The Garden of Rama(Rama III)

RETURN TO THE NODE Chapter 3
Breakfast was a celebration. They ordered a feast from the exceptional cooks who prepared their food. The designers of their apartment had considerately provided them with a variety of ovens and a full refrigerator, in case they wanted to prepare their own meals from the raw materials. However, the alien (or robot) cooks were so good, and so quickly trained, that Nicole and her family almost never prepared the meals themselves - they just pushed the white button and ordered.

"I want pancakes this morning," Katie announced in the kitchen.

"Me too, me too," her sidekick Patrick added.

"What kind of pancakes?" the voice intoned. "We have four different types in our memory. There is buckwheat, buttermilk - "

"Buttermilk," interrupted Katie. "Three altogether," She glanced at her little brother. "Better make it four."

"With butter and maple syrup," Patrick shouted.

"Four pancakes with butter and maple syrup," said the voice. "Will that be all?"

"One apple juice and one orange juice as well," Katie said after a brief consultation with Patrick.

"Six minutes and eighteen seconds," the voice said.

When the food was ready, the family gathered at the round table in the kitchen. The youngest children explained to Nicole what they had been doing during her absence. Patrick was especially proud of his new personal record in the fifty-meter dash over in the exercise room. Benjy laboriously counted to ten and everyone applauded. They had just finished breakfast and were cleaning the dishes off the table when the doorbell rang.

The adults looked at each other and Richard walked over to the control console, where he turned on the video monitor. The Eagle was standing outside their door.

"I hope it's not another test," said Patrick spontaneously.

"No... no, I doubt it," Nicole replied, moving toward the entryway. "He's probably here to give us the results of the last experiments."

Nicole took a deep breath before she opened the door. No matter how many times she encountered the Eagle, her adrenaline level always increased in his presence. Why was that? Was it his awesome knowledge that frightened her? Or his power over them? Or just the bewildering fact of his existence?

The Eagle greeted her with what she had come to recognize as a smile. "May I come in?" he said pleasantly. "I would like to talk to you, your husband, and Mr. OToole."

Nicole stared at him (or it, her mind instantly flashed), as she always did. He was tall, maybe two and a quarter meters, and- shaped like a human being from the neck down. His arms and torso, however, were covered with small, tightly woven charcoal gray feathers - except for the four fingers on each hand, which were creamy white and featherless, Below his waist, the surface of the Eagle's body was flesh-colored, but it was obvious from the sheen of his outer layer that no attempt had been made to duplicate real human skin. There was no hair below his waist and neither visible joints nor genitalia. His feet had no toes. When the Eagle walked, wrinkles developed around the knee area, but they disappeared when he was standing still.

The Eagle's face was mesmerizing. His head had two large, powder blue eyes on either side of a protruding grayish beak. When he talked the beak opened and his perfect English came from some kind of electronic voice box at the back of the throat. The feathers on the top of his head were white and contrasted sharply with the dark gray of his face, neck, and back. The feathering on his face was quite sparse and scattered.

"May I come in?" the Eagle repeated politely when Nicole did not move for several seconds.

"Of course... of course," she replied, moving away from the door. "I'm sorry... I just hadn't seen you for so long."

"Good morning, Mr. Wakefield, Mr. O'Toole. Hello, children," the Eagle said as he strode into the living room.

Patrick and Benjy both backed away from him. Of all the children, only Katie and little Ellie did not seem to be afraid.

"Good morning," Richard replied. "And what can we do for you today?" he inquired. The Eagle never made social calls. There was always some purpose for his visits.

"As I told your wife at the door," the Eagle replied, "I need to talk to ail three of you adults. Can Simone take care of the other children while we chat for an hour or so?"

Nicole had already started herding the children back into the playroom when the Eagle stopped her. "That won't be necessary," he said. "They can use the whole apartment. The four of us are going to the conference room across the hall."

Uh-oh, Nicole thought immediately. This is something big. We've never left the children alone in the apartment before.

She was suddenly very concerned about their safety. "Excuse me, Mr. Eagle," she said. "Will the children be all right here? I mean, they're not going to have any special visitors or anything like that..."

"No, Mrs. Wakefield," the Eagle responded matter-of-factly. "I give you my word that nothing will interfere with your children."

Out in the atrium, when the three humans started to put on their space suits, the Eagle stopped them. "That won't be necessary," he said. "Last night we reconfigured this portion of the sector. We have sealed off the hall just before the junction and transformed this whole area into an Earthlike habitat. You'll be able to use the conference room without putting on any special clothing."

The Eagle started talking as soon as' they sat down in the large conference room across the hall. "Since our first encounter you have repeatedly asked me questions about what you are doing here and I have not given you direct answers. Now that your final set of sleep tests is completed - successfully, I might add - I have been empowered to inform you about the next phase of your mission.

"I have also been given permission to tell you something about myself. As all of you have suspected, I am not a living creature - at least not by your definition." The Eagle laughed. "I was created by the intelligence that governs the Node to interface with you on sensitive issues. Our early observations of your behavior indicated a reluctance on your part to interact with the disembodied voices. It had already been decided to create me, or something similar, as an emissary to your family when you, Mr. Wakefield, nearly caused serious chaos in this sector by trying to make an unscheduled and unapproved visit to the Administration Module. My appearance at that time was designed to preclude further untoward behavior.

"We have now entered," the Eagle continued after only a momentary hesitation, "the most important time period of your stay here. The spaceship you call Rama is over a*t the Hangar undergoing major refurbishment and engineering redesign. You human beings will now take part in that redesign process, for some of you will be returning with Rama to the solar system in which you originated."

Richard and Nicole both started to interrupt. "Let me finish first," the Eagle said. "We have very carefully prepared my remarks to cover your anticipated questions."

The alien birdman glanced at each of the three humans around the table before continuing at a slower pace. "Notice that I did not say that you will be going back to Earth. If the nominal plan succeeds, those of you who return will interact with other human beings in your solar system, but not on your Home planet. Only if there is some required deviation from the baseline plan will you actually return to Earth.

"Notice also that only some of you will be returning. Mrs. Wakefield," the Eagle said directly to Nicole, "you will definitely be traveling again in Rama. This is one of the constraints that we are placing on the mission. We will let you and the rest of your family decide who will accompany you on the journey. You can go alone if you choose, leaving everyone else here at the Node, or you can take some of the others. However, you cannot all make the voyage on Rama. At least one reproductive pair must stay here at the Node - to ensure some data for our encyclopedia in the unlikely event that the mission is unsuccessful.

"The primary purpose of the Node is to catalogue life-forms in this part of the galaxy. Spacefaring life-forms have the highest priority and our specifications call for us to collect vast amounts of data about each and every spacefarer we encounter. To accomplish this task, we have worked out, over hundreds of thousands of years of your time, a method of gathering this data that minimizes the likelihood of a cataclysmic intrusion into the evolutionary pattern of those spacefarers while at the same time maximizing the probability of our obtaining the vital data.

"Our basic approach involves sending observing spacecraft on reconnaissance missions, hoping to lure spacefarers to us so they can be identified and phenotyped. Repeat spacecraft are later sent to the same target, first to expand the degree of interaction, and ultimately to capture a representative subset of the spacefaring species so that long-term and detailed observations can take place in an environment of our choice."

The Eagle paused. Nicole's mind and heart were both racing at a frantic pace. She had so many questions. Why had she been especially selected to return? Would she be able to see Genevieve? And what exactly did the Eagle mean by the word capture - did he understand that the word was usually interpreted in a hostile manner? Why did -

"I think I understood most of what you said," Richard spoke first, "but youJiave omitted some crucial information. Why are you gathering all this data about spacefaring species?"

The Eagle smiled. "In our information hierarchy there are three basic levels. Access to each level by an individual or a species is permitted or denied based on a set of established criteria. With my earlier statements we have given you, as representatives of your species, Level II information for the first time. It is a tribute to your intelligence that your initial question seeks an answer which is classified as Level III."

"Does all that gobbledygook mean you're not going to tell us?" Richard asked, laughing nervously.

The Eagle nodded.

"Will you tell us why I alone am required to make the return voyage?" Nicole now asked.

"There are many reasons," the Eagle answered. "First, we believe you are the best suited physically for the return voyage. Our data also indicates that your superior communication skills will be invaluable after the capture phase of the mission is completed. There are additional considerations as well, but those two are the most important."

"When will we be leaving?" Richard asked.

"That's not certain. Part of the schedule is dependent on you. We will let you know when a firm departure date is established. I will tell you, however, that it will almost certainly be in less than four of your months."

We're going to leave very soon, Nicole thought. And at least two of us must stay here. But who?

"Any reproductive pair can be left here at the Node?" Michael now inquired, following the same pattern of thought as Nicole.

"Almost, Mr. OToole," the Eagle replied. "The youngest girl Ellie would not be acceptable with you as a partner - we might not be able to keep you alive and fertile until she reaches sexual maturity - but any other combination would be fine. We must have a high probability of successfully producing healthy offspring."

"Why?" Nicole asked.

"There exists a very small probability that your mission will not be successful and that the pair left at the Node will be the only humans we are able to observe. As infant spacefarers, having reached that stage without the usual assistance, you are especially interesting to us."

The conversation could have lasted indefinitely. However, after several more questions, the Eagle abruptly rose and announced that his participation in the conference was over. He encouraged the humans' to deal quickly with the issue of "allocation," as he called it, for he intended to begin work almost immediately with those members of the family who would be returning in the direction of Earth. It would be their job to help him design the "Earth module inside Rama." Without any additional explanation, he left the room.

The three adults agreed not to tell the children the most important details of their meeting with the Eagle for at least a day, until after they had had a chance to reflect and converse among themselves. That night, after the children had gone to bed, Nicole, Richard, and Michael talked quietly in the living room of their apartment.

Nicole opened the conversation by admitting that she was feeling angry and powerless. Despite the fact that the Eagle had been very nice about it, she said, he had basically ordered them to participate in the return mission. And how could they refuse? The entire family was absolutely dependent upon the Eagle - or at least the intelligence that he represented - for its survival. No threats had been made, but no threats were needed. They had no choice but to comply with the Eagle's instructions.

But who among the family should stay at the Node? Nicole wondered aloud. Michael said it was absolutely essential mat at least one adult remain at the Node. His argument was persuasive. Any two of the children, even Simone and Patrick, would need the benefit of an adult's experience and wisdom to have any chance for happiness under the circumstances. Michael then volunteered to stay at the Node, saying that it was unlikely he would survive a return trip anyway.

AH three of them agreed that it was clearly the Nodal intelligence's intention to have the humans sleep most of the way back to the solar system. Otherwise, what was the purpose of all the sleep tests? Nicole did not like the idea of the children missing out on the critical development periods of their lives. She suggested that she should return alone, leaving everyone else in the family at the Node. After all, she reasoned, it's not as if the children would have a "normal" life on Earth after they make the journey.

"If we are interpreting the Eagle correctly," she said, "anybody who returns will end up ultimately as a passenger on Rama heading to some other location in the Galaxy."

"We don't know that for certain," Richard argued. "On the other hand, whoever stays here is almost certainly doomed to never seeing any humans other than the family."

Richard added that he intended to make the return trip under any circumstances, not just to be a companion for Nicole, but also to experience the adventure.

The trio could not reach a final agreement about the deployment of the children during that first evening's discussion. But they did firmly resolve the issue of what the adults were going to do. Michael OToole would stay at the Node. Nicole and Richard would make the return journey to the solar system.

In bed after the meeting Nicole could not sleep. She kept running through all the options in her mind. She was certain that Simone would make a better mother than Katie. Besides, Simone and Uncle Michael were extremely compatible and Katie would not want to be separated from her father. But who should be left to mate with Simone? Should it be Benjy, who loved his sister madly, but would never be able to engage in an intelligent conversation?

Nicole tossed and turned for hours. In truth, she didn't like any of the choices. She understood well the source of her disquiet. However the issue was resolved, she would be forced once again to separate, probably permanently, from at least a few members of the family that she loved. As she lay in her bed in the middle of the night the ghosts and pain of past separations returned to haunt her. Nicole's heart ached as she imagined the parting that would come in a few months. Pictures of her mother, her father, and Genevieve tugged at her heartstrings. Maybe that's all life is, she thought in her temporary depression, an endless sequence of painful partings.