The Garden of Rama(Rama III)

EPITHALAMION Chapter 8
Nicole leaned over the basin and stared at her face in the mirror. She ran her fingers across the wrinkles under her eyes and smoothed her gray bangs. You're almost an old woman, she said to herself. Then she smiled. "I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled," she said out loud.

Nicole laughed and backed up from the mirror, turning herself around so that she could see what she looked like from the back. The kelly green dress that she planned to wear in Elite's wedding fit snugly against her body, which was still trim and athletic after all the years. Not too bad, Nicole thought approvingly. At least Ellie won't be embarrassed.

On the end table beside her bed were the two photographs of Genevieve and her French husband that Kenji Watanabe had given her. After Nicole returned to the bedroom, she picked up the photos and stared at them. I couldn't be at your wedding, Genevieve, she thought suddenly with a burst of sadness. I never even met your husband.

Struggling with her emotions, Nicole crossed quickly over to the-other side of the bedroom. She stared for almost a minute at a photograph of Simone and Michael O'Toole, taken the day of their wedding at the Node. And I left you only a week after your wedding... You were so very young, Simone, Nicole thought to herself, but in many ways you were far more mature than Ellie -

She did not let herself finish the thought. There was too much heartache in remembering either Simone or Genevieve. It was healthier to focus on the present. Nicole purposely reached up and grabbed the individual picture of Ellie that was hanging on the wall beside her brothers and sisters. So you will be my third daughter to marry, Nicole thought. It seems impossible. Sometimes life moves much too fast.

A montage of images of Ellie flashed through Nicole's mind. She saw again the shy little baby lying beside her in Rama II, Ellie's awestruck little girl face as they approached the Node in the shuttle, her new adolescent features at the moment of awakening from the long sleep, and finally Ellie's mature determination and courage as she spoke in front of the citizens of New Eden in defense of Dr. Turner's program. It was a powerful emotional journey into the past.

Nicole replaced Ellie's picture on the wall and started to undress. She had just hung her dress in the closet when she heard a strange sound, like someone crying, at the very limit of her hearing. What was that? she wondered. Nicole sat still for several minutes, but didn't hear any other noises. When she stood up, however, she suddenly had the eerie feeling that both Genevieve and Simone were in the room with her. Nicole glanced around her quickly, but she was still alone.

What is going on with me? she asked herself. Have I been working too hard? Has the combination of the Marti-nez case and the wedding pushed me over the brink? Or is this another of my psychic episodes?

Nicole tried to calm herself by breathing slowly and deeply. She was not, however, able to shake the feeling that Genevieve and Simone were indeed there in the room with her. Their presence beside her was so strong that Nicole had to restrain herself to keep from talking to them.

She remembered clearly the discussions that she had had with Simone prior to her marriage to Michael O'Toole. Maybe that's why they are here, Nicole thought. They've come to remind me that I've been so busy with my work, I haven't had my wedding talk with Ellie. Nicole laughed out loud nervously, but the goose bumps remained on her arm.

Forgive me, my darlings, Nicole said to both Ellk's photograph and the spirits of Genevieve and Simone in the room. I promise that tomorrow -

This time the shriek was unmistakable. Nicole froze in her bedroom, the adrenaline coursing through her system. Within seconds she was running across the house to the study where Richard was working.

"Richard," she said, just before reaching the door to the study, "did you hear - "

Nicole stopped herself in midsentence. The study was a mess. Richard was on the floor, surrounded by a pair of monitors and a jumbled pile of electronic equipment. The little robot Prince Hal was in one hand and Richard's precious portable computer from the Newton mission was in the other. Three biots - two Garcias and a partially disassembled Einstein - were bending over him.

"Why, hello, darling," Richard said nonchalantly. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd be asleep by now."

"Richard, I am certain that I heard an avian shriek. Only about a minute ago. It was close by." Nicole hesitated, trying to decide whether or not to tell him about the visit from Genevieve and Simone.

Richard's brow furrowed. "I didn't hear anything," he replied. "Did any of you?" he asked the biots. They all shook their heads, including the Einstein, whose chest was wide open and connected by four cables to the monitors on the floor.

"I know I heard something," Nicole reiterated. She was silent for a moment. Is this another sign of terminal stress? she asked herself. Nicole now surveyed the chaos on the floor in front of her. "By the way, darling, what are you doing?"

"This?" Richard said with a vague sweep of his hand. "Oh, it's nothing special. Just another project of mine."

"Richard Wakefield," she said quickly, "you are not telling me the truth. This mess all over the floor could not possibly be 'nothing special' - I know you better than that. Now, what's so secret - "

Richard had changed the displays on all three of his active monitors and was now shaking his head vigorously. "I don't like this," he mumbled. "Not at all." He glanced up at Nicole. "Have you by any chance accessed my recent data files that are stored in the central supercomputer? Even inadvertently?"

"No, of course not. I don't even know your entry code... But that's not what I want to talk about - "

"Somebody has." Richard quickly keyed in a diagnostic security subroutine and studied one of the monitors. "At least five times in the last three weeks. You're certain that it wasn't you?"

"Yes, Richard," Nicole said emphatically. "But you're still trying to change the subject. I want you to tell me what this is all about."

Richard set Prince Hal down on the floor in front of him and looked up at Nicole. "I'm not quite ready to tell you, darling," he said after a moment's hesitation. "Please give me a couple of days."

Nicole was puzzled. At length, however, her face brightened. "All right, darling. If it's a wedding present for Ellie, then I'll gladly wait."

Richard returned to his work. Nicole plopped down in the only chair in the room that was not cluttered. As she watched her husband, she realized how tired she was. She convinced herself that her fatigue must have caused her to imagine the shriek. And the visits from Simone and Genevieve.

"Darling," Nicole said softly a minute or two later.

"Yes," he answered, glancing up at her from the floor.

"Do you ever wonder what's really going on here in New Eden? I mean, why have we been left so utterly alone by the creators of Rama? Most of the colonists go about their lives with hardly a thought about the fact that they're traveling in an interstellar spaceship constructed by extraterrestrials. How can this be possible? Why doesn't the Eagle or some other equally marvelous manifestation of their superior alien technology suddenly appear? Then maybe our petty problems - "

Nicole stopped when Richard started laughing. "What is it?" she said.

"This reminds me of a conversation that I had once with Michael O'Toole. He was frustrated because I would not accept on faith the eyewitness reports of the apostles. He then told me that God should have known that we were a species of doubting Thomases and should have scheduled frequent return visits from the resurrected Christ."

"But that situation was entirely different," Nicole argued.

"Was it?" Richard replied. "What the early Christians reported about Jesus could not have been any harder to accept than our description of the Node and our long, time-dilating journey at relativistic velocities... It's far more comforting for the other colonists to believe that this spaceship was created as an experiment by the ISA. Very few of them understand science well enough to know that Rama is way beyond our technological capability."

Nicole was silent for a moment. "Then is mere nothing we can do to convince them - "

She was interrupted by the triple buzz that indicated an incoming phone call was urgent. Nicole stumbled across the floor to answer it. Max Puckett's concerned face appeared on the monitor.

"We have a dangerous situation here outside the detention compound," he said. "There's an angry mob, maybe seventy or eighty people, mostly from Hakone. They want access to Martinez. They've already terminated two Garcia biots and attacked three others. Judge Mishkin is trying to reason with them, but they're in a nasty mood. Apparently Mariko Kobayashi committed suicide about two hours ago. Her whole family is here, including her father."

Nicole was dressed in a sweat suit in less than a minute. Richard tried vainly to argue with her. "It was my decision," she said as she climbed on her bicycle. "I should be the one to deal with the consequences."

She eased down the lane to the main bicycle path and then began to pedal furiously. At top speed she would be at the administrative center in four or five minutes, less than half the time it would take her by train at this time of night. Kenji was wrong, Nicole thought. We should have had a press conference this morning. Then I could have explained the decision.

Almost a hundred colonists were gathered in the main square of Central City. They were milling around in front of the New Eden detention complex where Pedro Martinez had been held since he was first indicted for the rape of Mariko Kobayashi. Judge Mishkin was standing at the top of the steps in front of the detention center. He was speaking to the angry crowd through a megaphone. Twenty biots, mostly Garcias but with a couple of Lincolns and Tiassos in the group, had locked arms in front of Judge Mishkin and were preventing the mob from climbing the stairs to reach the judge.

"Now, folks," the gray-haired Russian was saying, "if Pedro Martinez is indeed guilty, then he will be convicted. But our constitution guarantees him a fair trial - "

"Shut up, old man," someone shouted from the audience.

"We want Martinez," another voice said.

Off to the left, in front of the theater, six young Orientals were finishing a makeshift scaffold. There was a cheer from the crowd as one of them tied a thick rope with a noose over the crossbar. A burly Japanese man in his early twenties pushed to the front of the crowd. "Move out of the way, old man," he said. "And take these mechanical dolts with you. Our quarrel is not with you. We are here to secure justice for the Kobayashi family."

"Remember Mariko," a young woman shouted. There was a crashing sound as a red-haired boy struck one of the Garcias in the face with an aluminum baseball bat. The Garcia, its eyes destroyed and its face disfigured beyond recognition, made no response but did not give up its place in the cordon.

"The biots will not fight back," Judge Mishkin said into the megaphone. "They are programmed to be pacifists. But destroying them serves no purpose. It is senseless, inane violence."

Two runners coming from Hakone arrived in the square and there was a momentary change in the focus of the crowd. Less than a minute later, the unruly mob cheered the appearance of two huge logs, carried by a dozen youths each. "Now we will remove the biots that are protecting that murderer Martinez," the young Japanese spokesman said. "This is your last chance, old man. Move out of the way before you are hurt."

Many individuals in me crowd ran over to take positions on the logs they intended to use as battering rams. At that moment Nicole Wakefield arrived in the square on her bicycle.

She jumped down quickly, walked through the cordon, and raced up the steps to stand beside Judge Mishkin. "Hiro Kobayashi," she shouted into the megaphone before the crowd had recognized her. "I have come to explain to you why there will be no jury trial for Pedro Martinez. Will you come forward so that I can see you?"

The elder Kobayashi, who had been standing off to the side of the square, walked slowly over to the bottom of the steps in front of Nicole.

"Kobayashi-san," Nicole said in Japanese, "I was very sorry to hear about the death of your daughter - "

"Hypocrite," someone shouted in English, and the crowd began to buzz.

"...As a parent myself," Nicole continued in Japanese, "I can imagine how terrible it must be to experience the death of a child.

"Now," she said, switching to English and addressing the crowd, "Jet me explain my decision today to all of you. Our New Eden constitution says that each citizen shall have a 'fair trial.' In all other cases since this colony was originally settled, criminal indictments have led to a trial by jury. In the case of Mr. Martinez, however, because of all the publicity, I am convinced that no unbiased jury can be found."

A chorus of whistles and boos briefly interrupted Nicole. "Our constitution does not define," she continued, "what should be done to ensure a 'fair trial' if no jury of peers is to be involved. However, our judges, have supposedly been selected to implement the law and are trained to decide cases on the basis of the evidence. That is why I have assigned the Martinez indictment to the jurisdiction of the New Eden Special Court. There all the evidence - some of which has never heretofore been made public - will be carefully weighed."

"But we all know the boy Martinez is guilty," a distraught Mr. Kobayashi cried in response. "He has even admitted he had sex with my daughter. And we also know he raped a girl in Nicaragua, back on Earth... Why are you protecting him? What about justice for my family?"

"Because the law - " Nicole started to answer, but was drowned out by the crowd.

"We want Martinez. We want Martinez." The chant swelled as the huge logs, which had been laid on the pavement soon after Nicole's appearance, were again hoisted by the people in the square. As the mob struggled to set up a battering ram, one of the logs inadvertently crashed into the monument marking the celestial location of Rama. The sphere shattered and electronic parts that had indicated the nearby stars tumbled out onto the pavement. The small blinking light that had been Rama itself broke into hundreds of pieces.

"Citizens of New Eden," Nicole shouted into the megaphone, "hear me out. There is something about this case that none of you know. If you will just listen - "

"Kill the nigger bitch," shouted the red-haired boy who had struck the Garcia biot with the baseball bat.

Nicole glared at the young man with fire in her eyes. "What did you say?" she thundered.

The chanting suddenly ceased. The boy was isolated. He glanced around nervously and grinned. "Kill the nigger bitch," he repeated.

Nicole was down the steps in an instant. The crowd moved aside as she headed straight for the red-haired boy. "Say it one more time," she said, her nostrils flaring, when she was less than a meter away from her antagonist.

"Kill - " he started.

She slapped his cheek hard with her open hand. The smack resounded through the square. Nicole turned around abruptly and started toward the steps, but hands grabbed her from all sides. The shocked boy doubled up his fist -

At that moment two loud booms shook the square. As everyone tried to ascertain what was happening, two more blasts were detonated in the sky over the heads of the crowd. "That's just me and my shotgun," Max Puckett said into the megaphone. "Now, if you folks will just let the lady judge pass... there, that's better... and then head on home, we'll all be better off."

Nicole broke free from the hands that were holding her, but the crowd did not disperse. Max raised the gun, aimed it at the thick knot of rope above the noose on the makeshift scaffold, and fired again. The rope exploded into pieces, parts of it falling into the crowd.

"Now, folks," Max said. "I'm a lot more ornery than these two judges. And I already know I'm going to spend some time in this here detention center for violating the colony's gun laws. I'd sure as hell hate to have to shoot some of you as well."

Max pointed his gun at the crowd. Everyone instinctively ducked. Max fired blanks over their heads and laughed heartily as the people began to scurry out of the square.

Nicole could not sleep. Over and over again she replayed the same scene. She kept seeing herself walking into the crowd and slapping the red-haired boy. 'Which makes me no better than he is, she thought.

"You're still awake, aren't you?" Richard said.

"Umm-hm."

"Are you all right?"

There was a short silence. "No, Richard," Nicole answered. "I'm not... I'm extremely upset with myself for striking that boy."

"Hey, come on," he said. "Stop beating yourself up. He deserved it. He insulted you in the worst way. People like that don't understand anything but force."

Richard reached over and began rubbing Nicole's back. "My God," he said, "I've never seen you so tense. You're in knots from one end to the other."

"I'm worried," Nicole said. "I have a terrible feeling that the whole fabric of our life here in New Eden is about to come unraveled... And that everything I have done or am doing is absolutely useless."

"You have done your best, darling. I must confess that Tarn amazed by how hard ycu have tried." Richard continued to rub Nicole's back very gently. "But you must remember you're dealing with human beings. You can transport them to another world and give them a paradise, but they still pome equipped with their fears and insecurities and cultural predilections. A new world could only really be new if all the humans involved began with totally empty minds, like new computers with no software and no operating systems, just loads of untapped potential."

Nicole managed a smile. "You're not very optimistic, darling."

"Why should I be? Nothing I have seen here in New Eden or on Earth suggests to me that humanity is capable of achieving harmony in its relationship with itself, much less with any other living creatures. Occasionally there is an individual, or even a group, that is able to transcend the basic genetic and environmental drawbacks of the species... But these people are miracles, certainly not the norm."

"I don't agree with you," Nicole said softly. "Your view is too hopeless. I believe that most people desperately want to achieve that harmony. We just don't know how to do it. That's why we need more education. And more good examples."

"Even that red-haired boy? Do you believe he could be educated out of his intolerance?"

"I have to think so, darling," Nicole said. "Otherwise... I fear I would simply give up."

Richard made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh.

"What is it?" Nicole asked.

"I was just wondering," Richard said, "if Sisyphus ever deluded himself into believing that maybe the next time the boulder would not roll down the hill again."

Nicole smiled. "He had to believe there was some chance the boulder would stay at the summit, or he could not have labored so hard... At least that's what I think."