustration.

It took us three months to produce an embryo. During the first two ovulation cycles I was unable to arouse him. I tried laughter, body massage, music, food—everything mentioned in any of the articles about impotence. His guilt and tension were always stronger than my ardor. Fantasy finally provided the solution. When I suggested to Michael one night that he should imagine I was his wife Kathleen

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throughout the entire affair, he was finally able to sustain an erection. The mind is indeed a wonderful creation.

Even with fantasy, making love with Michael was not an easy task. In the first place, and this is probably an unkind thing for me to say, his preparations alone were enough to put any ordinary woman out of the mood. Just before he took off his clothes, Michael always offered a prayer to God. What did he pray for? It would be fascinating to know the answer.

Eleanor of Aquitaine’s first husband, Louis VII of France, had been raised as a monk and only became king because of a historical accident. In my father’s novel about Eleanor there is a long interior monologue in which she complains about making love “surrounded by solemnity and piety and the coarse cloth of the Cistercians.” She longed for gaiety and laughter in the bedroom, for bawdy talk and wanton passion. I can understand why she divorced Louis and married Henry Plantagenet.

So I am now pregnant with the boy child (I hope) who will bring genetic variation to our progeny. It has been quite a struggle and almost certainly not worth it. Because of my desire to have Michael’s child, Richard is gone and Michael is, at least temporarily, no longer the close friend and companion that he was during our first years on Rama. I have paid the price for my success. Now I must hope that this spacecraft does indeed have a destination.

1 March 2206

I repeated the partial genome test this morning to verify my initial results. There is no doubt about it. Our unborn baby boy definitely has Whittingham’s syndrome. Fortunately there are no other identifiable defects, but Whittingham’s is bad enough.

I showed the data to Michael when we had a few moments alone after breakfast. At first he didn’t understand what I was telling him, but when I used the word retarded, he reacted immediately. I could tell that he was envisioning a child who would be completely unable to take

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care of himself. His concerns were only partially allayed ‘when I explained that Whittingham’s is nothing more man a learning disability, a simple failure of the electrochemical processes in the brain to operate properly.

When I performed the first partial genome test last week, I suspected Whittingham’s, but since there was a possible ambiguity in the results, I didn’t say anything to Michael. Before drawing a second amniotic sample, I wanted to review what was known about the condition. My abridged medical encyclopedia unfortunately did not contain enough information to satisfy me.

This afternoon, while Katie was napping, Michael and I asked Simone if she would read a book in the nursery for an hour or so. Our perfect angel readily complied. Michael was much calmer than he had been in the morning. He acknowledged that he had been devastated at first by the news about Benjy (Michael wants to name the child Benjamin Ryan OToole, after his grandfather). Apparently reading the Book of Job had played a major role in helping him regain his perspective.

I explained to Michael that Benjy’s mental development would be slow and tedious. He was comforted, however, when I informed him that many Whittingham’s sufferers had eventually achieved twelve-year-old equivalency after twenty years of schooling. I assured Michael there would be no physical signs of the defect, as there are in Down’s, and that since Whittingham’s is a blocked recessive trait, there was little likelihood that any possible offspring would be affected before the third generation at the earliest.

“Is there any way of knowing which one of us has the syndrome in our genes?” Michael asked when we were near the end of our conversation.

“No,” I replied. “It’s a very difficult disorder to isolate because it apparently arises from several different defective genes. Only if the syndrome is active is the diagnosis straightforward. Even on Earth attempts to identify carriers have not been successful.”

I started to tell him that since the disease was first diagnosed in 2068, there have been almost no cases in either Africa or Asia. It has been basically a Caucasian disorder,

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with the highest frequency of occurrence in Ireland. I decided Michael would learn this information soon enough (it is all in the main article in the medical encyclopedia— which he is reading now), and I didn’t want him to feel any worse than he already did.

“Is there any cure?” he asked next.

“None for us,” I said, shaking my head. “There was some indication in the last decade that genetic countermea-sures could be effective, if used during the second trimester of pregnancy. However, the procedure is complicated, even on Earth, and can result in losing the fetus altogether.”

That would have been a perfect time in the discussion for Michael to mention the word abortion. He didn’t. His set of beliefs is so steadfast and unwavering that I’m certain he never even considered it. For him, abortion is an absolute wrong, on Rama as well as Earth. I found myself wondering if there were any conditions under which Michael would have considered an abortion. What if the baby had Down’s syndrome and also was blind? Or had multiple congenital problems that guaranteed an early death?

If Richard had been here, we would have had a logical discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of an abortion. He would have created one of his famous Ben Franklin sheets, with pros and cons listed separately on the two sides of the large screen. I would have added a long list of emotional reasons (which Richard would have omitted in his original list) for not having an abortion, and in the end we almost certainly would have all agreed to bring Benjy into Rama. It would have been a rational, community decision.

I want to have this baby. But I also want Michael to reaffirm his commitment as Benjy’s father. A discussion of the possibility of abortion would have elicited that renewed commitment. Blind acceptance of the rules of God or the church or any structured dogma can sometimes make it too easy for an individual to withhold his own support for a specific decision. I hope that Michael is not that kind of person.

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30 August 2206

Benjy came early. Despite my repeated assurances

that he would look perfectly healthy, Michael seemed relieved when the boy was born three days ago with no physical abnormalities. It was another easy birth. Simone was surprisingly helpful during both the labor and delivery. For a girl who is not yet six years old, she is extremely mature.