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

Richard and Michael assured me that they would take no chances, that they would not do anything except go to the military ship and return. They departed just after dawn on a twenty-eight-hour Raman day. It was the first time I had been alone since my long, solitary sojourn in New York that started when I fell into the pit. Of course, I wasn’t truly alone. I could feel Simone kicking inside me. It’s an amazing feeling, carrying a baby. There’s some-

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thing indescribably wonderful about knowing there’s another living soul inside you. Especially since the child is formed in significant part from your own genes. It’s a shame that men are not able to experience being pregnant. If they could, maybe they would understand why we women are so concerned about the future.

By the third Earth day after the men left, I had developed a bad case of cabin fever. I decided to climb out of our lair and take a hike around New York. It was dark in Rama, but I was so restless I started to walk anyway. The air was quite cold. I zipped my heavy flight jacket around my bulging stomach. I had only been walking for a few minutes when I heard a sound in the distance. A chill ran down my spine and I stopped immediately. The adrenaline apparently surged into Simone as well, for she kicked vigorously while I listened for the noise. In about a minute I heard it again, the sound of brushes dragging across a metallic surface and accompanied by a high-frequency whine. The sound was unmistakable; an octospider was definitely wandering around in New York. I quickly went back to the lair and waited for dawn to come to Rama.

When it was light I returned to New York and wandered around. While I was in the vicinity of that curious barn where I fell into the pit, I began having my doubts about our conclusion that the octos only come out at night. Richard has insisted from the beginning that they are nocturnal creatures. During the first two months after we passed the Earth, before we built our protective grill that prevents unwelcome visitors from descending into our lair, Richard deployed a series of crude receivers (he had not yet perfected his ability to specify electronic parts to the Ramans) around the octospider lair covering and confirmed, at least to his satisfaction, mat they only come topside at night. Eventually the octos discovered all his monitors and destroyed them, but not before Richard had what he believed to be conclusive data supporting his hypothesis.

Nevertheless, Richard’s conclusion was no comfort to me when I suddenly heard a loud and totally unfamiliar sound coming from the direction of our lair. At the time I was standing inside the barn, staring into the pit where I had almost died nine months ago. My pulse immediately

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jumped up and my skin tingled. What disturbed me the most was that the noise was between me and my Raman home. I crept up on the intermittent sound cautiously, peering around buildings each time before committing myself. At length I discovered the source of the noise. Richard was cutting pieces of a lattice using a miniature chain saw that he had brought back from the Newton.

Actually he and Michael were having an argument when I discovered them. A relatively small lattice, about five hundred nodes altogether with square dimensions maybe three meters on a side, was affixed to one of those low, nondescript sheds about a hundred meters to the east of our lair opening. Michael was questioning the wisdom of attacking the lattice with a chain saw. At the moment they saw me, Richard was justifying his action by extolling the virtues of the elastic lattice material.

The three of us hugged and kissed for several minutes and then they reported on the Great Excursion. It had been an easy trip. The rover and the chairlift had worked without difficulty. Their instruments had shown that there was still quite a bit of radiation throughout the military ship, so they didn’t stay long and didn’t bring back any of the food. The scientific data base, however, had been in fine shape. Richard had used his data compression subroutines to strip much of the data base onto cubes compatible with our portable computers. They had also brought back a large backpack full of tools, like the chain saw, that they thought would be useful in finishing our living accommodations.

Richard and Michael worked incessantly from then until the birth of Simone. Using the extra chemical information contained in the data base, it became easier to order what we needed from the Ramans. I even experimented with sprinkling harmless esters and other simple organics on the food, resulting in some improvement in the taste. Michael completed his room down the corridor, Simone’s cradle was constructed, and our bathrooms immeasurably improved. Considering all the constraints, our living conditions are now quite acceptable. Maybe soon . . . Hark. I hear a soft cry from beside me. It’s time to feed my daughter.

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Before the last thirty minutes of my birthday is history, I want to return to the vivid images of previous birthdays that catalyzed my depression this morning. For me, my birthday has always been the most significant event of the year. The Christmas-New Year time period is special, but in a different way, for it is a celebration shared by everyone. A birthday focuses more directly on the individual. I have always used my birthdays as a time for reflection and contemplation about the direction of my life.

If I tried, I could probably remember something about every single one of my birthdays since I was five years old. Some memories, of course, are more poignant than others. This morning many of the pictures from my past celebrations evoked powerful feelings of nostalgia and homesickness. In my depressed state I railed against my inability to provide order and security to Simone’s life. But even at the bottom of my depression, confronted by the immense uncertainty surrounding our existence here, I would not have really wished that Simone were not here to experience life with me. No, we are voyagers tied together by the deepest bond, parent and child, sharing the miracle of consciousness that we call life.

I have shared a similar bond before, not only with my mother and father, but also with my first daughter Gene-vieve. Hmm. It’s amazing that all the images of my mother still stand out so sharply in my mind. Even though she died twenty-seven years ago, when I was only ten years old, she left me with a cornucopia of wonderful memories. My last birthday with her was quite extraordinary. The three of us went into Paris on the train. Father was dressed in his new Italian suit and looked extremely handsome. Mother had chosen to wear one of her bright, multicolored native dresses. With her hah- stacked in layers on her head, she looked like the Senoufo princess that she had been before she married Father.

We had dinner at a fancy restaurant just off the Champs-Elysees. Then we walked to a theater where we watched an all-black troupe perform a set of native dances from the western regions of Africa. After the show, we were allowed backstage, where Mother introduced me to one of

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the dancers, a tall, beautiful woman of exceptional blackness. She was one of Mother’s distant cousins from the Ivory Coast.

I listened to their conversation in the Senoufo tribal language, remembering bits and pieces from my training before the Poro three years earlier, and marveled again at the way my mother’s face always became more expressive when she was with her people. But fascinated as I was by the evening, I was only ten years old and would have preferred a normal birthday party with all my friends from school. Mother could tell I was disappointed while we were riding on the train back to our home in the suburb of Chilly-Mazarin. “Don’t be sad, Nicole,” she said, “next year you can have a party. Your father and I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you again of the other half of your heritage. You are a French citizen and have lived your whole life in France, but part of you is pure Senoufo with roots deep in the tribal customs of West Africa.”

Earlier today, as I recalled the dances ivoiriennes performed by Mother’s cousin and her associates, I imagined briefly, in my mind’s eye, walking into a beautiful theater with my ten-year-old daughter Simone beside me—but then the fantasy vanished. There are no theaters beyond the orbit of Jupiter. In fact, the whole concept of a theater will probably never have any real meaning for my daughter. It is all so bewildering.