What was the origin of my hallucinations and why was I the only one of the three of us to experience them? Richard and Michael also endured sensory deprivation, and they have each admitted seeing “bizarre colored patterns,” but their images were never coherent. If, as we have conjectured, the Ramans initially injected us with a chemical or two, using the tiny threads that wound around our bodies, to help us sleep in the unfamiliar surroundings, why was I the only one to respond with such wild visions?
Richard and Michael both think the answer is simple, that I am a “drug labile individual with a hyperactive imagination.” As far as they are concerned, that’s the entire explanation. They don’t pursue the subject any further and, although they are polite when I raise the many issues associated with my “trips,” they don’t even seem interested anymore. I might have expected that kind of a response from Richard, but certainly not from Michael.
Actually even our predictable General O’Toole has not been completely himself since we began our sessions in the tank. He has clearly been preoccupied with other matters. Only this morning did I obtain a small glimpse of what has been going on in his mind.
“I have always,” Michael finally said slowly, after I had been pestering him with friendly questions for several minutes, “without consciously acknowledging it, redefined and relimited God with each new breakthrough in science. I had managed to integrate a concept of the Ra-
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mans into my Catholicism, but in so doing I had merely expanded my limited definition of Him. Now, when I find myself onboard a robot spacecraft traveling at relativistic speeds, 1 see that I must completely unfetter God. Only then can He be the supreme being of all the particles and processes in the universe.”
The challenge of my life in the near future is at the other extreme. Richard and Michael are focused on profound ideas—Richard in the realm of science and engineering, Michael in the world of the soul. Although I thoroughly enjoy the stimulating ideas produced by each of them in his separate search for the truth, someone must pay attention to the everyday tasks of living. The three of us have the responsibility, after all, of preparing our only member of the next generation for her adult life. It looks as if the task of being the primary parent will always fall to me.
It is a responsibility I gladly embrace. When Simone smiles radiantly at me during a break from her nursing, I don’t muse about my hallucinations, it really doesn’t matter that much whether or not there is a God, and it is not of overwhelming significance that the Ramans have developed a method for using water as nuclear fuel. At that instant the only thing that is important is that I am Simone’s mother.
31 July 2201
Spring has definitely come to Rama. The thaw began as soon as the maneuver was completed. By that time the temperature topside had reached a frigid twenty-five below zero, and we had begun to worry about how much lower the outside temperature could become before the system regulating the thermal conditions in our lair would be stretched to the limit. The temperature has been rising steadily almost a degree per day since then and, at that rate, will cross the freezing level within two more weeks.
We are now outside the solar system in the near-perfect vacuum that fills the immense voids between neighboring stars. Our sun is still the dominant object in the sky, but
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none of the planets is even visible. Two or three times a week Richard searches through the telescopic data for some sign of the comets in the Oort Cloud, but thus far he has seen nothing.
Where is the heat coming from that is warming the interior of our vehicle? Our master engineer, the handsome cosmonaut Richard Wakefield, had a quick explanation when Michael asked him that question yesterday. “The same nuclear system that was providing the huge velocity change is probably now generating the heat. Rama must have two different operating regimes. When it is in the neighborhood of a heat source, like a star, it turns off all its primary systems, including propulsion and thermal control.”
Both Michael and I congratulated Richard for an eminently plausible explanation. “But,” I asked him two days ago, “there are still many other questions. Why, for example, does it have the two separate engineering systems? And why does it turn off the primary one at all?”
“Here I can only speculate,” Richard answered with his usual grin. “Maybe the primary systems need periodic repairs and these can only be accomplished when there is an external source of heat and power. You have seen how the various biots maintain the surface of Rama. Maybe there’s another set of biots who perform all the maintenance on the primary systems.”
“I have another idea,” Michael said slowly. “Do you believe we are meant to be dhboard this spacecraft?”
“What do you mean?” Richard asked, his brow furrowed.
“Do you think it is a random event that we are here? Or is it a likely event, given all the probabilities and the nature of our species, that some members of the human race would be inside Rama at this moment?”
I liked Michael’s line of reasoning. He was hinting, although he didn’t yet understand it completely himself, that perhaps the Ramans were not just geniuses in the hard sciences and engineering. Perhaps they knew something about universal psychology as well. Richard wasn’t following.
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“Are you suggesting,” I asked, “that the Ramans purposely used their secondary systems in the neighborhood of the Earth, expecting thereby to lure us into a rendezvous?”
“That’s preposterous,” Richard said immediately.
“But Richard,” Michael rejoined, “think about it. What would have been the probability of any contact if the Ramans had streaked into our system at a significant fraction of the speed of light, rounded the Sun, and then gone on their merry way? Absolutely zero. And, as you have indicated yourself, there may be other ‘foreigners,’ if we can call ourselves that, on this ship as well. I doubt if many species have the ability …”
The conversation continued for almost half an hour. When it was over I reminded the men that the Cylindrical Sea would soon melt from below, and that there would be hurricanes and tidal waves immediately afterward. We all later agreed that we should retrieve the backup sailboat from the Beta site.
It took the men slightly more than twelve hours to trek both ways across the ice. Night had already fallen by the time they returned. When Richard and Michael reached our lair, Simone, who is already completely aware of her surroundings, reached out her arms to Michael.
“I see someone is glad that I’m back,” Michael said jokingly.
“As long as it’s just Simone,” Richard said. He seemed strangely tense and distant.
Last night his peculiar mood continued. “What’s the matter, darling?” I asked him when we were alone together on our mat. He didn’t reply immediately, so I kissed him on the cheek and waited.
“It’s Michael,” Richard said at length. “I just realized today, when we were carrying the sailboat across the ice, that he’s in love with you. You should hear him. All he talks about is you. You’re the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect friend. He even admitted that he was envious of me.”
I caressed Richard for a few seconds, trying to figure out how to respond. “I think you’re making too much of
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some casual statements, darling,” I said finally. “Michael was simply expressing his honest affection. I am very fond of him as well—’ *
“I know—that’s what bothers me,” Richard interrupted me abruptly. “He takes care of Simone most of the time when you’re busy, the two of you talk for hours while I’m working on my projects—”
He stopped and stared at me with a strange, forlorn look in his eyes. His gaze was scary. This was not the same Richard Wakefield that I have known intimately for over a year. A chill rushed through my system before his eyes softened and he reached over to kiss me.
After we made love and he fell asleep, Simone stirred and I decided to feed her. While I was nursing I thought back over the entire period of time since Michael found us at the foot of the chairlift. There was nothing I could cite that should have caused Richard the slightest bit of jealousy. Even our lovemaking has remained regular and satisfying throughout, although I will admit it hasn’t been too imaginative since Simone’s birth.
The crazy look that I had seen in Richard’s eyes continued to haunt me even after Simone was finished nursing. I promised myself I would find more time to be alone with Richard in the coming weeks.
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