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

“All right, darling,” Nicole replied. “1 understand. But I cannot go. Someone must stay to take care of the family. And to fight Nakamura. Even if it’s hopeless. We must not submit to his tyranny.”

It was three hours after the aborted end of Ellie’s wedding. Panic was sweeping the colony. The television had just reported that five or six biots had simultaneously gone

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mad and that as many as eleven of New Eden’s most prominent citizens had been killed. Luckily the Kawabata biot performing the concert in Vegas had failed in its attack on gubernatorial candidate lan Macmillan and noted industrialist Toshio Nakamura.

“Bullshit,” Richard had said as he had watched. “That was just another part of their plan.”

He was certain that the entire assassination activity had been planned and orchestrated by the Nakamura camp. Moreover, Richard had no doubt that he and Nicole had also been intended targets. He was convinced that the day’s events would result in a totally different New Eden under the control of Nakamura, with lan Macmillan as his puppet governor.

“Won’t you at least say good-bye to Patrick and Benjy?” Nicole asked.

“I’d better not,” Richard answered. “Not because I don’t love them, but because I’m afraid I might change my mind . . .”

“Are you going to use the emergency exit?” Nicole said.

Richard nodded. “They’d never let me out the normal way.”

While he was checking his diving apparatus Nicole came into the study. “It was just reported on the news that people are smashing their biots all over the colony. One of the colonists interviewed said the entire mass murder was part of an alien plot.”

“Great,” Richard said grimly. “The propaganda has already begun.”

He packed as much food and water as he thought he could comfortably carry. When he was ready, he held Nicole tightly against him for over a minute. There were tears in both their eyes as he departed.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Nicole asked softly.

“More or less,” Richard answered as he stood in the back door. “I’m not telling you, of course, so you can’t be implicated . . . Please tell the children good-bye for me.”

“Be careful,” she said. They both heard something at

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the front of the house and Richard dashed out into the backyard.

The train to Lake Shakespeare was not running. The Garcia operating an earlier train on the same track had been terminated by a group of angry colonists and the whole system had shut down. Richard began walking toward the eastern side of Lake Shakespeare.

As he trudged along carrying his heavy diving equipment and backpack, he had the feeling that he was being followed. Twice Richard thought he saw someone out of the corner of his eye, but when he stopped and looked around, he saw nothing. Finally he reached the lake. It was after midnight. He took one final look at the lights of the colony and began to put on his diving apparatus. Richard’s blood ran cold as a Garcia came out of the bushes while he was undressing.

He expected to be killed. After several long seconds the Garcia spoke. “Are you Richard Wakefield?” it asked.

Richard did not move or say anything. “If you are,” the biot said at length, “I am bringing a message from your wife. She says she loves you and Godspeed.”

Richard took a long slow breath. “Tell her I Jove her also,” he said.

THE TRIAL

1

In the deepest part of Lake Shakespeare there was an

open entrance to a long submarine channel that ran under both the village of Beauvois and the habitat wall. During the design of New Eden, Richard, who had had considerable practical experience with contingency engineering, had stressed the importance of an emergency exit from the colony.

“But what would you need it for?” the Eagle had asked.

“I don’t know,” Richard had said. “But unforeseen situations often arise in life. A robust engineering design always has contingency protection.”

Richard swam carefully through the tunnel, slowing down every several minutes to check his air supply. When he reached the end he moved through a series of locks that left him eventually in a dry subterranean passage. He walked for about a hundred meters before he removed his diving apparatus and stored it at the side of the tunnel. When he reached the exit, which was at the eastern edge of the enclosed area that included both the habitats in the

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Northern Hemicylinder of Rama, Richard pulled his thermal jacket out of his waterproof pack.

Even though he realized that nobody could possibly know where he was, Richard opened the round door in the passage ceiling very cautiously. Then he eased out into the Central Plain. So far, so good, he thought, breathing a sigh of relief. Now for Plan B.

For four days Richard remained on the eastern side of the plain. Using his excellent small binoculars, he could see the lights indicating activities around the control center, the Avalon region, or the second habitat probe site. As Richard had anticipated, there were search parties out in the interhabitat region for a day or two, but only one group came in his direction and they were easy for him to avoid.

His eyes grew accustomed to what he had thought was total darkness in the Central Plain. Actually there was a small amount of background light, due to reflection off the surfaces of Rama. Richard conjectured that the source or sources of the light must be in the Southern Hemicylinder, on the other side of the far wall of the second habitat.

Richard wished that he could fly, so that he would be able to soar over the walls and move freely in the vastness of the cylindrical world. The existence of the very low levels of reflected light piqued his interest in the rest of Rama. Was there still a Cylindrical Sea to the south of the barrier wall? Did New York still exist as an island in that sea? And what, if anything, was in the Southern Hemicylinder, a region even larger than the one that contained the two northern habitats?

On the fifth day after his escape Richard awoke from an especially disturbing dream about his father and started to walk in the direction of what he now called the avian habitat. He had shifted his sleeping pattern to be directly opposite the diurnal cycle in New Eden, so the time inside the colony was about seven in the evening. He assumed that all the humans who were working at the probe site had already finished for the day.

When he was about half a kilometer away from the opening in the avian habitat wall, Richard stopped to ver-

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ify, using his binoculars, that there were no longer any people in the region. He then sent Falstaff to decoy the site watchman biot.

Richard was not certain how uniform the passage was that led into the second habitat. He had drawn an eighty-centimeter square on the floor of his study, and had convinced himself that he should be able to crawl through it. But what if the size of the passage was irregular? We’ll find out soon enough, Richard said to himself as he approached the site.

Only one set of cables and instruments had been reinserted into the passage, so it was not difficult for Richard to clear them out. Falstaff had also been successful—Richard neither heard nor saw the watchman biot. He threw his small pack into the opening and then tried to climb in himself. It was impossible. He took off his jacket first, then his shirt, pants, and shoes. Wearing only his underwear and socks, Richard could barely fit into the passage. He tied his clothes together in a bundle, affixed them to the side of his pack, and squeezed into the opening.

It was a very slow crawl. Richard inched forward on his stomach using his hands and elbows, pushing his pack in front of him. He brushed his body against the walls and the ceiling with every movement. He stopped, his muscles already beginning to tire, after he was fifteen meters into the tunnel. The other side was still almost forty meters away.

As he rested Richard realized that his elbows, knees, and even the top of his balding head were already scraped and bleeding. Retrieving bandages from his pack was out of the question—just rolling over on his back and looking behind him was a monumental effort in the cramped quarters.

He also realized that he was very cold. While he had been crawling, the energy required to make forward progress had kept him warm. Once he had stopped, however, his exposed body had chilled rapidly. Having so much of his body resting against cold, metallic surfaces did not help either. His teeth began to chatter.