The room was quiet for almost a minute as images.of Mars at different resolutions appeared on the giant screen on the wall. “Where is Earth?” Benjy then asked.
“It’s the planet just inside Mars, the next one closer to the Sun,” Richard answered. “Remember, I showed you the planetary lineup in the subroutine in my computer.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Benjy answered very slowly. “I want to see Earth.”
It was a simple enough request. It had never occurred to Richard, although he had brought the family out to the observatory several times before, that the children might be interested in that barely blue light in the Martian night sky. “Earth is not very impressive from this distance,” Richard said, interrogating his data base to obtain the right sensor output. “In fact, it looks pretty much like any other bright object, such as Sinus, for example.”
Richard had missed the point. Once he had identified the Earth in a specific celestial frame and then centered the image around that apparently insignificant reflection, the children all stared with rapt attention.
That is their home planet. Nicole thought, fascinated by the sudden change of mood in the room. Even though they have never been there. Pictures of the Earth from her memory flooded Nicole as she too stared at the tiny light in the center of the image. She became aware of a profound homesickness deep within her, a longing to return to that blessed, oceanic planet rilled with so much beauty. Tears swelled into her eyes as she moved up closer to her children and put her arms around them.
“Wherever we go in this amazing universe,” she said softly, “both now and in the future, that blue speck will always be our home.”
2
N:
Iai Buatong rose in the predawn dark. She slipped into a sleeveless cotton dress, stopped briefly to pay respects to her personal Buddha in the family’s hawng pro adjacent to the living room, and then opened the front door without disturbing any of the other members of the family. The summer air was soft. In the breeze she could smell flowers mixed with Thai spices—someone was already cooking breakfast in the neighborhood.
Her sandals made no sound on the soft dirt lane. Nai walked slowly, her head turning from right to left, her eyes absorbing all the familiar shadows that would soon be only memories. My last day, she thought. It has finally come.
After a few minutes, she turned right onto the paved street that led to the small Lamphun business district. An occasional bicycle passed her, but the morning was mostly quiet. None of the shops were yet open.
As she approached a temple, Nai passed two Buddhist monks, one on either side of the road. Each of the monks was dressed in the customary saffron robe and was car-
220 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
rying a large metal urn. They were seeking their breakfasts, just as they did every morning throughout Thailand, and were counting on the generosity of the townspeople of Lamphun. A woman appeared in a shop doorway right in front of Nai and dropped some food in the monk’s urn. No words were exchanged and the monk’s expression did not visibly alter to acknowledge the donation.
They own nothing, Nai mused to herself, not even the robes upon their backs. And yet they’re happy. She recited quickly the basic tenet, “The cause of suffering is desire,” and recalled the incredible wealth of her new husband’s family in the Higashiyama district on the edge of Kyoto, Japan. Kenji says his mother has everything but peace. It eludes her because she cannot buy it.
For a moment the recent memory of the grand house of the Watanabes filled her mind, pushing aside the image of the simple Thai road along which she was walking. Nai had been overwhelmed by the opulence of the Kyoto mansion. But it had not been a friendly place for her. It had been immediately obvious that Kenji’s parents viewed her as an interloper, an inferior foreigner who had married then- son without their support. They had not been unkind, just cold. They had dissected her with questions about her family and educational background that had been delivered with emotionless and logical precision. Kenji had later comforted Nai by pointing out that his family would not be with them on Mars.
She stopped in the street in Lamphun and looked across at the temple of Queen Chamatevi. It was Nai’s favorite place in town, probably her favorite place in all of Thailand. Parts of the temple were fifteen hundred years old; its silent stone sentinels had seen a history so different from the present that it might as well have occurred on another planet.
Nai crossed the street and stood in the courtyard, just inside the temple walls. It was an unusually clear morning. Just above the uppermost chedi of the old Thai temple a strong light shone in the dark morning sky. Nai realized that the light was Mars, her next destination. The juxtaposition was perfect. For all twenty-six years of her life (except for the four years she had spent at the University
THE GARDEN OF RAMA
221
of Chiang Mai) this town of Lamphun had been her home. Within six weeks she would be onboard a giant spaceship that would take her to her living quarters for the next five years, in a space colony on the red planet.
Nai sat down in the lotus position in a comer of the courtyard and stared fixedly at that light in the sky. How fitting, she thought, that Mars is looking down on me this morning. She began the rhythmic breathing that was the prelude for her morning meditation. But as she was preparing for the peace and calm that usually “centered” her for the day ahead, Nai recognized that there were many powerful and unresolved emotions inside her.
First 1 must reflect, Nai thought, deciding to forgo her meditation temporarily. On this, my last day at home, I must make peace with the events that have changed my life completely.
Eleven months earlier Nai Buatong had been sitting in the identical spot, her French and English lesson cubes neatly packed beside her in a carrying case. Nai had been planning to organize her material for the coming school term, determined that she was going to be more interesting and energetic as a high school language teacher.
Before she had started working on her lesson outlines on that fateful day the previous year, Nai had read the daily Chiang Mai newspaper. Slipping the cube into her reader, she had flipped quickly through the pages, scarcely reading more than the headlines. On the back page there had been a notice, written in English, that had caught her eye.
Doctor, Nurse, Teacher, Farmer
Are you adventurous, multilingual, healthy?
The International Space Agency (ISA) is mounting a major expedition to recolonize Mars. Outstanding individuals with the critical skills defined above are sought for a five-year assignment in the colony. Personal interviews will be held in Chiang Mai on Monday August 23, 2244. Pay and benefits are exceptional. Applications may be requested from Thai Telemail #462-62-4930.
222 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
When she had first submitted her application to the ISA, Nai had not thought that her chances were very high. She had been virtually certain that she would not pass the first screening and therefore would not even qualify for the personal interview. Nai was quite surprised, in fact, when six weeks later she received a notice in her electronic mailbox that she had been provisionally selected for the interviews. The notice also informed Nai that, according to the procedure, she should ask whatever personal questions she might have by mail first, before the interview. The ISA stressed that they only wanted to interview those candidates who intended to accept, if an assignment in the Martian colony were to be offered.
Nai responded by telemail with a single question. Could a significant portion of her earnings while she was living on Mars be directed to a bank on Earth? She added that this was an essential precondition for her acceptance.
Ten days later another electronic mail notice arrived. It was very succinct. Yes, the message said, a portion of her earnings could be regularly sent to a bank on Earth. However, it continued, Nai would have to be absolutely certain about her division of the monies—whatever split a colonist decided on could not be changed after he or she left the Earth.
Because the cost of living in Lamphun was low, the salary offered by the ISA for a language teacher in the Martian colony was almost double what Nai needed to handle all her family obligations. The young woman was heavily burdened with responsibility. She was the only wage earner in a family of five mat included her invalid father, her mother, and her two younger sisters.
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