Arthur Clarke - Rama Revealed

Patrick discounted Robert’s account considerably because Ellie’s husband was so distraught. Nai, however, agreed with Robert on two final points: Ellie did not struggle or protest after the first octospider enwrapped her, and before she disappeared from the room, she calmly recited to them a long list of minutiae about caring for Nikki.

“How can anyone in her right mind,” Robert said, “after having been seized by an alien, calmly rattle off what blankets her daughter hugs while she is sleeping, when Nikki last had a bowel movement, and other such things? She was obviously hypnotized, or drugged, or something.”

The tale of how everyone happened to be on the landing beneath the sealed exit was relatively straightforward. After the octospiders left with Ellie, Benjy ran out into the corridor, screaming and yelling and vainly attacking the rear guard of the octos. Robert joined him and the two of them followed Ellie and the alien contingent all the way to the cathedral room. The gate was open to the fourth tunnel. One octospider held Benjy and Robert off with four long tentacles while the others departed. The final octospider then locked the gate behind itself.

The subway ride was exhilarating for Max. It reminded him of a trip he had made to a large amusement park outside of Little Rock when he was ten years old. The train was suspended above what looked like a metal tape and touched nothing as it sped through the tunnel. Richard conjectured that it was powered in some way by magnetism.

The subway stopped after about two minutes and the door quickly opened. The four explorers looked out at a plain platform, creamy white in color, behind which was an archway about three meters high. “I guess, according to Plan A,” Max said, “Eponine and I should exit here.”

“Yes,” said Richard. “Of course, if the subway doesn’t move again, then Nicole and I will join you shortly.”

Max took Eponine’s hand and stepped gingerly down on the platform. As soon as they were clear of the subway, the door closed. Several seconds later the train sped away.

“Well, isn’t this romantic?” Max said after he and Eponine had waved good-bye to Richard and Nicole. “Here we are, just the two of us, finally all alone.” He put his arms around Eponine and kissed her. “I just want you to know, Frenchie, that I love you. I have no idea where in the fuck we are, but wherever it is, I’m glad to be here with you.”

Eponine laughed. “I had a girlfriend at the orphanage whose fantasy was to be all alone on a desert island with a famous French actor named Marcel du Bois, who had a mammoth chest and arms like tree trunks. I wonder how she would have felt in this place.” She looked around. “I guess we’re supposed to go under the archway.”

Max shrugged. “Unless a white rabbit comes along that we can follow into some kind of a hole.”

On the other side of the archway was a large rectangular room with blue walls. The room was absolutely empty and there was only one exit, through an open doorway into a narrow, illuminated corridor that ran parallel to the subway tunnel. All the walls in this corridor, which continued in both directions for as far as Max and Eponine could see, were the same blue color as in the room behind the archway.

“Which way do we go?” Max asked.

“In this direction I can see what looks like two doors leading away from the subway,” Eponine said, pointing to her right.

“And there are two more this way as well,” Max said, looking left. “Why don’t we walk to the first doorway, look into it, and then decide on a strategy?”

Arm in arm they walked fifty meters down the blue corridor. What they saw when they came to the next doorway dismayed them. Another identical blue corridor, with occasional doorways along its length, stretched in front of them for many meters.

“Shit,” said Max. “We are about to enter some kind of a maze. We damn sure don’t want to get lost.”

“So what do you think we should do?” Eponine asked.

“I think…” Max said, hesitating, “I think we should smoke a cigarette and talk this over.”

Eponine laughed. “I couldn’t agree with you more,” she said.

They proceeded very carefully. Each time they turned into another blue corridor, Max made marks with Eponine’s lipstick on the wall, indicating the entire path back to the room behind the archway. He also insisted that Eponine, who was more adroit with a computer than he was, keep duplicate records on her portable—”In case something comes along that removes my marks,” Max said.

In the beginning their adventure was fun, and the first two times they backtracked to the archway, just to prove they could do it, Max and Eponine felt a certain sense of accomplishment. But after an hour or so, when every turn kept producing another identical blue scene, their excitement began to wane. At length Max and Eponine stopped, sat down on the floor, and shared another cigarette.

“Now, why would any intelligent creature,” Max said, blowing smoke rings into the air, “create a place like this? Either we are unwittingly undergoing a test of some kind—”

“Or there’s something here that they don’t want anybody to find easily,” Eponine finished. She took the cigarette from Max and inhaled deeply. “Now, if that’s the case,” she continued, “then there must be some simple code that defines the location of the special place or thing, a code like one of those ancient combination locks, second right, fourth left, and—”

“Straight on until morning,” Max interrupted with a grin. He kissed Eponine briefly and then stood up. “So what we should do is assume we’re looking for something special and organize our search logically.”

When Eponine was on her feet, she looked at Max with a furrowed brow. “Just exactly what did that last statement of yours mean?”

“I’m not certain,” Max replied with a laugh, “but it sure as hell sounded intelligent.”

Max and Eponine had been walking up and down blue corridors for almost four hours when they decided it was time to eat. They had just started their lunch of Raman food when off to their left, at a full intersection of corridors, they saw something pass. Max jumped to his feet and ran to the intersection. He arrived not more than a few seconds before a tiny vehicle, maybe ten centimeters high, made a right turn into the next nearby hallway. Max scrambled forward and was barely able to see the vehicle disappear under a small archway, cut into the wall of another blue corridor, about twenty meters away.

“Come here,” he yelled at Eponine. “I’ve found something.”

Eponine was quickly beside him. The top of the small archway in the wall was only about twenty-five centimeters above the floor, so both of them had to drop down on their knees, and then bend over some more, to see where the vehicle had gone. What they saw first was fifty or sixty tiny creatures, about the size of ants, climbing out of the buslike vehicle and then scattering in all directions.

“What the hell is this?” Max exclaimed.

“Look, Max,” Eponine said excitedly. “Look carefully… Those little creatures are octospiders… You see… They look just like the one you described to me.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Max said. “You’re right. They must be baby octospiders.”

“I don’t think so,” Eponine replied. “The way they’re going into those little hives, or houses, or whatever. Look, there’s a canal of some kind, and a boat- “

“The camera,” Max shouted. “Go back and get the camera. There’s an entire miniature city here.”

Max and Eponine had taken off their backpacks and other gear, including Eponine’s camera, when they had sat down on the floor to eat. Eponine jumped up and raced back for the camera. Max continued to be fascinated by the complex miniature world he saw on the other side of the archway. A minute later he heard a faint scream and a cold shiver of fear coursed through him.