Arthur Clarke - Rama Revealed

The artwork was superb. It had all been created to give Richard information about what he could do to help the alien species survive. Part of the mural was a textbook about their biology, which explained in pictures the three manifestations of their species (manna melon, myrmicat, and sessile or neural net) and the relationships between diem. The images Nicole saw were so sharp that she felt she had been transported to the room where Richard had been. She was therefore startled when the internal film she was watching suddenly underwent a jump discontinuity and presented a picture of the last good-bye between Richard and his guide myrmicat.

Richard and the myrmicat were in a tunnel at the bottom of the brown cylinder. The motion picture lingered lovingly on every detail of this final farewell. The bearded Richard looked overburdened carrying the four heavy manna melons, two leathery avian eggs, and the cylinder of web material in the pack on his back. But even Nicole, seeing the determination in Richard’s eyes as he departed from the doomed myrmicat habitat, could understand why he was such a hero to their species. He risked his life, she reminded herself, to save them from extinction.

More images flooded her mind, pictures from the octospider zoo recording events after the germination of the manna melons Richard had originally carried to New York. Despite their clarity, Nicole couldn’t bring herself to concentrate on the images very closely. She was still thinking about Richard. Not since f awakened have I allowed myself to miss your company, Nicole said to herself, because I thought such behavior showed weakness. Now, seeing your face again so clearly and remembering how much we shared, I realize how ridiculous it is to force myself not to think about you.

A fleeting image of three human beings-a man, a woman, and a tiny baby-raced through Nicole’s mind, catching her attention. Wait, Nicole almost screamed out loud. Back up. There was something that I wanted to see. The neural net did not read her message. It continued with the progression of pictures. Nicole suspended her thoughts

about Richard and focused intently on the images appearing on the television inside her brain.

Less than a minute later she saw the trio again, walking with the octospider zookeeper past the front of the area housing the myrmicats. Maria was in her mother’s arms. Her father, a dark and handsome man with gray at his temples, was dragging one of his legs as if it were broken. I have never seen that man before, Nicole thought. I would have remembered him.

There were no more images of Maria or her parents. The stream of pictures racing through Nicole’s mind showed the transfer of the myrmicats to another venue, away from the zoo and the Emerald City, sometime before the bombing began. Nicole presumed that the last sequence of images she was shown took place during the time that all the humans and octospiders in Rama were asleep. Not long thereafter, Nicole thought, if I understand their life cycle correctly, the four myrmicats resulting from Richard’s melons became net material. With all these memories intact.

The pictures in her mind became altogether different. Now Nicole was seeing some images of scenes that she believed were from the home planet of the sessiles, ones that Richard had once excitedly described to her.

Nicole had purposely positioned her right hand next to the control panel of her wheelchair when she had entered the web. When she now pressed the power button and then reverse, the slight motion of the chair immediately registered with the sessile. The images stopped instantly, and the threads of the creature were subsequently withdrawn.

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 and/or 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.”