Rama Revealed(Rama IV)

RETURN TO THE NODE Chapter 6
The next day, an hour before the beginning of the lunch period, a part of one wall in each starfish apartment transformed into a large television screen. The residents were then informed that an important announcement was forthcoming in thirty minutes.

"This is only the third time," Max told Nicole as they waited, "that we have had any kind of general transmission. The first was immediately after we arrived here and the second was when it was decided to segregate our living quarters."

"What's going to happen now?" Marius asked.

"I suspect we're going to find out the details of our move," Max answered. "At least that's the leading rumor."

At the appointed time, the Eagle's face appeared on the monitor. "Last year, when you were all awakened and moved from Rama," the Eagle said, simultaneously giving the same message in colored strips moving across his forehead, "we told you that this vehicle would not be your

permanent home. We are now ready to transfer you to other locations, where your living conditions will be markedly better."

The Eagle paused a few seconds before continuing. "All of you will not be transferred to the same place. About one-third of the current starfish residents will move to the Carrier, that huge, flat spacecraft that has been stationed near the Node for most of the last week. During the next few hours, the Carrier will finish its business over at the Node and move in this direction. Those of you who are transferring to the Carrier will do so after dinner tonight.

"The rest of you will be moved to the Node in another three or four days. Nobody will be left here on the starfish. I would like to stress again that the accommodations in both places will be excellent and far superior to those in this vehicle."

The Eagle stopped for almost half a minute, as if he were allowing time for his audience to react to what he had already said. "When this meeting is over," the Eagle then said, "each of the apartment television screens will repeatedly cycle through the list of all creatures on board, ordered by apartment number, and display the transfer assignments. Reading the displays is very simple. If your name andIor identification code appears on the monitor in black letters against a white background, you will be transferred to the Carrier. If your name is written in white letters against a black background, you will remain here for the next few days and will eventually be moved over to the Node.

"For your information, on the Carrier each species will have its own self-contained living area. There will be no interspecies mixing, except of course for the required symbiotic arrangements. By contrast - "

"That ought to please the leaders of the Council," Max commented quickly. "They have been agitating for complete separation for months."

" - the living situation at the Node will involve regular interspecies communication and activity. We have attempted, in assigning individuals to the two locations, to place each of you in the environment best suited for his personality.

Our selections were done carefully, based upon our observations both here at the starfish and during the years on Rama.

"It is important that all of you realize that there will be no interaction between the two groups after the ^transfers take place. Let me say that in another way, to make certain there is no misunderstanding. Those moving to the Carrier tonight will never again see any of the residents who are going to be transferred to the Node.

"If you have been assigned to the Carrier," the Eagle continued, "you should begin packing immediately and should be completely ready to move before you come to dinner. If you are among those who have been designated to move to the Node and do not believe that your assignment is appropriate, you may request that your assignment be reconsidered. Tonight, after all residents currently assigned to the Carrier have completed their transfers, I will meet in the cafeteria with those who think they want to switch from the Node to the Carrier.

"If any of you have questions, I will be at the big desk in the lounge for the next hour."

"What did the Eagle say to you?" Max asked Nicole.

"The same thing he said to the twenty other people in the lounge who were asking the same question," Nicole replied. "No changes are possible for those who have been assigned to the Carrier. Reconsideration will only be given to those scheduled for transfer to the Node."

"Was that when Nai... uh, broke down?" Eponine asked.

"Yes," Nicole said. "Until then she had held herself together fairly well. When she initially came over to our apartment, after the lists had been shown for the first time, I thought she was remarkably calm. She obviously must have convinced herself initially that Galileo's assignment was some kind of clerical mistake." fc

"I can understand how she must feel," Eponine said. "I'll admit that my heart skipped a few beats until I saw that

all the rest of us were together on the list to be transferred to the Node."

"I bet that Nai is not the only one upset by the assignments," Max said. He stood up and started to walk around the room. "This is really a mess," he said, shaking his head. "What in the world would we have done if Marius had been assigned to the Carrier?"

"That's easy," Eponine answered quickly. "You and I would both have applied to go with our son."

"Yep," said Max after a momentary pause. "I suspect you're right."

"That's what Patrick and Nai are now discussing next door," Nicole said. 'They asked the young people to leave so they could talk in private."

"Do you think Nai can handle all this additional stress so soon after the... incident?" Eponine asked.

"She really has no choice," Max said. 'They only have a couple more hours to make a decision."

"She seemed much better to me twenty minutes ago," Nicole said. 'The light sedative had definitely taken effect. Both Patrick and Kepler were being very gentle with her. I think Nai frightened herself most of all with her outburst."

"Did she actually attack the Eagle?" Eponine asked.

"No. One of the blockheads restrained her.immediately when she screamed," Nicole said. "But she was out of control-she might have done anything."

"Shit," said Max, "if you had told me while we were living in the Emerald City that Nai even had the capacity for violence, I would have told you - "

"Only someone who has been a parent," Nicole interrupted, "can possibly understand the powerful feelings that a mother has where her children are concerned. Nai has been frustrated for months. I can't condone her reaction, but I can certainly understand - "

Nicole stopped. The knock on the door repeated. Patrick entered the room a few seconds later. His face betrayed his anxiety. "Mother," he said, "I need to talk to you."

"Eponine and I can go out in the hallway," Max said. "If that would help."

"Thanks, Max. Yes, I would appreciate it," Patrick said with difficulty. Nicole had never seen him so upset.

"I don't know what to do," Patrick said as soon as he was alone with Nicole. "Everything is happening so fast. I don't think Nai is being rational, but I don't seem to be able..." His voice trailed off. "Mother, she wants us all to apply for reconsideration. Everyone. You, me, Kepler, Maria, Max... all of us. She says otherwise Galileo will feel abandoned."

Nicole looked at her son. He was close to tears. He ham't had enough life to deal with a crisis like this, she thought quickly. He's only been awake for a little more than ten years.

"What is Nai doing now?" Nicole said softly.

"She's meditating," Patrick answered. "She said it would calm and heal her spirit... and give her strength."

"And are you supposed to convince the rest of us?"

"Yes, I guess. But Mother, Nai has not even considered that anyone might not agree with what she is proposing. She believes that what we should all do is absolutely clear."

Patrick's pain was obvious. Nicole wished that she could reach out, touch him, and make his agony go away. "What do you think we should do?" Nicole asked after a period of silence.

"I don't know," Patrick said, starting to pace around the room. "Like everyone else, I noticed as soon as the list was posted that all the active Council members were being transferred to the Carrier, as well as most of the humans who had been removed from the normal living quarters. The people we like and respect, as well as almost all the octo-spiders except some of the alternates, are going to the Node. But I sympathize with Nai. She can't bear the thought that Galileo will be isolated, permanently cut off from the only support system he has ever known."

What would you do, a voice inside Nicole's head asked her, if you were Nai? Didn't you panic earlier today when you were afraid that you might be separated from Benjy?

"Will you talk to her, Mother," Patrick entreated, "as soon as she has finished meditating? She will listen to you. Nai has always said how much she respects your wisdom."

"And is there anything particular that you want me to say to her?" Nicole asked.

"Tell her..." Patrick said, wringing his hands, "tell her it's not her place to decide what would be best for everyone in our group. She should focus on her own decision."

"That's good advice," Nicole said. She gazed at her son. 'Tell me, Patrick," she said several seconds later, "have you decided what you are going to do if Nai switches to the Carrier and none of the rest of us do?"

"Yes, I have, Mother," Patrick said quietly. "I will go with Nai and Galileo."

Nicole parked her wheelchair in a corner in front of the observation window. She was alone, as she had requested. The afternoon had been so emotional that she felt completely drained. Nicole had thought initially that her meeting with Nai had gone quite well. Nai had listened carefully to Nicole's advice, without much comment. Nicole had therefore been quite astonished an hour later when Nai, seething with anger, had confronted her along with Max, Eponine, and Ellie.

"Patrick tells me that none of you are going to come with us," Nai had said. "Now I see what rewards I have earned for my steadfast devotion all these years. I dragged my twin boys away from their own home out of loyalty to you, my friends, i deprived Galileo and Kepler of ever knowing a normal childhood because of my respect and admiration for you, Nicole, my role model. And now, when for once I ask a favor..."

"You're being unfair, Nai," Ellie had said softly. "We all love you and are appalled at the thought of being separated permanently from you and Galileo. Believe me, if it weren't so clear that the Node is preferable for all of us - "

"Ellie, Ellie," Nai had said, dropping on her knees beside her friend and bursting into tears. "Have you forgotten all the hours I spent with Benjy out in Avalon?

Yes, I admit that I did it of my own volition, but would I have given so much of myself to Benjy if he was not your brother and you were not my best friend? I love you, Ellie. I need your support. Please, please come with us. You and Nikki, at least."

Ellie had also wept. Before the confrontation was over, there was not a dry eye in the room. In the end Nai had apologized profusely to everyone.

Nicole took a deep breath and stared out the window. She knew that she needed a break from all the emotional turmoil. Twice during the afternoon she had felt twinges of pain in her chest. Even all those magical probes, she thought, cannot protect me if I do not take care of myself.

The huge Carrier was now stationed only several hundred meters away. It was an awesome engineering construction, far larger even than it had seemed when it was over by the Node. The spacecraft was parked sideways, so only a part of it could be seen from the window. The top of the Carrier was a long flat plane broken only by small, scattered equipment complexes and die transparent domes-or bubbles, as they had originally been called-that were located in an orderly pattern throughout the length and breadth of the plane. Some of the domes were quite large. One, directly in front of the window, rose over two hundred meters above the flat plane. Other domes were very small. Parts of eleven of the transparent bubbles were visible from the observation window. During the approach of the Carrier earlier in the afternoon, when the entire spacecraft could be seen, a total of seventy-eight domes had been counted.

The underbelly of die Carrier had an external surface of metallic gray. It extended below the plane about a kilometer, with gently sloping sides and a rounded bottom. From a distance the underbelly looked insignificant compared to the vast flat surface which was at least forty kilometers long and fifteen kilometers wide. However, up close it was clear that an enormous volume was contained inside that drab structure.

As Nicole watched in fascination, a small indentation in the side of the gray exterior, just below the surface, expanded and grew into a round tube moving outward from the Carrier. The tube drew near to the starfish and then, after some minor vernier corrections, was affixed to the main air lock.

She felt a touch on her arm and turned to the side. It was Dr. Blue. "How are you feeling?" the octospider said in color.

"Better now," Nicole replied. "But I had some bad moments earlier this afternoon."

Dr. Blue scanned Nicole with the monitoring device. "There were at least two major irregularities," Nicole told her doctor. "I remember both of them quite clearly."

The octospider doctor studied the colors flashing on the small monitor. "Why didn't you call me?" she said.

"I thought about it," Nicole answered. "But so much was going on. And I figured you were busy with your own - "

Dr. Blue handed Nicole a small flask containing a light blue liquid. "Drink this," the octospider said. "It will limit your cardiac response to emotional stress over the next twelve hours."

"And will we still be together, you and I," Nicole asked, "after the Carrier departs? I didn't study your part of the list very carefully."

"Yes," Dr. Blue answered. "Eighty-five percent of our species will be transferred to the Node. More than half the octospiders moving to the Carrier are alternates."

"So, my friend," Nicole said after drinking the liquid, "what do you make of all this transfer business?"

"Our best guess," Dr. Blue said, "is that this entire experiment has reached a significant branch point and that the two groups will be involved in radically different activities."

Nicole laughed. "That's not very specific," she said.

"No, it's not," the octospider calmly agreed.

There were eighty-two humans and nine octospiders present in the cafeteria when the Eagle convened the reconsideration meeting five minutes after the last starfish resident originally scheduled for transfer to the Carrier had departed through the air lock. Only those who had officially requested reconsideration were permitted to attend the meeting. Many other members of all species were still lingering on the observation deck and in the common areas, talking about the departure procession andIor waiting to learn the outcome of the Eagle's meeting.

Nicole had returned to her post at the observation window. She was sitting in her wheelchair, staring out at the Carrier and reflecting on the scenes she had witnessed during the last hour. Most of the departing humans had been in a festive mood, openly delighted that they would no longer be living among aliens. There had been some sad farewells at the door to the air lock, but actually surprisingly few.

Galileo had been allowed to spend ten minutes with his family and friends in the common area. Patrick and Nai had assured the young man, who had demonstrated very little emotion of any kind, that they and his brother, Kepler, who was still packing, would be joining him in the Carrier before the evening was over.

Galileo had been one of the last humans to leave the starfish. He had been followed by the small contingent of avians and myrmicats. The neural net material and, the remaining manna melons had been packed in large crates and had been carried by a contingent of the block robots. I'II probably never see any of your kind again, Nicole had thought as the trailing avian had turned and issued a shriek of good-bye to the onlookers.

"Each of you," the Eagle said as he began the meeting in the cafeteria, "has requested that your assignment be reconsidered and that you be allowed to switch your future home from the Node to the Carrier. At this time I want to explain two additional differences between the living environments in the Carrier and the Node. If, after weighing this new information, you still wish to have your assignment changed, then we will accommodate you.

"As I told you this afternoon, there will be no interspe-cies mixing in the Carrier. Not only will each species be isolated in its own habitat, but also there will be no interference of any kind by any other intelligence, including the one I represent, in the affairs of each species. Not now, not ever. Each species in the Carrier will be on its own. By contrast, life in the interspecies world at the Node will be supervised. Not as heavily as it has been here on the starfish, but supervised nevertheless. We believe that oversight and monitoring are essential when different species are living together.

"The second additional factor may be the most important of all. There will be no reproduction in the Carrier. All of the individuals who inhabit the Carrier, of every species, will be rendered forever sterile. Every element necessary for a long and happy life will be provided for those living in the Carrier, but nobody will be allowed to reproduce. By contrast, there will be no reproduction constraints imposed at the Node.

"Please let me finish," the Eagle said as several members of the audience tried to interrupt with questions. "You each have two more hours to decide. If you still want to transfer to the Carrier, simply bring the bags you have already packed and request Big Block to open the air lock."

Nicole was not surprised that Kepler no longer wanted to switch to the Carrier. The young man had clearly had a difficult time making up his mind in the first place and had only requested reconsideration out of loyalty to his mother. Since that time, he had spent most of the afternoon with Maria, whom he obviously adored.

Kepler enlisted everyone in the extended family in case there was an argument with his mother, but no dispute developed. Nai agreed that Kepler should not be deprived of the pleasure of being a father. Nai even magnanimously suggested that Patrick might want to reevaluate his own decision, but her husband was quick to point out that she was past her childbearing years and, besides, he had already been a father, in many ways, to Galileo and Kepler.

Nicole, Patrick, Nai, and Kepler were left alone in one of the apartments for the very final good-byes. It had been a day of tears and raging emotions. All four of them were emotionally exhausted. Two mothers said good-bye, forever, to two sons. There was a touching symmetry in the final comments. Nai requested that Nicole guide Kepler with her wisdom; Nicole asked Nai to continue to give Patrick her unselfish, unconditional love.

Patrick then lifted both the heavy bags and threw them over his shoulders. As Nai and he walked out the door, Kepler stood beside Nicole's wheelchair, holding her phthisic hand. Only after the door closed did the river of tears run from Nicole's eyes. Good-bye, Patrick, she thought with a heartache. Good-bye, Genevieve, Sitnone, and Katie. Goodbye, Richard.