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

“Don’t bother,” Nicole interrupted. “I didn’t sleep all this time to wake up to a relativity lesson. You can explain it to me later, over dinner. Meanwhile, we have a more important issue. In what order should we awaken the children?”

“I have a different suggestion,” Richard replied after a moment’s hesitation. “I know you’re eager to see the children. So am I. However, why don’t we let them sleep for several more hours? It certainly won’t hurt them. . . . And you and I have a lot to discuss. We can begin our preparations for the rendezvous, outline what we are going to do about the children’s education, maybe even take a moment or two to become reacquainted ourselves.”

Nicole was anxious to talk to the children, but the logi-

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cal part of her mind could see the merit in Richard’s suggestion. The family had developed only a rudimentary plan for what would happen after they woke up, primarily because the Eagle had insisted that there were too many uncertainties to specify the conditions exactly. It would be much easier to do some planning before the children were awake.

“All right,” Nicole said at length, “as long as I know for certain that everyone is all right.” She glanced over at the first Tiasso.

“All the monitor data indicates that each of your children survived the sleep period without any significant irregularities,” the biot said.

Nicole turned back to Richard and carefully studied his face. It had aged a little, but not as much as she had expected.

“Where’s your beard?” she blurted out suddenly, realizing that his face was strangely clean-shaven.

“We shaved the men yesterday while they were sleeping,” Tiasso #009 replied. “We also cut everybody’s hair and gave everyone a bath—in accordance with the preprogrammed mission plan.”

The men? Nicole thought. She was momentarily puzzled. Of course, she said to herself. Benjy and Patrick are now men!

She took Richard’s hand and they walked quickly over to Patrick’s berth. The face she saw through the window was astonishing. Her little Patrick was no longer a boy. His features had lengthened considerably and the rounded contours of his face had disappeared. Nicole stared at her son silently for over a minute.

“His age equivalence is sixteen or seventeen,” Tiasso #017 said in response to Nicole’s questioning glance. “Mr. Benjamin O’Toole remains a year and a half older. Of course, these ages are only approximations. As the Eagle explained before your departure from the Node, we have been able to retard somewhat the key aging enzymes in each of you—but not all at the same rate. When we say that Mr. Patrick O’Toole is sixteen or seventeen now, we are referring only to his personal, internal biological

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clock. The age quoted is some kind of average across his growth, maturation, and subsystem aging processes.”

Nicole and Richard stopped at each of the other berths and stared for several minutes through the windows at their sleeping children. Nicole repeatedly shook her head in bewilderment. “Where have my babies gone?” she said after seeing that even little Ellie had become a teenager during the long voyage.

“We knew this would happen,” Richard commented without emotion, not helping the mother in Nicole cope with the sense of loss that she was feeling.

“Knowing it is one thing,” said Nicole. “But seeing it and experiencing it is another. This is not a case of a typical mother who suddenly realizes her boys and girls have all grown up. What has happened to our children is truly staggering. Then- mental and social development has been interrupted for the equivalence of ten to twelve years. We now have small children walking around in adult bodies. How can we prepare them to meet other humans in just six months?”

Nicole was overwhelmed. Had some part of her not believed the Eagle when he had described what was going to happen to her family? Perhaps. It was one more unbelievable event in a life that had long been beyond comprehension. But as their mother, Nicole thought to herself, / have much to do and almost no time. Why didn’t I plan for all this before we left the Node?

While Nicole was struggling with her powerful emotional response to seeing her children suddenly grown, Richard chatted with the two Tiassos. They easily answered all his questions. He was extremely impressed with their capabilities, both physical and mental. “Do all of you have such a wealth of information stored in your memories?” he asked the robots in the middle of their conversation.

“Only we Tiassos have the detailed historical health data on your family,” #009 replied. “But all the human biots can access a wide range of basic facts. However, a portion of mat knowledge will be removed at the moment of first contact with other humans. At that time the mem-

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ory devices of all biot types will be partially purged. Any event or piece of data pertaining to the Eagle, the Node, or any situations that transpired before you awakened will not remain in our data bases after we rendezvous with the other humans. Only your personal health information will be available from that earlier time period—and mis data will be localized in the Tiassos.”

Nicole had already been thinking about the Node before this last comment. “Are you still in contact with the Eagle?” she suddenly asked.

“No.” It was Tiasso #017 who replied this time. “It is safe to assume that the Eagle, or at least some representative of the Nodal Intelligence, is periodically monitoring our mission, but there is never any interaction with Rama once it leaves the Hangar. You, we, Rama—we are on our own until the mission objectives are fulfilled.”

Katie stood in front of the full-length mirror and studied her naked body. Even after a month it was still new to her. She loved to touch herself. She especially liked to run her fingers across her breasts and watch her nipples swell in response to the stimulation. Katie liked it even more at night when she was alone underneath the sheets. Then she could rub herself everywhere until waves of tingles rolled across her body and she wanted to cry out from pleasure.

Her mother had explained the phenomenon to her but had seemed a little uncomfortable when Katie had wanted to discuss it a second and a third time. “Masturbation is a very private affair, darling,” Nicole had said in a low voice one night before dinner, “and generally only discussed, if at all, with one’s closest friends.”

EUie was no help. Katie had never seen her sister examining herself, not even once. She probably doesn’t do it at all, Katie thought. And she certainly doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Are you through in the shower?” Katie heard Ellie call from the next room. Each of the girls had her own bedroom, but they shared the bath.

“Yes,” Katie shouted in response.

Ellie came into the bathroom, modestly wrapped in a

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towel, and glanced briefly at her sister standing completely naked in front of the mirror. The younger girl started to say something, but apparently changed her mind, for she dropped the towel and stepped gingerly into the shower.

Katie watched Ellie through the transparent door. She looked first at Ellie’s body, and then glanced in the mirror, comparing every possible anatomical feature. Katie preferred her own face and skin color—she was by far the lightest member of the family other than her father—but Ellie had a superior figure.

“Why do I have such a boyish shape?” Katie asked Nicole one evening two weeks later after Katie had finished reading through a data cube containing some ^very old fashion magazines.

“I can’t explain exactly,” Nicole replied, looking up from her own reading. “Genetics is a wonderfully complicated subject, far more complex than Gregor Mendel originally thought.”

Nicole laughed at herself, realizing immediately that Katie could not possibly have understood what she had just said. “Katie,” she continued in a less pedantic tone, ‘ ‘each child is a unique combination of the characteristics of her two parents. These identifying characteristics are stored in molecules called genes. There are literally billions of different ways the genes from one pair of parents can express themselves. That’s why children from the same parents are not all identical.”

Katie’s brow furrowed. She had been expecting a different kind of answer. Nicole quickly understood. “Besides,” she added in a comforting tone, “your figure is really not ‘boyish’ at all. ‘Athletic’ would be a more descriptive word.”

“At any rate,” Katie rejoined, pointing at her sister, who was studying hard over in the corner of the family room, “I certainly don’t look like Ellie. Her body is really attractive—her breasts are even larger and rounder than yours.”

Nicole laughed naturally. “Ellie does have an imposing figure,” she said. “But yours is just as good—it’s simply different.” Nicole returned to her reading, thinking the conversation was over.