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information about this part of the galaxy has been stored. The large inner sphere contains all the models for predicting the future, as well as stochastic scenarios for the next eons.”
“I thought you had- never been inside,” Nicole said.
“I haven’t,” the Eagle replied. “But my Knowledge Module data base was updated and expanded last night.*’
A door in the outer surface of the sphere opened and the shuttle started to enter. “Just a minute,” Nicole said. “Do 1 understand that I will almost certainly never leave this module alive?”
“Yes,” said the Eagle.
“Then will you please turn this vehicle around slowly and let me take one last look at the outside world?”
The shuttle executed a slow yaw maneuver and Nicole, sitting forward in her seat, gazed fixedly out the window. She saw the other spherical modules of the Node, the transportation corridors, and, in the distance, the starfish, where her family and friends were packing their bags for their transfer. In one orientation the yellow star Tau Ceti, so much like the Sun, was the only large object in the window, and despite its radiance and die scattered light from the Node, Nicole could still discern a few other stars against the blackness of space.
Nothing in this scene will be changed by my death, Nicole thought. There will just be one less pair of eyes to observe its splendor. And one less collection of chemicals risen to consciousness to wonder what it all means.
‘Thank you,” Nicole said after the full turn was completed. “We may now proceed.”
V;
‘ chicles entering the Knowledge Module from space, as well as the tubes arriving from the other three modules, all ended up at a long slender station located on one side of the midlevel annulus that completely encircled the huge sphere.
“There are only two entrances, a hundred and eighty degrees apart, into each of the three concentric domains of the Knowledge Module,” the Eagle said as Nicole and he were carried swiftly along the annulus by a moving sidewalk. To their right was the transparent outer surface of the module. On their left was a cream-colored, windowless wall.
“Will I be able to take off my suit and helmet soon?” Nicole asked from her wheelchair.
“Yes, after we enter the exhibits,” the Eagle said. “I had to specify some kind of tour—they couldn’t change the atmosphere of the entire module overnight—and in those places you will not need your space suit.”
“So you have already selected what we are going to see?”
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“It was unavoidable,” the Eagle said. “This place is immense, much larger than one of the hemicylinders of Rama, and absolutely crammed full of information. I tried to design our tour based on my knowledge of your interests and our allocated time. If it turns out that there are other things—”
“No, no,” Nicole said. “I wouldn’t have any idea what to request. I’m certain that what you did was fine.”
They were approaching a place where the moving sidewalk stopped and a broad corridor went off to the left. “By the way,” the Eagle said, “I didn’t explain to you that our tour is restricted to the outer two regions. The Predictions Domain is off limits for us.”
“Why is that?” Nicole asked, activating her wheelchair and moving along the corridor beside the Eagle.
“I don’t know for certain,” he said. “But it doesn’t really matter, if I understand your purpose here. There will be more than enough to occupy you in the two available domains.”
In front of them was a high blank wall. As the Eagle and Nicole approached, a wide door in the wall opened inward, revealing a tall circular room with a ten-meter-diameter sphere in its center. The wall and ceiling of the room were bom cluttered with small fixtures or equipment and many strange markings. The Eagle told Nicole that he had no idea what any of it meant.
“What I have been told,” the alien said, “is that the orientation for your visit to this domain is supposed to take place inside that sphere in front of us.”
The gleaming sphere divided in half at the midsection. The upper half of the hollow ball lifted up just enough that the Eagle and Nicole could pass underneath into the interior of the sphere. Once they were inside, the top half of the sphere returned to its original position and they were completely enclosed.
It was only dark for a second or two. Then small scattered lights illuminated some of the side of the sphere that was facing them. “It’s decorated with a lot oftletail,” Nicole commented.
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“What we’re looking at,” the Eagle said, “is a model of this entire domain. Our point of view is from the inside, as if we were at the very center of the Knowledge Module and neither of the two inner domains existed. You’ll notice that the way the objects are placed along and against the surface, not only in front of and behind us, but also above and below us, nothing intrudes into the empty central space more than a fixed distance. The outer walj of the next concentric domain is located at that spot in the real module. Now the lights will show you, on the model, where we will be going in the next few hours.”
A large sector of the inner sphere surface facing them, about thirty percent of the area altogether, was suddenly visible in a soft light.
“Everything in the lit region,” the Eagle said, making a circular gesture with his hand, “is associated with spacefar-ing. We will confine our tour to this portion of the domain. The blinking red light on the surface in front of us is where we are presently.”
As Nicole watched, a red line of lights moved quickly up the surface, stopping at a point above her head where there was a picture of the Milky Way Galaxy. “We will go first to the geography section,” the Eagle said, pointing at the place where the line of lights had stopped, “then to engineering, and finally to biology. After a short break, we will continue into the second domain. Any more questions before we start?”
They drove up what appeared to be an ascending ramp in a small car similar to the one they had used in the Habitation Module during Nicole’s visit with Michael and Simone. Although the path in front and behind them was illuminated, whatever was beside the car was always in the dark.
“What’s around us?” Nicole asked after they had been driving for almost ten minutes.
“Data storage mostly, plus a few exhibits,” the Eagle said. “It is dark so that you are not unnecessarily distracted.”
Eventually they stopped beside another tall door. “The
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room you are about to enter,” the Eagle said, setting up Nicole’s wheelchair, “is the largest single room in this domain. It is half a kilometer across at its widest point. Inside^currently is a model of the Milky Way Galaxy. Once we enter, we will be standing on a mobile platform that we can command to take us to any point in the room. It will be mostly dark inside, and there will be displays and structures both above us and below us. You might feel as if you are going to fall, but remember that you are weightless.”
The view from the platform was spectacular. Even before they began to move toward the center of the vast room, Nicole was overwhelmed. Lights representing stars were everywhere in the blackness that surrounded them. Single stars, binaries, combination triples. Small, stable yellow stars, red giants, white dwarfs—they even passed directly over an exploding supernova. In every location, in every direction, there was something different and fascinating to see.
After a few minutes the Eagle stopped the platform. “I thought we’d start here, where you are familiar with the territory,” he said.
Using a pointer with multiple light beams, he indicated a nearby yellow star. “Do you recognize this place?”
Nicole was still staring at the endless lights in all directions. “Are all hundred billion stars in the galaxy actually modeled in this room?” she asked.
“No,” the Eagle replied. “What you are seeing here is only a large section of the galaxy. I’ll explain more to you in a few minutes when we go to the top of the room and can look down on the central galactic plane. I brought you to this particular spot for another purpose.”
Nicole recognized me Sun, and the Centauri triple, its closest neighbor, and even Barnard’s star and Sinus. She could not remember the names of most of the other stars in the local neighborhood of the Sun. She did, however, manage to locate another solitary yellow star not too far away.
“Is that Tau Ceti?” she asked. *•