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

Richard insists that he lived in the avian lair for some months and that he was present at a spectacular cremation. He can’t supply any other details. Richard has also twice contended that he explored the Southern Hemicylinder and found the main city of the octospiders near the southern bowl, but since what he can remember changes from day to day, it is difficult to place much credence in any specific recollection.

I have replaced Richard’s biometry set twice already and have very lengthy records of all his critical parameters. His charts are normal except in two areas—his mental activity and his temperature. His daily brain waves defy description. There is nothing in my medical encyclopedia that will allow me to interpret any pair of these charts, much less the entire set. Sometimes the level of activity in his brain is astronomically high; sometimes it seems to stop altogether. The electrochemical measurements are equally peculiar. His hippocampus is virtually dormant—that could explain why Richard’s having such difficulty with his memory.

His temperature is also weird. It has been stable now, for two months, at 37.8 degrees Celsius, eight tenths of a degree above normal for an average human. I have checked all his preflight records; Richard’s “normal” temperature on Earth was a very steady 36.9. I cannot explain why this elevated temperature persists. It’s almost as if

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his body and some pathogen are in stable equilibrium, neither able to subdue the other. But what pathogen could it be that would elude all my attempts to identify it?

All the children have been especially disappointed in Richard’s lackadaisical behavior. During his absence we probably mythologized him somewhat, but there’s no doubt he was a very energetic man before. This new Richard is only a shadow of his former self. Katie swears she remembers wrestling and playing vigorously with her daddy when she was only two (her memory has undoubtedly been reinforced by the stories that Michael, Simone, and I told her while Richard was gone), and is often quite angry that he spends so little time with her now. I try to explain to her that “Daddy is still sick,” but I don’t think she is .mollified by my explanation.

Michael moved all my things back to this room within twenty-four hours after Richard’s return. He is such a sweet man. He went through another heavy religious phase for several weeks (I expect in his mind he needed forgiveness for some fairly grievous sins) but has since moderated because of the workload on me. He has been marvelous with the children.

Simone acts as*a backup mother. Benjy worships her and she has incredible patience with him. Since she had commented several times that Benjy was “a little slow,” Michael and I have told Simone about his Whittingham’s syndrome. We still have not told Katie. Right now Katie is having a difficult time. Not even Patrick, who follows her around like a pet dog, can cheer her up.

We all know, even the children, that we are being watched. We searched the walls in the nursery very carefully, almost as if it were a game, and found several minute irregularities in the surface finish that we declared to be cameras. We chipped them away with our tools, but we could not positively say that we had indeed found monitoring devices. They may be so small that we couldn’t see them without a microscope. At least Richard remembered his favorite saying, about advanced alien technology being indistinguishable from magic.

Katie was the most disturbed about the prying cameras of the octospiders. She spoke openly and resentfully of

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their intrusion into her “private life.” She probably has more secrets than any of us. When Simone told her younger sister that it was really not important, because “after all, God is also watching us all the time,” we had our first sibling religious argument. Katie replied with “Bullshit,” a rather unpleasant word for a six-year-old girl to use. Her expression reminded me to be more careful with my own language.

One day last month I took Richard over to the avian lair to see if perhaps being there would refresh his memory. He became very frightened as soon as we were in the tunnel off the vertical corridor. “Dark,” I heard him mumble. “I cannot see in the dark. But they can see in the dark.” He wouldn’t walk any more after we passed the water and the cistern, so I brought him back to our lair.

Richard knows that both Benjy and Patrick are Michael’s sons and probably suspects that Michael and I lived as husband and wife for part of the time he was gone, but he has never commented about it. Both Michael and I are prepared to ask for Richard’s forgiveness and to stress to him that we were not lovers (except for Benjy’s conception) until he had been gone for two years. At the moment, however, Richard doesn’t seem much interested in the subject.

Richard and I have shared our old conjugal mat since soon after he awakened from his coma. We have touched a lot and been very friendly, but until two weeks ago there had never been any sex. In fact, I was starting to think that sex was another of the things that had been erased from his memory, so unresponsive had he been to my occasional provocative kisses.

Then came a night, however, when the old Richard was suddenly in bed with me. This is a pattern that has been occurring in other areas as well—every now and then his old wit, energy, and intelligence are all present for a short period of time. Anyway, the old Richard was ardent, funny, and imaginative. It was like heaven for me. I remembered levels of pleasure that I had long since buried.

His sexual interest continued for three consecutive nights. Then it departed as abruptly as it had arrived. At

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first I was disappointed (Isn’t that human nature? Most of the time we want it to be better. When it’s as good as it can be, we want it to last forever), but now I have accepted that this facet of his personality must also undergo a healing process.

Last night Richard computed our trajectory for the first time since he has been back with us. Both Michael and I were delighted. “We’re still holding the same direction,” he pronounced proudly. “We’re now less than three light-years from Sirius.”

6 January 2210

Forty-six years old. My hair is now mostly gray on the sides and in front. Back on Earth I would be debating whether or not to color my hair. Here on Rama it does not matter.

I am too old to be pregnant. I should tell that to the little girl growing inside my womb. I was quite astonished when I realized that I was indeed pregnant again. The onset of menopause had already begun, with its strange hot flashes, moments of daffiness, and totally unpredictable menstruations. But Richard’s sperm has made one more baby, another addition to this homeless family adrift in space.

If we never encounter another human being (and Eleanor Joan Wakefield turns out to be a healthy baby,, which seems likely at this point), then there will be a total of six possible combinations of parents for our grandchildren. Almost certainly all of those permutations will not occur, but it’s fascinating to imagine. I used to think that Simone would mate with Benjy, and Katie with Patrick, but where will Ellie fit into the equation?

This is my tenth birthday onboard Rama. It seems utterly impossible that I have spent only twenty percent of my life in this giant cylinder. Did I have another life once, back on that oceanic planet trillions of kilometers away? Did I really know adult people other than Richard Wake-field and Michael O’Toole? Was my father actually Pierre des Jardins, the famous writer of historical fiction? Did I

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have a secret, dream affair with Henry, Prince of Wales, that produced my wonderful first daughter Genevieve?

None of it seems possible. At least not today, not on my forty-sixth birthday. It’s funny. Richard and Michael have asked me, one time each, about Genevieve’s father. I have still never told anyone. Isn’t that ridiculous? What possible difference could it make here on Rama? None at all. But it has been my secret (shared only with my father) since the moment of Genevieve’s conception. She was my daughter. 1 brought her into the world and I raised her. Her biological father, I always told myself, was of no importance.

That is, of course, poppycock. Hah. There’s that word again. Dr. David Brown used it often. Goodness. I haven’t thought about the other Newton cosmonauts for years. I wonder if Francesca and her friends made their millions off the Newton mission. I hope Janos got his share. Dear Mr. Tabori, an absolutely delightful man. Hmm. I also wonder how Rama’s escape from the nuclear phalanx was explained to the citizens of Earth. Ah, yes, Nicole, this is a typical birthday. A long, unstructured voyage down memory lane.