“That’s normal,” Nicole said. “Your body has been through a trauma. You need rest. As I told you and Max the day after Marius was born when you insisted that we have a party, the only way you’ll get enough sleep in the first two weeks is if you adapt your schedule to conform with his.”
“I believe you,” Max said. He stumbled out the door with his clothes and headed for the bathroom.
Eponine glanced at the light blue rectangular pad that Nicole had just taken out of her bag. “Is that one of the new diapers?” she said.
“Yes,” Nicole answered. “The octospider engineers have made some more improvements. By the way, their offer about the special waster is still open. They don’t have anything yet for Marius’s urine, but they calculate that with the waster he would only poop—”
“Max is completely against the idea,” “Eponine interrupted. “He says that his little boy is not going to be an experiment for the octospiders.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it an experiment,” Nicole said. “The special waster species they have designed is only a slight modification from the ones that have been cleaning our toilets for six months now. And think of the trouble you would avoid—”
“No,” Eponine said firmly. “But thank the octospiders anyway.”
When Max returned, he was dressed for the day, although still unshaven. “I wanted to tell you. Max,” Nicole said, “before Dr. Blue comes back, that I did finally have a long conversation with Archie about our leaving New Eden. When I explained to Archie that we all wanted to go, and
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tried to give him some of the reasons why, he told me it was not in his power to approve our leaving.”
“What does that mean?” Max asked.
“Archie said it was an issue for the Chief Optimizer.”
“Ah-ha! So I must have been right all along,” Max said. “We really are prisoners here, and not guests.”
“No, not if I understood correctly what Archie said. He told me that it ‘can be arranged, if necessary,’ but only the Chief Optimizer understands ‘all the factors’ well enough to make an informed decision.”
“More goddamn octospider gobbledygook,” Max grumbled.
“I don’t think so,” Nicole replied. “I was actually encouraged. But Archie said we will not be able to schedule a meeting with the Chief Optimizer until after the Matriculation is over. That’s the process that has been taking all of Jamie’s time. Apparently it only happens every two years or so and involves the whole colony.”
“How long does this Matriculation thing last?” Max asked.
“Only another week. Richard, Ellie, and I have been invited to participate in some facet of the process tonight. It sounds intriguing.”
“Marius and I won’t be able to leave for several weeks anyway,” Eponine said to Max. “So waiting a week is certainly no problem.”
At that moment Dr. Blue knocked on the door. The octospider entered the bedroom with the specialized equipment that was going to be used in the examination of Marius. Max looked askance at a pair of plastic bags containing writhing creatures that looked like black pasta.
“What are those damn things?” Max asked with a scowl.
Nicole finished laying out her own instruments on the table beside the bed. “Max,” she said with a smile, “why don’t you go next door for the next fifteen minutes or so?”
Max’s brow furrowed. “What are you going to do to my little boy? Boil him in oil?” ^
“No.” Nicole laughed. “But from time to time it may sound as if that’s what we’re doing.”
Ellie picked up Nikki and gave her a hug. The little girl momentarily stopped crying. “Mommy is going out with Nonni and Boobah and Archie and Dr. Blue,” she said. “We’ll be back after your bedtime. You’ll be fine here with Mrs. Watanabe, Benjy, and the twins.”
“I don’t want to stay here,” Nikki said in her most unpleasant voice. “I want to go with Mommy.” She kissed Ellie on the cheek. The little girl’s face was expectant.
When Ellie put the child back down on the floor a few seconds later, Nikki’s beautiful face scrunched up and she began to wail. “I don’t want to,” she screamed as her mother walked out the door.
Ellie shook her head as the five of them strolled toward the plaza. “I wish I knew what to do for her,” Ellie said. “Ever since that incident in the stadium, she has been clinging to me.”
“It could be just a normal phase,” Nicole said. “Children change very rapidly at her age. And Nikki’s no longer the center of attention, now that Marius is here.”
“I think the problem’s deeper than that,” Ellie said several seconds later. She turned to Nicole. “I’m sorry, Mother, but I believe Nikki’s insecurity has more to do with Robert than with Marius.”
“But Robert has been gone for over a year,” Richard said.
“I don’t think that matters,” Ellie replied. “At some level Nikki must still remember what it was like to have two parents. To her it probably seems like first I abandoned her, then Robert. No wonder she is insecure.”
Nicole touched her daughter gently. “But Ellie, if you’re right, why is she just now reacting so strongly?”
“I can’t say for certain,” Ellie said. “Maybe the encounter with the iguana thing reminded her how vulnerable she was … and how much she misses the protection of her father.”
They heard Nikki’s loud wail behind them. “Whatever is bothering her,” Ellie said with a sigh, “I hope she outgrows
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it soon. When she cries like that, I feel as if a hot knife were cutting into my stomach.”
There was no transport at the plaza. Archie and Dr. Blue kept on walking, heading for the pyramid, where the octospiders and the humans usually held their conferences. “This is a very special evening,” Dr. Blue explained, “and there are many things that we must tell you before we leave your zone.”
“Where is Jamie?” Nicole asked as they were entering the building. “I thought originally he was going with us. And while I’m at it, what ever happened to Hercules? We haven’t seen him since Bounty Day.”
While they walked together up the ramp to the second floor of the pyramid, Dr. Blue informed them that Jamie was with his fellow matriculating octospiders that evening and that Hercules had been “reassigned.”
“Goodness,” said Richard jokingly, “Hercules didn’t even say good-bye.”
The octospiders, who still hadn’t learned to recognize human humor very well, apologized for Hercules’ lack of manners. They then mentioned that there would no longer be an octospider among the humans as a daily observer.
“Was Hercules fired for some reason?” Richard asked, still in a lighter vein. The two octospiders ignored the question altogether.
They entered the same conference room where Nicole had learned about the digestive process of the octospiders. Several large sheets of the parchment or hide on which the octos made their drawings and diagrams were over in the corner facing the wall. Dr. Blue asked Richard, Nicole, and Ellie to sit down.
“What you are going to see later tonight,” Archie then said, “has never been witnessed by a nonoctospider since our colony was formed here in Rama. We are taking you with us in an attempt to increase the quality of communication between our two species. It is imperative that you understand, before we leave this room and head^for the Alternate Domain, not only what you are going to see, but also how you are expected to behave.”
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“Under no circumstances,” Dr. Blue added, “are you to disturb the proceedings or try to interact with anyone or anything along the way, either coming or going. You are to follow our instructions at all times. If you cannot or do not want to accept these conditions, then you must tell us now and we will not take you with us.”
The three humans looked at each other with alarm. “You know us well,” Nicole said at length. “I trust that we’re not going to be asked to do something that is inconsistent with our values and principles. We could not—”
‘That’s not our concern,” Archie interrupted. “We are simply asking you to be passive observers, no matter what you see or experience. If you become confused or frightened and for some reason cannot locate one of us, sit down, wherever you are, with your hands at your sides, and wait for us to come.”
There was a brief pause. “I cannot stress too much,” Archie continued, “how important your behavior is this evening. Most of the other optimizers objected when I requested that you be allowed to attend. Dr. Blue and I have personally vouched for your ability not to do anything untoward.”
“Are our lives in danger?” Richard asked.