Arthur Clarke - Rama Revealed

“So the octospiders have never ‘done anything hostile?” Max was saying angrily. “Then what the hell do you call this? We’re fucking trapped.” He shook his head vigorously. “I thought it was stupid to come here in the first place.”

“Please, Max,” Eponine said. “Let’s not argue. Fighting among ourselves is not going to help.”

All the adults except Nai and Benjy had trekked the one kilometer down the passageway to the cathedral room to examine what the octospiders had done. The humans were indeed sealed inside the lair. Two of the three open tunnels leading out of the chamber went to the vertical corridor and the third, they quickly discovered, led to a large, empty storeroom from which there was no exit.

“Well, we’d better think of something fast,” Max said. “We have only four days worth of food and absolutely no idea where to get any more.”

“I’m sorry, Max,” Nicole said, “but I still think Richard’s initial decision was correct. If we had stayed in our lair, we would have been captured and taken back to New Eden, where we almost certainly would have been executed.”

“Maybe,” Max interrupted. “And maybe not. At least in that case the children would have been spared. And I don’t think either Benjy or the doctor would have been killed.”

“This is all academic,” Richard said, “and doesn’t deal with our main problem, which is, what do we do now?”

“All right, genius,” Max said with a sting in his voice. “This has been your show so far. What do you suggest?”

Again Eponine interceded. “You’re being unfair, Max. It’s not Richard’s fault we’re in this predicament. And as I said before, it doesn’t help.”

“Okay, okay,” Max said. He walked toward the passage that led to the storeroom. “I’m going in this tunnel to calm down and to smoke a cigarette.” He glanced back at Eponine. “Do you want to share? We have exactly twenty-nine left after we smoke this one.”

Eponine smiled faintly at Nicole and Ellie. “He’s still pissed off at me for not taking all our cigarettes when we evacuated the lair,” she said quietly. “Don’t worry. Max has a bad temper, but he gets over it fast. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“What is your plan, darling?” Nicole said to Richard a few seconds after Max and Eponine had left.

“We don’t have much choice,” Richard said grimly. “A bare minimum number of adults should stay with Benjy, the children, and the avians, while the rest of us explore this lair as quickly as possible. I have a hard time believing that the octospiders really intend for us to starve to death.”

“Excuse me, Richard,” Robert Turner now said, speaking for the first time since Patrick had reported that the exit to New York was sealed, “but aren’t you again assuming that the octospiders are friendly? Suppose they’re not, or more likely in my opinion, suppose our survival is insignificant to them one way or the other, and that they simply sealed off this lair to protect themselves from all the humans who have recently appeared…”

Robert stopped, apparently having lost his train of thought. “What I was trying to say,” he continued a few seconds later, “is that the children, including your granddaughter, are in considerable jeopardy-psychological as well as physical, I might add-in our current situation, and I would be against any plan that left them unprotected and vulnerable—”

“You’re right, Robert,” Richard interrupted. “Several adults, including at least one man, must stay with Benjy and the children. In fact, Nai must have her hands full right this minute. Why don’t you, Patrick, and Ellie return to the children now? Nicole and I will wait for Max and Eponine and join you shortly.”

Richard and Nicole were alone after the others departed. “Ellie says that Robert is angry most of the time now,” Nicole said quietly, “but he doesn’t know how to express his anger constructively. He told her he thinks the whole enterprise has been a mistake from the beginning, and he spends hours brooding about it. Ellie says she’s even worried about his stability.”

Richard shook his head. “Maybe it was a mistake,” he said. “Maybe you and I should have lived the rest of our life here alone, I just thought—”

At that moment Max and Eponine came back into the chamber. “I want to apologize,” Max said, extending his hand, “to both of you. I guess I let my fear and frustration get the best of me.”

“Thank you, Max,” Nicole answered. “But an apology really isn’t necessary. It would be ridiculous to assume that this many people could go through an experience like this without any disagreements.”

Everyone was together in the museum. “Let’s review the plan one more time,” Richard said. “The five of us will climb down the spikes and explore the area around the subway platform. We will thoroughly investigate every tunnel we can find. Then, if we have not found any means of escape and the large subway is indeed there waiting, Max, Eponine, Nicole, and I will go on board. At that point Patrick will climb back up and rejoin you here in the museum.”

“Don’t you think having all four of you on the subway is reckless?” Robert asked. “Why not just two of you at first?… What if the subway leaves and never comes back?”

“Time is our enemy, Robert,” Richard answered. “If we weren’t running so low on food, then we could follow a more conservative plan. In that case maybe only two of us would enter the subway. But what if the subway leads to more than one place? Since we have already decided that for safety we will explore only in pairs, it could take us a long time to find the escape route with just a single couple doing the searching.”

There was a protracted silence in the room until Timmy began to jabber at his sister. Nikki wandered over and began to stroke the avian’s velvet underside. “I don’t pretend that I have all the answers,” Richard said. “Nor do I underestimate the seriousness of our situation. But if there is a way out of here-and both Nicole and I believe that there must be-then the sooner we find it, the better.”

“Assuming that all four of you do take the subway,” Patrick now asked, “how long do we wait for you here in the museum?”

“That’s a difficult question,” Richard replied. “You have enough food for four more days, and the plentiful water at the cistern should keep you alive for some period after that… I don’t know, Patrick. I guess you should stay here for at least two or three days. After that, you have to make your own decision. If it is at all possible, one or more of us will return.”

Benjy had been following the conversation with rapt attention. He obviously understood more or less what was happening, for he began to cry softly. Nicole went over to comfort him. “Don’t worry, son,” she said. “Everything is going to be all right.”

The child-man looked up at his mother. “I hope so, Mom-ma,” he said, “but I’m scared.”

Galileo Watanabe suddenly jumped up and ran across the room to where the two rifles were leaning against the wall. “If one of those octospider things comes in here,” he said, touching the closest rifle for a few seconds before Max lifted it free of the boy’s grasp, “then I’ll shoot it. Bang! Bang!”

His shouts caused the avians to shriek and little Nikki to cry. After Ellie wiped away her daughter’s tears, Max and Patrick shouldered the rifles and all five of the explorers said their good-byes. Ellie walked out into the tunnel with them. “I didn’t want to say this in front of the children,” she said, “but what should we do if we see an octospider while you’re gone?”

“Try not to panic,” Richard answered.