The rover arrived at the base of the mountain. “I wanted to come over here,” Dr. Blue said, “out of curiosity. We did not have any mountains, as you know, in our realm on Rama. And not many in my region of our home planet when I was a juvenile. I thought it would be nice to stand on the top.”
“I have commandeered one of the large bulldozers,” the Eagle said. “Our journey to the summit will only take ten minutes. You may be frightened in spots because of the steepness of the climb, but it is perfectly safe, as long as you wear your seat belts.”
Nicole was not too old to enjoy the spectacular climb. The bulldozer, as large as an office building, did not have very comfortable seats for passengers and some of the bumps were quite violent, but the vistas that opened up as the trio ascended were definitely worth the trouble.
The mountain was over a kilometer high and about ten kilometers around its approximately round circumference. Nicole could clearly see the pyramid in which she had been staying when the bulldozer was only a quarter of the way up the mountain. Farther away, in all directions, the horizon was dotted with isolated construction projects of Unknown purpose.
So now it all begins again, Nicole mought. This rebuilt Rama will soon enter another set of star systems. And what
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will it find? Who are the spacefarers who will’next walk across this ground? Or climb this mountain?
The bulldozer halted on a plateau very near the summit and the three passengers disembarked. The view was breathtaking. As Nicole surveyed the scene, she recalled her wonder on that very first trip into Rama, when she had been riding down the chairlift and the vast alien world had stretched out in front of her. Thank you, she thought, addressing the Eagle in her mind, for keeping me alive. You were right. This experience alone and the memories it triggers are more than enough reason to continue.
Nicole turned around to face the rest of the mountain. She saw something small flying in and out of some bushy-looking growths, red in color, that were no more than twenty meters away. She walked over and captured one of the flying objects in her hand. It was the size and shape of a butterfly. Its wings were decorated with a variegated pattern without symmetry or any other design principle that Nicole could discern. She let one go and then captured another. The pattern on the second Raman butterfly was altogether different, but’still rich in both color and decoration.
The Eagle and Dr. Blue walked up beside her. Nicole showed them what she was holding in her hand. “Flying biots,” the Eagle said without additional comment.
Nicole marveled again at the tiny creature. Something astonishing happens every day, she remembered Richard saying. And we are then always reminded of what a joy it is to be alive.
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Iicole had barely finished her bath when the two biots entered the room. One was a crab and the other looked like a small truck. The crab used a combination of its powerful pincers and its formidable array of ancillary gadgetry to cut Nicole’s sleeping container into manageable pieces. The pieces were then stacked in the bed of the truck. On its way out of the room less than a minute later, the crab grabbed the white bathtub and all the remaining chairs and piled them on top of the stacks in the truck bed. It then put the table on its own back and disappeared from the empty room behind the truck biot.
Nicole straightened her dress. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw a crab biot,” she commented to her two companions. “It was on the huge screen in the Newton control center, years and years ago. We were all terrified.”
“So today’s the day,” Dr. Blue said in color several seconds later. “Are you ready to check into the Grand Hotel?”
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“Probably not,” Nicole said with a smile. “From what you and the Eagle have said, I guess I have enjoyed my last moment of solitude.”
“Your family and friends are very excited about seeing you,” the Eagle said. “I visited them yesterday and told them you would be coming. You’ll stay with Max, Eponine, Ellie, Marius, and Nikki. Patrick, Nai, Benjy, Kepler, and Maria are next door. As I explained to you last week, Patrick and Nai have been treating Maria as their own daughter since shortly after everyone awakened. They know the whole story of how you rescued Maria during the bombing.”
“I don’t know if ‘rescued’ is exactly the correct word,” Nicole said, remembering clearly her last hours in the old Rama spacecraft. “I picked her up because there was no one to look after her. Anybody would have done the same thing.”
“You saved her life,” the Eagle said. “Not more than an hour after you left the zoo with the girl, three large bombs devastated her compound and the two adjacent sections. Maria certainly would have been killed if you hadn’t found her.”
“She is now a beautiful and intelligent young woman,” Dr. Blue said. “I met her once briefly several weeks ago. Ellie says Maria is incredibly energetic. According to Ellie, the girl is the first one awake in the morning and the last one in bed at night.”
Like Katie, Nicole couldn’t help but think. Who are you, Maria? she wondered. And why were you sent into my life at just that moment?
“Ellie also told me that Maria and Nikki are inseparable,” Dr. Blue continued. “They study together, eat together, and talk incessantly about everything. Nikki has told Maria all about you.” ,
“How is that possible?” Nicole said with a smile. “Nikki was not yet four years old the last time that I saw her. Human children don’t retain memories from that eariy.”
“They definitely do if they sleep through the next fifteen years,” the Eagle said. “Kepler and Galileo also have very
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clear recollections of their early days. . . . But we can talk while we travel. It’s time for us to leave now.”
The Eagle helped Nicole and Dr. Blue put on their space suits. Then he picked up the suitcase of Nicole’s belongings. “I’ve put your medical bag in here with your clothes, as well as the cosmetics you’ve been using these last several days,” he said.
“My medical bag?” Nicole said. She laughed. “Goodness, I had almost forgotten. I had it with me, didn’t I, when I found Maria? Thank you.”
The trio walked out of the room, which was on the bottom floor of the large pyramid. A few minutes later they moved through the great arched entrance to the building. Outside, in the bright light of the factory, the rover was waiting for them. “It will take us about half an hour to reach the high-speed elevators,” the Eagle said. “Our shuttle is parked at the Dock, on the uppermost level.”
As the rover moved away, Nicole turned around and looked behind her. Beyond the pyramid was the tall mountain they had climbed three days before. “So you really have no idea why the butterfly biots are there?” Nicole said into the microphone in her space helmet.
“No,” said the Eagle. “My assignment covers only your cycle.”
Nicole continued to stare behind her. The rover passed a set of tall poles, ten or twelve altogether, connected by wires at the top, middle, and bottom. All this will be pan of the new Rama, Nicole thought. Suddenly it occurred to her that she was about to leave the world of Rama for the very last time. A powerful feeling of sadness swept over her. This has been my home, she said to herself, and I am going away forever.
“Would it be possible,” Nicole said to the Eagle without turning around, “for me to see any of the other parts of Rama before we leave for good?”
“What for?” the Eagle asked.
“I’m not exactly certain,” Nicole answered. “Maybe just so I can linger for an extra hour in my memories.”
“The two bowls and the Southern Hemicylinder have
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already been completely remodeled. You would not recognize them. The Cylindrical Sea has been drained and removed. Even New York is in the process