The Garden of Rama(Rama III)

RETURN TO THE NODE Chapter 9
The day of departure was January 13, 2215, according to the calendar that had been fastidiously kept by Richard andIor Nicole ever since Rama had escaped from the nuclear phalanx. Of course this date didn't really mean anything - except to them. Their long trip to Sirius at slightly more man half the speed of light had slowed time inside Rama, at least relative to the Earth, so the date they were using was a complete artifice. Richard estimated that the actual date on the Earth, at the time of their departure from the Node, was three to four years later, in 2217 or 2218. It was impossible for him to compute the Earth date exactly, since he did not have an accurate velocity time history from the years that they had traveled inside Rama. Thus Richard could only approximate the relativistic corrections necessary to transform their own time basis into the one being experienced on the Earth.

"The date on Earth right now really has no significance to us anyway," Richard explained to Nicole soon after they had awakened for their final day at the Node. "Besides," he continued, "it's almost certain that we will be returning to our solar system at extremely high velocities, meaning there will be additional time dilation before we rendezvous in Mars orbit."

Nicole had never really understood relativity - it was totally inconsistent with her intuition - and she certainly wasn't going to spend any energy worrying about it on her last day before separating from Simone and Michael. She knew mat the final partings would be extremely difficult, for everybody, and she wanted to concentrate all her resources on those last emotional moments.

"The Eagle said that he would come for us at eleven," Nicole said to Richard while they were dressing. "I was hoping that after breakfast we could all sit together in the living room. I want to encourage the children to express their feelings."

Breakfast was light, even cheerful, but when the eight members of the family gathered together in the living room, each mindful that there were less than two hours remaining before the Eagle arrived to take everyone but Michael and Simone away, the conversation was forced and strained.

The newlyweds sat together on the love seat, facing Richard, Nicole, and the other four children. Katie, as usual, was completely frenetic. She talked constantly. She jumped from subject to subject, steering safely away from any discussion of the imminent departure. Katie was in the middle of a long monologue about a wild dream she had had the night before when her story was interrupted by the sound of two voices coming from the entryway to the master suite.

"Dammit, Sir John," said the first variation in Richard's voice, "this is our last chance. I'm going out there to say good-bye whether you're coming or not."

"These good-byes, my prince, do wrench my very soul. I'm not yet in my cups enough to deaden the pain. You yourself said the lass was the very apparition of an angel. How can I possibly - "

"Well, then, I'm going out there without you," said Prince Hal. All the eyes in the family were on Richard's tiny robot prince as he came down the hall to the living room. Falstaff staggered after him, stopping every four or five steps to take a drink from his flask.

Hal walked over in front of Simone. "Dearest lady," he said, bending down on one knee, "I cannot find the words to express properly how much I will miss seeing your smiling face. Throughout my entire realm, there is not one member of the fairer sex who is your equal in beauty - "

"itounds," Falstaff interrupted, throwing himself on both knees beside his prince. "Mayhap Sir John has made a mistake. Why am I going with this motley crew (he waved his arm at Richard, Nicole, and the other children - all of whom were smiling broadly) when I could remain here, in the presence of such magnificent grace, and only this one old man for competition? I remember Doll Tearsheet..."

While the pair of twenty-centimeter robots were entertaining the family, Benjy rose from his chair and approached Michael and Simone. "Si-mone," he said, fighting back his tears, "I am go-ing to miss you. I love you." Benjy paused for a moment, looking first at Simone and then at his father. "I hope that you and Dad-dy will be ve-ry hap-py."

Simone rose from her seat and put her arms around her trembling little brother. "Oh, Benjy, thank you," she said. "I will miss you too. And I will carry your spirit with me every day."

Her embrace was too much for the boy. Benjy's body was wracked by sobs and his soft, sorrowful moan brought tears to the eyes of everyone else. Within moments Patrick had crawled into his father's lap. He buried his swollen eyes in Michael's chest. "Daddy... Daddy," he kept saying over and over.

A choreographer could not have designed a more beautiful dance of good-bye. The radiant Simone, looking somehow still serene despite her tears, waltzed around the room, saying a meaningful farewell to each and every member of the family. Michael O'Toole remained sitting on the love seat, with Patrick on his lap and Benjy beside him. His eyes brimmed repeatedly as one by one the departing family members came to him for a final embrace.

I want to remember this moment forever. There is so much love here, Nicole said to herself as she glanced around the room. Michael was holding little Ellie in his arms; Simone was telling Katie how much she would miss their talks together. For once even Katie was in emotional knots - she was surprisingly silent when Simone walked back across the room to rejoin her husband.

Michael gently lifted Patrick off his lap and took Si-mone's extended hand. The two of them turned toward the others and dropped to their knees, their hands clasped in prayer. "Our heavenly Father," Michael said in a strong voice. He paused for several seconds while the rest of the family, even Richard, knelt beside the couple on the floor.

"We thank Thee for having allowed us the joyful love of this wonderful family. We thank Thee also for having shown us Thy miraculous handiwork throughout the universe. At this moment we beseech thee, if it be Thy will, to look after each of us as we go our separate ways. We know not if it is in Thy plan for us once again to share the camaraderie and love that has uplifted all of us. Stay with us all, wherever our paths take us in Thy amazing creation, and let us, O Lord, someday be joined together again - in this world or the next. Amen."

Seconds later the doorbell rang. The Eagle had arrived.

Nicole left the house, purposely designed as a smaller version of her family villa at Beauvois in France, and walked down the narrow lane in the direction of the station. She passed other houses, all dark and empty, and tried to imagine what it would be like when they were full of people. My life has been like a dream, she said to herself. Surely no human has ever had a more varied experience.

Some of the houses cast shadows on the lane as the simulated Sun completed its arc in the ceiling far above her head. Another remarkable world, Nicole mused, surveying the village in the southeast corner of New Eden.

The Eagle was correct when he said that the habitat'would be indistinguishable from Earth.

For a fleeting moment Nicole thought of mat blue, oceanic world nine light-years away. In her mental picture she was standing beside Janos Tabori, thirteen years earlier, as the Newton spaceship had pulled away from LEO-3. "That's Budapest," Janos had said, circling with his fingers a specific feature on the lighted globe shimmering in the observation window.

Nicole had men located Beauvois, or at least the general region, by backtracking up the Loire River from where it emptied into the Atlantic. "My home is just about here," she had said to Janos. "Maybe my father and daughter are looking in this direction right now."

Genevieve, Nicole thought as the brief recollection faded, my Genevieve. You would be a young woman now. Almost thirty. She continued to walk slowly down the lane near her new house in the Earth habitat inside Rama. Thinking of her first daughter made Nicole remember a short conversation she had had with the Eagle during a break in the video recording at the Node.

"Will I be able to see my daughter Genevieve while we are close to the Earth?" Nicole had asked.

"We don't know," the Eagle had replied after a short hesitation. "It depends entirely on how your fellow humans respond to your message. You yourself will stay inside Rama, even if the contingency plans are invoked, but it is possible that your daughter will be one of the two thousand who come from Earth to live in New Eden. It has happened before, with other spacefarers."

"And what about Simone?" Nicole had asked when the Eagle was finished. "Will I ever see her again?"

"That is more difficult to answer," the Eagle had replied. "There are many, many factors involved." The alien creature had stared at his despondent human friend. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Wakefield," he had said.

One daughter left on Earth. Another in an alien space world almost a hundred trillion kilometers away. And I will be somewhere else. Who knows where? Nicole was feeling extremely lonely. She stopped her walk and focused her eyes on the scene around her. She was standing beside a circular area in the village park. Inside the rock circumference was a slide, a sandbox, a jungle gym, and a merry-go-round - a perfect playground for Earth children. Underneath her feet, the network of GEDs was interleaved throughout the portions of the park that would eventually contain the grasses brought from Earth.

Nicole bent down to examine the individual gas exchange devices. They were compact round objects, only two centimeters in diameter. There were several thousand of them arrayed in rows and columns that crisscrossed the park. Electronic plants, Nicole thought. Converting carbon dioxide to oxygen. Making it possible for us animals to survive.

In her mind's eye Nicole could see the park with grass, trees, and lilies in the small pond, just as it had appeared in the holographic image in the conference room at the Node. But even though she knew that Rama was returning to the solar system to "acquire" human beings who would fill up this technological paradise, it was still difficult for her to imagine this park teeming with children. I have not seen another human being, except for my family, in almost fourteen years.

Nicole left the park and continued toward the station. The residential houses that had lined the narrow lanes were now replaced by row buildings containing what would eventually be small shops. Of course they were all empty, as was the large, rectangular structure, destined to be a supermarket, that was right opposite the station.

She walked through the gate and boarded the waiting train in the front, just behind the control cab that was manned by a Benita Garcia robot. "Almost dark," Nicole said out loud.

"Eighteen more minutes," the robot replied.

"How long to the somnarium?" Nicole asked.

"The ride to Grand Central Station takes ten minutes," Benita answered as the train left the southeast station. "Then you have a two-minute walk."

Nicole had known the answer to her question. She had just wanted to hear another voice. This was her second day alone, and a conversation with a Garcia robot was better than talking to herself.

The train ride took her from the southeast corner of the colony to its geographic center. Along the way, Nicole could see Lake Shakespeare on the left-hand side of the train and the slopes of Mount Olympus (which were covered with more GEDs) on the right. Electronic message monitors inside the train displayed information about the sights that were being passed, the time of day, and the distance that had been traveled.

You and the Eagle did a good job on this train system, Nicole thought, thinking of her husband Richard, now asleep along with all the other members of her family. Soon I will be joining you in the big round room.

The somnarium was, in reality, just an extension of the main hospital that was located about two hundred meters from the central train station. After leaving the train and walking past the library, Nicole entered the hospital, walked through it, and then reached the somnarium through a long tunnel. The rest of her family were all asleep in a large, circular room on the second floor. Each was in a "berth" along the wall, a long, coffinlike contraption hermetically sealed against the outside environment. Only their faces were visible through the small windows near their heads. As she had been trained to do by the Eagle, Nicole examined the monitors containing the data about the physical condition of her husband, two daughters, and two sons. Everybody was fine. There were not even any hints of irregularities.

Nicole stopped and gazed longingly at each of her loved ones. This was to be her last inspection. According to the procedure, since everyone's critical parameters were well within tolerances, it was now time for Nicole to go to sleep herself. It could be many years before she saw any of her family again.

Dear, dear Benjy. Nicole sighed as she studied her retarded son in repose. Of all of us, this break in life will be the hardest on you. Katie, Patrick, and Elite will catch up quickly. Their minds are quick and agile. But you will miss the years that might have made you independent.

The berths were held out from the circular wall by what looked like wrought-iron metalwork. Hie distance from the head of one berth to the foot of the next was only about a meter and a half. Nicole's empty berth was in the middle; Richard and men Katie were behind her head; Patrick, Benjy, and Ellie were at her feet.

She lingered for several minutes beside Richard's berth. He had been the last to go to sleep, two days before. As he had requested, Prince Hal and FalstafT were lying on his chest inside the sealed container. Those final three days were wonderful, my love, Nicole said to herself as she stared at her husband's expressionless face through the window. I could not have asked for more.

They had swum and even water-skied in Lake Shakespeare, climbed Mount Olympus, and made love whenever either one of them had had the slightest inclination. They had clung to each other all through one night in the big bed in their new home. Richard and Nicole had checked on the sleeping children, once each day, but had mostly used the time for a thorough exploration of their new realm.

It had been an exciting, emotional time. Richard's last words, before Nicole activated the system that put him to sleep, were "You are a magnificent woman and I love you very much."

Now it was Nicole's turn. She could procrastinate no longer. She climbed into her berth, as she had practiced many times during their first week inside New Eden, and flipped all the switches except one. The foam around her was unbelievably comfortable. The top of the berth closed over her head. She had only to trip the final switch to bring the sleeping gas into her compartment.

She sighed deeply. As Nicole was lying on her back, she remembered the dream she had had about Sleeping Beauty during one of her final tests at the Node. Her mind then plunged backward to her childhood, to those wonderful weekends she had spent with her father watching the Sleeping Beauty pageants at the Chateau d'Uss6.

That's a nice way to go, she said to herself, feeling her drowsiness as the gas crept into her berth. Thinking that it will be some Prince Charming who will awaken me.