Arthur Clarke - Rama Revealed

“Does Ellie know I have escaped?” Nicole asked a few seconds later. She was experiencing a strong yearning to see both her daughter and little Nicole, whom she had never even met.

“Probably,” said Eponine. “At least she knew that an attempt was likely. It was Ellie who first involved me in your escape. Ellie and I cached your supplies out on the Central Plain.”

“So you haven’t seen her since I’ve been out of prison?”

“Oh, yes. But we haven’t said anything. Right now Ellie must be very careful. Nakamura is watching her like a hawk.”

“Is anyone else involved?” Nicole asked, holding up the dress to see how it would fit.

“No,” answered Eponine. “Just Max, Ellie, and I… And of course Richard and the little robots.”

Nicole stood in front of the mirror for several seconds. So here I am, finally the queen of England, at least for an hour or two. She was certain that the idea for the specific costume had also come from Richard. Nobody else could have made a choice so appropriate. Nicole adjusted the crown upon her head. With this white face, she thought, Henry might have even made me queen.

Nicole was deep in a memory of many years earlier when Max and Eponine emerged from the bedroom. Nicole began to laugh immediately. Max was dressed in a scanty green outfit and was carrying a trident. He was Neptune, king of the sea, and Eponine was his sexy mermaid princess.

“You both look great!” Queen Nicole said, with a wink at Eponine. “Wow, Max,” she added a second later in a teasing voice, “I had no idea you had such an imposing body.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Max grumbled. “I have hair everywhere-all over my chest, down my back, in my ears, even—”

“Except it’s a little thin up here,” Eponine said, patting his head after removing his crown.

“Shit,” said Max. “Now I know why I’ve never lived with a woman… Come on, you two, let’s get going. And by the way, the weather is wacky again tonight. You’ll both need a shawl or a jacket during our ride in the buggy.”

“The buggy?” Nicole said, glancing at Eponine.

Her friend smiled. “You’ll see in a minute,” Eponine said.

When the New Eden government had requisitioned all the trains to convert the lightweight extraterrestrial alloys into war planes and other weaponry, the colony of New Eden had been left without a comprehensive transportation system. Luckily most of the citizens had purchased bicycles, and a full set of bicycle paths had been developed during the first three years after the initial settlement. Otherwise, it would have been very difficult for people to move about in the colony.

By the time of Nicole’s escape, the old train tracks had all been removed and roads had been laid where the tracks had once been. These roads were used by the electric cars (restricted to government leaders and key military personnel), the transport trucks (which also ran on stored electricity), and the creative and varied other transportation devices constructed by individual citizens of New Eden. Max’s buggy was such a device. In front it was a bicycle. The back half, however, was a large pair of soft seats, almost a couch, resting on two wheels and a strong axle, much like the horse-drawn buggies three centuries earlier on the Earth.

King Neptune struggled with the pedals as the costumed trio eased onto the road toward Central City. “Shit,” Max said as he strained to accelerate, “why did I ever agree to this absurd plan?”

Nicole and Eponine laughed in the seat behind him. “Because you’re a wonderful man,” Eponine said, “and you wanted us both to be comfortable. Besides, can you imagine a queen riding a bicycle for almost ten kilometers?”

The temperature was indeed on the cool side. Eponine spent a few minutes explaining to Nicole how the weather continued to grow more and more unstable. “There was a recent report on television,” she said, “that the government intends to settle many of the colonists in the second habitat. Its environment is still unspoiled. Nobody has any confidence that we will ever fix the problems here in New Eden.” As they neared Central City, Nicole worried that Max was becoming chilled. She offered him the shawl Eponine had loaned her, which he eventually accepted. “You could have picked a warmer costume,” Nicole said teasingly.

“Having Max be King Neptune was also Richard’s idea,” Eponine said. “That way, if he needs to carry any of your diving equipment tonight, he will look perfectly natural.”

Nicole was surprisingly emotional as the buggy slowed in the growing traffic and wound its way through the colony’s main buildings in Central City. She remembered a night, years before, when she had been the only human awake in New Eden. On that same night, after checking her family one last time, an apprehensive Nicole had climbed into her berth and prepared to sleep for the many-year trip back to the solar system.

An image of the Eagle, that strange manifestation of alien intelligence who had been their guide at the Node, appeared in her mind’s eye. Could you have predicted all this? Nicole wondered, synthesizing quickly the entire colony history since that first rendezvous with the passengers from Earth onboard the Pinta. And what do you think of us now? Nicole grimly shook her head, acutely embarrassed by the behavior of her fellow humans.

“They never replaced it,” Eponine was saying from the seat beside her. They had entered the main plaza.

“I’m sorry,” Nicole said. “I’m afraid I was daydreaming.”

“That wonderful monument your husband designed, the one that kept track of where Rama was in the galaxy… Remember, it was destroyed the night the mob wanted to lynch Martinez… Anyway, it was never replaced.”

Again Nicole was deep in her memory. Maybe that’s what being old is, she thought. Too many memories always crowding out the present. She recalled the unruly mob and the red-haired boy who hollered, “Kill the nigger bitch.”

“What ever happened to Martinez?” Nicole asked softly, fearful of the answer.

“He was electrocuted soon after Nakamura and Macmillan took over the government. The trial dominated the news for several days.”

They had passed through Central City and were continuing south toward Beauvois, the village where Nicole and Richard and their family had lived before Nakamura’s coup. It could have been so different, she thought, looking at Mount Olympus towering over them on her left. We could have had paradise here. If only we had tried harder…

It was a train of thought that Nicole had followed a hundred times since that terrible night, the same night that Richard had hurriedly departed from New Eden. Always there was the same profound sorrow in her heart, the same burning tears in her eyes.

We humans, she remembered saying once to the Eagle at the Node, are capable of such dichotomous behavior. At times, when there is caring and compassion, we truly seem little lower than the angels. But more often, our greed and selfishness overwhelm our virtues and we become indistinguishable from the basest creatures from which we have evolved.

Max had been gone from the party for almost two hours. Both Eponine and Nicole were becoming alarmed. As the two women tried to cross the crowded dance floor together, a pair of men dressed as Robin Hood and Friar Tuck stopped them.

“You are not Maid Marian,” Robin Hood said to Eponine, “but Maid Mer is nearly the same.” He laughed heartily at his own joke, extended his arms, and began to dance with Eponine.

“May a lowly priest enjoy a dance with Her Majesty?” the other man said. Nicole smiled to herself. What harm can there be in a single dance? she thought. She slipped into Friar Tuck’s arms and they began moving slowly around the floor.