Rama Revealed(Rama IV)

ESCAPE Chapter 4
Max had been gone from the party for almost two hours. Both Eponine and Nicole were becoming alarmed. As the two women tried to cross the crowded dance floor together, a pair of men dressed as Robin Hood and Friar Tuck stopped them.

"You are not Maid Marian," Robin Hood said to Eponine, "but Maid-Mer is nearly the same." He laughed heartily at his own joke, extended his arms, and began to dance with Eponine.

"May a lowly priest enjoy a dance with Her Majesty?" the other man said. Nicole smiled to herself. What harm can there be in a single dance? she thought. She slipped into Friar Tuck's arms and they began moving slowly around the floor.

Friar Tuck was a talkative fellow. After every several bars of the music, toe would pull away from Nicole and ask a question. As planned, Nicole would indicate her response with a head movement or a gesture. Toward the end of the song, the priest in costume began to laugh. "Verily," he said, "I believe I am dancing with a mute. A graceful one, no doubt, but nevertheless a mute."

"I have a bad cold," Nicole said softly, trying to disguise her voice.

After she had spoken, Nicole detected a definite change in the friar's manner. Her concern increased when, after the dance was over, the man continued to hold her hands and to stare at her for several seconds.

"I've heard your voice somewhere before," he said seriously. "It's very distinctive. I wonder if we've met. I'm Wallace Michaelson, the senator from the western section of Beauvois."

Nicole vaguely remembered the man. She did not dare to say anything else. Fortunately, Eponine and Robin Hood returned to join Nicole and Friar Tuck before the silence had become dangerously long. Eponine sensed what had occurred and acted quickly. "The queen and I," she said, taking Nicole by the hand, "were on our way to the powder room when you Sherwood Forest outlaws ambushed us. If you will now excuse us, with thanks for the dance, we will continue toward our original destination."

As the women walked away, the two men dressed in green watched them carefully. Once inside the ladies' room, Eponine first opened all the stalls to ensure that she and Nicole were alone. "Something's happened," Eponine then whispered. "Probably Max had to go to the warehouse to replace your equipment."

"Friar Tuck is a senator from Beauvois," Nicole said. "He almost recognized my voice. I don't think I'm safe here."

"All right," said Eponine nervously after a moment's hesitation. "We will follow the alternate plan. We'll go out front and wait underneath the big tree."

Both women saw the small ceiling camera at the same time. It made just the slightest sound as it changed its orientation to follow them around the room. Nicolejried to remember every word that she and Eponine had said. Was there anything that suggested who we were? she wondered.

Nicole was worried especially about Eponine, since her friend would continue to live in the colony after Nicole had either escaped or was captured.

When Nicole and Eponine returned to the ballroom, Robin Hood and his favorite priest gestured for the ladies to come toward them. In response Eponine motioned toward the front door, put her fingers to her lips to indicate that she was going outside to smoke, and then crossed the room with Nicole. Eponine glanced over her shoulder as she opened the outside door. "The green men are following us," she whispered to Nicole.

About twenty meters away from the entrance to the ballroom, which was in reality the gymnasium for Beauvois Middle School, there was a large elm tree that had been one of the few already-grown trees transported to Rama originally from the Earth. When Eponine and Queen Nicole reached the tree, Eponine reached into her purse, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it quickly. She blew the smoke away from Nicole. "I'm sorry," she whispered to her friend.

"I understand," Nicole had just finished saying when Robin Hood and Friar Tuck walked up beside them.

"Well, well," Robin Hood said, "so our mermaid princess is a smoker. Don't you know that you're taking years off your life?"

Eponine started to give her standard reply, to tell the man that RV-41 would kill her long before smoking would, but she decided that any conversation might encourage the men to stay. She just smiled wanly, inhaled deeply on her cigarette, and blew smoke above her head into the branches of the tree.

"Both the friar here and I were hoping that you ladies would join us for a drink," Robin Hood said, ignoring the fact that neither Eponine nor Nicole had responded to his earlier comment.

"Yes," added Friar Tuck, "we would like to know who you are." He stared at Nicole. "I'm certain we've met before, your voice is so familiar."

Nicole faked a cough and looked around. There were three policemen within a radius of fifty meters. Not here, she thought. Not now. Not when I am so close.

"The queen is not feeling well," Eponine said. "We may be leaving early. If not, we'll find you when we come back inside."

"I'm a doctor," Robin Hood interrupted, moving closer to Nicole. "Maybe I can help."

Nicole could feel the tension in her heart. Again her breath was short and labored. She coughed again and turned away from the two men.

"That's a terrible cough, Your Majesty," she heard a familiar voice say. "We'd better take you home."

Nicole glanced up at another man dressed in green. Max, a.k.a. King Neptune, was smiling broadly at her. Behind him Nicole could see the buggy parked no more than ten meters away. Nicole was joyful and relieved. She gave Max a huge hug and almost forgot the danger all around her. "Max," she said, before he put his finger to her lips.

"I know both you ladies are just delighted that King Neptune has finished his business for the evening," he then said with a flourish, "and can now squire you away to his castle, away from outlaws and other unsavory elements."

Max looked at the other two men, who were enjoying his performance even though he had foiled their plans for the evening. "Thank you, Robin. Thank you, Friar Tuck," Max said as he helped the ladies into the buggy seat. "Your kind attention to my friends is most appreciated."

Friar Tuck approached the buggy, obviously to ask one more question, but Max pedaled away. "It is a night of costumes and mystery," he said, waving at the man. "But we cannot tarry, for the sea is calling us."

"You were fantastic," Eponine said, giving Max another kiss.

Nicole nodded her head. "You may have missed your calling," she said. "Maybe you should have been aIi actor instead of a farmer."

"I played Marc Antony in our high school play in Arkansas," Max said, handing Nicole the diving mask for a final adjustment. "The pigs loved my rehearsals... Friends, Romans, Countrymen. Lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."

The three of them laughed. They were standing in a small clearing about five meters from the shore of Lake Shakespeare. The trees and tall underbrush concealed them from the nearby road and bicycle path. Max lifted up the air tank and helped Nicole adjust it on her back.

"Is everything ready, then?" he asked.

Nicole nodded.

"The robots will meet you at the cache," Max said. "They told me to remind you not to descend too rapidly. You have not done any diving in a long time."

Nicole stood in silence for several seconds. "I don't know how to thank you two," she said awkwardly. "Nothing I can think of to say seems adequate."

Eponine walked over to Nicole and gave her a hug. "Be safe, my friend," she said. "We love you very much."

"Me too," Max said a moment later, choking slightly as he embraced her. They both waved to Nicole as she backed into the lake.

Tears were running out of Nicole's eyes and collecting on the bottom of her mask. She waved one last time when the water was up to her waist.

The water was colder than Nicole had expected. She knew that the temperature variations in New Eden had been much greater since the colonists had taken over management of their own weather, but she had not considered that the changes in weather patterns would have altered the temperature of the lake.

Nicole changed the amount of air in her vest to slow her descent. Don't hurry, she counseled herself. And stay relaxed. You have a long swim ahead of you.

Joan and Eleanor had drilled Nicole repeatedly on the procedure she should follow to locate the long tunnel that ran under the habitat wall. She switched on her flashlight and studied the aquaculture farm off to her left. Three hundred meters toward the center of the lake, directly perpendicular to the back wall of the salmon-feeding area, she remembered. Stay at a depth of twenty meters until you see the concrete platform below you.

Nicole swam easily, but she was tiring quickly nevertheless. She found the concrete platform, descended another fifteen meters while carefully watching all her gauges, and eventually located one of the eight large pumping stations that were scattered on the bottom of the lake to keep the water continuously circulating. Now, the tunnel entrance is supposed to be hidden just under one of these big motors. Nicole did not find it easily. She kept swimming past it because of all the new growth around the pumping complex.

The tunnel was a four-meter-diameter circular pipe, completely full of water. It had been included as an emergency escape route in the original habitat design at the insistence of Richard, whose engineering background had taught him always to allow for unforeseen contingencies. From the entrance in Lake Shakespeare to the exit, out in the Central Plain beyond the walls of the habitat, was a swim of slightly over one kilometer. It had taken Nicole ten minutes longer than planned to find the entrance. She was already a very tired woman as she began her final swim.

During her two years in prison, Nicole's only exercise had been the walking, sit-ups, and push-ups that she had done at irregular intervals. Her aging muscles were no longer able to endure extreme fatigue without cramping. Three times during her swim through the tunnel, Nicole's leg muscles cramped. Each time she struggled, treading water, and forced herself to relax until die cramp completely dissipated. Her forward progress was very slow. Toward the end of her swim Nicole became frightened that she would run out of air before she reached the tunnel exit.

In the last hundred meters Nicole's body ached all over. Her arms did not want to push through the water and her legs had no strength left to kick. It was then that the ache began in her chest. The dull, disconcerting pain stayed with her even after her depth gauge indicated that the tunnel had turned slightly upward.

When she finally reached the end of the passage and stood up in a small underground room with only half a meter of water on the floor, Nicole almost collapsed. For several minutes she tried unsuccessfully to regain an equilibrium level in her breathing and pulse rate. Nicole did not even have enough strength left to lift off the metal exit cover above her head. Worried that she had pushed herself beyond safe physical limits, Nicole decided to remain in the tunnel and take a short nap.

She awakened two hours later when she heard a bizarre pitter-patter above her. Nicole stood directly under me cover and listened carefully. She could hear voices, but could not isolate what was being said. What's going on? she asked herself, her heart rate suddenly accelerating. If I've been discovered by the police, why don't they just open the cover?

Nicole moved quietly in the darkness over to her diving gear, which was sitting against the wall on the opposite side of the tunnel. Suddenly there was a sharp knock on the cover. "Are you down there, Nicole?" the robot Joan asked. "If so, identify yourself immediately. We have some warm clothes up here for you, but we are not strong enough to remove the cover."

"Yes, it's me," Nicole cried with relief. "I'll climb out as soon as I can."

In her wet suit Nicole became quickly chilled in the bracing outside air of Rama, where the temperature was only a few degrees above freezing. Her teeth chattered during the eighty-meter walk in the dark to where her food and dry clothing were cached.

When the trio reached the supplies, Joan and Eleanor instructed Nicole to put on the army uniform that Ellie and Eponine had left for her. When Nicole asked why, the robots explained that to reach New York, it was necessary for them to pass through the second habitat. "In case we are discovered," Eleanor said when she was safely sitting in Nicole's shirt pocket, "it will be easier to talk our way out of trouble if you are wearing a soldier's uniform."

Nicole put on the long underwear and the uniform.

When she was no longer cold, she realized that she was extremely hungry. While she was eating the food Eponine had packed in the cache, Nicole placed all the other items that had been wrapped in the sheet into the backpack she had been carrying under her diving vest.

There was a problem entering the second habitat. Nicole and the two robots in her pocket had not encountered any humans at all in the Central Plain, but the entrance to what had once been the home of the avians and sessiles was guarded by a sentry. Eleanor had gone forward to scout and had reported the difficulty. The trio stopped three to four hundred meters away from the main traffic route between the two habitats.

"This must be a new security precaution, added since your escape," Joan said to Nicole. "We've never had any difficulties coming and going."

"Are there no other routes that lead to the inside?" Nicole asked.

"No," Eleanor answered. "The original probe site was here. It has since been considerably widened, of course, and a bridge was built across the moat so that the troops can move quickly. But there are no other entrances."

"And must we absolutely go through this habitat to reach Richard and New York?"

"Yes," Joan replied. "That huge gray barrier to the south, the one that forms the wall of the second habitat for many kilometers, prevents movement in and out of the Northern Hemicylinder of Rama. It's possible that we could fly over it, if we had an airplane that could reach an altitude of two kilometers, and a very clever pilot, but we don't. Besides, Richard is expecting us to come through the habitat."

They waited and waited in the dark and cold. Periodically one of the two robots would check the entrance, but there was always a sentry present. Nicole became tired and frustrated. "Look," she said at one point, "we can't stay here forever. There must be some other plan."

"We have no knowledge of any alternate or contingency

plans in this situation," Eleanor said, reminding Nicole for once that they were only robots.

During a brief nap the exhausted Nicole dreamed that she was lying, naked, on the top of a very large and very flat ice cube. Avians were striking at her from the sky, and hundreds of little robots like Joan and Eleanor had surrounded her on the surface of the ice. They were chanting something in unison.

When Nicole awakened, she felt somewhat refreshed. She talked with the two robots and they worked out a new plan. The three of them decided not to move until there was a break in the traffic through the entrance to the second habitat. At that time, the robots would decoy the sentry so that Nicole could proceed inside. Joan and Eleanor in-structed Nicole then to walk cautiously to the other side of the bridge and turn right along the shore of the moat. "Wait for us," Eleanor said, "in the small cove about three hundred meters from the bridge."

Twenty minutes later, Joan and Eleanor made a terrible commotion along the far wall, about fifty meters from the entrance. Nicole walked unmolested into the interior of the habitat when the sentry left his post to investigate the noise. On the inside, a long stairway wound back and forth, dropping the several hundred meters from the entrance altitude to the level of the wide moat that circumscribed the entire habitat. There were lights on the stairway at periodic intervals, and Nicole could see more lights on the bridge in front of her, but the overall illumination was quite sparse. Nicole tensed when she saw a pair of construction workers coming up the stairs in her direction. But they climbed right past her with only minimal acknowledgment. Nicole was thankful she was wearing the uniform.

As she waited beside the moat, Nicole stared toward the center of die alien habitat and tried to make out the fascinating features the little robots had described to her: the huge brown cylindrical structure, rising fifteen hundred meters straight up, that had once housed both the avian and sessile colonies; the great hooded ball that hung from the habitat ceiling and provided light; and the ring of mysterious white buildings, alongside a canal, that encircled the cylinder.

The hooded ball had not been illuminated for months, not since the first human incursion into the avianIsessile domain. The only lights that Nicole could see were small and widely scattered, obviously placed in the habitat by the human invaders. Thus all she could discern was a vague silhouette of the great cylinder, a shadow whose edges were very fuzzy. It must have been glorious when Richard first entered, Nicole thought, moved by the thought that she was in a location that had recently been the home of another sentient species. So here also, her mind continued, we extend our hegemony, trampling underfoot all life-forms that are not as powerful as we.

Eleanor and Joan took longer than expected to rejoin Nicole. The threesome then made slow progress along the side of the moat. One of the robots was always out front, scouting, making certain that contacts with other humans were avoided. Twice, in the part of the habitat that was very much like a jungle on Earth, Nicole waited quietly while a group of soldiers or workmen passed by on the road to their left Both times she studied the new and interesting plants around her with fascination. Nicole even found a creature halfway between a leech and an earthworm trying to enter her right boot. Curious, she picked it up and put it in her pocket so that she could examine it later.

When Nicole and the two robots finally arrived at the specified spot for the rendezvous, it had been almost thirty-two hours since she had backed into Lake Shakespeare. They were on the far side of the second habitat, away from the entrance, where the normal density of human beings was at its lowest. A submarine surfaced within minutes after their arrival. The side of the submarine opened and Richard Wakefield, a gigantic smile upon his bearded face, rushed forward toward his beloved wife. Nicole's body shook with joy when she felt his arms around her.