Rama Revealed

6

“You would find their language fascinating, Daddy,” Ellie was saying when Nicole finally awakened after sleeping for eleven hours. Richard and Ellie were already eating breakfast. “It’s extremely mathematical. They use sixty-four colors altogether, but only fifty-one are what we would call alphabetical. The other thirteen are clarifiers-they are used to specify tenses, or as counters, or even to identify comparatives and superlatives. Their language is really quite elegant.”

“I can’t imagine how a language can be elegant-your mother is the linguist in the family,” Richard said. “I managed to learn to read German, but my speaking skills were atrocious.”

“Good morning, everybody,” Nicole said, stretching in her bed. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Some new and different vegetables,” Ellie replied. “Or maybe they are fruits, for there’s really no equivalence in our world. Almost everything the octospiders eat is what we would probably call a plant, deriving its energy from light. Worms are about the only thing the octospiders eat regularly that does not get its primary energy from photons.”

“So all the plants in the fields that we passed are powered by a kind of photosynthesis?”

“Something similar,” Ellie replied, “if I understood properly what Archie told me. Very little is wasted in the octospider society. Those creatures that you and Daddy call ‘giant fireflies’ hover over each field for precisely scheduled periods of time each week or month. And all the water is managed as carefully as the photons.”

“Where’s Eponine?” Nicole asked while she surveyed the food laid out on the table in the middle of the room.

“She’s off packing her things,” Ellie said. “Besides, she thought that she really shouldn’t participate in this morning’s conversation.”

“Are we going to be shocked again, like last night?” Nicole asked lightly.

“Perhaps,” Ellie said slowly. “I really don’t know how you are going to react… Do you want to finish your breakfast before we start, or should I tell Archie we’re ready?”

“You mean the octospider is going to be part of the conversation and Eponine is not?” Richard asked.

“It was her choice,” Ellie said. “Besides, Archie, at least in his capacity as a representative of the octospiders, is far more involved in the subject matter than Eponine.”

Richard and Nicole looked at each other. “Do you have any idea at all what this is about?” Richard said.

Nicole shook her head. “But we might as well begin,” she said.

Archie spread out his tentacles on the floor so that his head was about the same height as those of the sitting humans. Ellie then informed her parents, and everyone laughed, that this time Archie would provide the “preamble.” Ellie translated, at times hesitantly, as Archie began with an apology to Richard for the way Richard had been treated by Archie’s “cousins” years previously. Archie explained that those octospiders, the ones the humans had encountered in Rama prior to arriving at the Node, were from a separate, splinter colony, only remotely related to the octospiders that were currently on board Rama. Archie emphasized that it was not until Rama came into their sphere of influence for the third time that the octospiders, as a species, concluded that the great cylindrical spacecraft were important.

A few of the survivors of that other octospider colony-a ‘Vastly inferior group,” according to Archie (this was one of the places where Ellie asked him to repeat what he was saying)-were still passengers on Rama when the spacecraft was intercepted, early in its trajectory, by the current octospider colony that had been specifically selected to represent their species. The splinter group survivors were removed from Rama, but all their records were preserved. Archie and the others in his colony learned the details of what had happened to Richard at that time and they now wished to make amends for that treatment.

“So all this preamble, in addition to being fascinating,” said Richard, “is an elaborate apology to me?”

Ellie nodded and Archie flashed the broad crimson followed by the brilliant aquamarine.

“May I ask a question before we continue?” Nicole said. She turned toward the octospider. “I assume, from what you told us, that you and your colony boarded Rama during the period that we were all asleep. Did you know we were there?”

Archie answered that the octospiders had presumed the humans were living inside the far northern habitat in Rama, but had not known for certain until the external seal of the human habitat was first broken. By that time, according to Archie, the octospider colony had already been in place for twelve human years.

“Archie insisted that he make this apology himself,” Ellie said, glancing at her father and then waiting for him to respond.

“Okay, I accept, I guess,” Richard replied. “Although I have no idea what the proper protocol should be…”

Archie asked Ellie to define “protocol.” Nicole laughed. “Richard,” she said, “sometimes you are so stiff.”

“Anyway,” Ellie said again, “in the interest of time, I will tell you everything else myself. According to Archie, the records from the splinter colony show that they conducted a number of experiments on you, most of which are outlawed in those octospider colonies Archie refers to as ‘highly developed.’ One experiment, Daddy, as you have often suggested, involved inserting into your brain a series of specialized microbes to void all your memory of the time period you stayed with the octospiders. I have reported to Archie and the others that the memory experiment was mostly but not completely successful.

“The most complex experiment they conducted on your body was an attempt to alter your sperm. The splinter colony of octospiders knew no more about where Rama was going than our family did. They thought that perhaps the humans and octospiders on board would be coexisting for centuries, maybe even eons, and the octospiders determined that it was absolutely essential for the two species to communicate.

“What they attempted to do was to change the chromosomes in your sperm so that your offspring would have both expanded language capability and greater visual resolution of colors. In short, they tried to engineer me genetically- for I was the only child born to you and Mother after your long odyssey-so that I would be able to communicate with them without undue difficulty. To accomplish this, they introduced a set of special creatures into your body.”

Ellie stopped. Both Richard and Nicole were staring at her as if they were in shock.

“So you are some kind of hybrid?” Richard asked finally.

“Maybe a little,” said Ellie, laughing to defuse the tension. “If I understand correctly, only a few thousand of the three billion kilobases that define my genome have been altered… And speaking of that, Archie and the octospiders would like to invalidate, for their scientific research, that I am indeed the result of an altered sperm. They would like blood and other cell samples from both of you, so that they can conclude unequivocally that I could not have come from a ‘normal’ union of the two of you. Then they would know for certain that my facility with their language was indeed ‘engineered’ and not just incredible good luck.”

“What difference does it make at this point?” Richard asked. “I would think that all that matters is that you can communicate.”

“I’m surprised at you, Father-you who have always been such a knowledge junkie. The octospider society places information at the top of the value scale. They are already virtually certain, as a result of the tests they have performed on me plus the records kept by the splinter group, that I am indeed the result of an altered sperm. Looking at both your genomes in detail, however, would allow them to confirm it.”

“All right,” said Nicole after only a brief hesitation. “I’m willing.” She walked over and hugged Ellie. “Whatever caused you to be, you are my daughter and I love you with all my heart.” Nicole glanced back at Richard. “And I’m certain your father will agree as soon as he has had time to think about it.”

Nicole smiled at Archie. The octospider flashed the broad crimson, followed by a more narrow cobalt blue and a bright yellow. The sentence meant “Thank you” in the octospider language.

The next morning Nicole wished that she had asked a few more questions before volunteering to help the octospiders with their scientific research. Just after breakfast, their constant alien companion Archie was joined by two other octospiders in the humans’ small suite. One of the newcomers, introduced by Ellie as “Dr. Blue-a most distinguished medical scholar,” explained what was going to occur. Richard’s procedure would be simple and straightforward. Essentially, the octos only wanted enough data on Richard to corroborate the historical record of his visit to the splinter colony years before.

As for Nicole, since the octospider data base contained no physiological information on her, and the octos had already learned from their detailed examination of Ellie that the way in which human genetic characteristics fire expressed is dominated by the mother’s contribution to the offspring, a much more elaborate procedure would be required. Dr. Blue proposed to perform a complex series of tests on Nicole, the most important of which involved data gathering inside her body by a dozen tiny, coiled creatures that were about two centimeters long and the width of a pin. Nicole recoiled with horror when the octospider doctor held up an equivalent of a plastic bag and Nicole first saw the writhing, slimy creatures that were going to be inside her.

“But I thought all you needed was my genetic code,” Nicole said, “and that’s contained in each and every cell. It shouldn’t be necessary—”

Bright colors circled Dr. Blue’s head as the octospider interrupted before Nicole had a chance to finish her protest. “Our techniques of extracting your genome information,” Dr. Blue said through Ellie, “are not yet very advanced. Our methods work best if we have many cells, chosen from several different organs and biological subsystems.”

The doctor then politely thanked Nicole again for her cooperation, finishing with the sequence of cobalt blue and bright yellow bands she had already learned to interpret. The blue part of the “Thank you” spilled down the side of Dr. Blue’s head, producing a beautiful visual effect that momentarily distracted the linguist in Nicole. So keeping those color bands regular must be a learned behavior, she thought. And our doctor has a kind of speech impediment.

Nicole’s attention was forcibly returned to the pending procedure a few moments later when Dr. Blue explained that the coiled creatures would burrow through her skin into her body and then remain inside her for half an hour. Yuck, thought Nicole immediately, they remind me of leeches.

One was placed on her forearm. Nicole raised her arm up in front of her face and watched the tiny animal screw its way through her skin. Nicole felt nothing while the creature was invading her, but when it had disappeared she shuddered involuntarily.

Nicole was asked to lie down on her back. Dr. Blue then showed her two small eight-legged creatures, one red and one blue, each the size of a fruit fly. “You may feel some discomfort soon,” Dr. Blue said to Nicole through Ellie, “as the colters reach your internal organs. These little guys can be used for anesthesia if you would like some relief from the pain.”

Less than a minute later Nicole experienced a sharp stabbing sensation in her chest. Nicole’s first thought was that something was cutting into one of the chambers of her heart. When Dr. Blue saw Nicole’s face wrenched in pain, he placed the two anesthetic bugs on Nicole’s neck. In only seconds Nicole was suspended in a peculiar state between waking and dreaming. She could still hear Ellie’s voice, continuing to explain what was happening, but she could not feel anything occurring inside her body.

Nicole found her gaze fixed on the front of the head of Dr. Blue, who was supervising the entire procedure. Much to her astonishment, Nicole thought that she was beginning to recognize emotional expressions in the subtle surface wrinkles of the octospider’s face. She remembered once as a child being certain that she had seen her pet dog smile. There’s so much to seeing, her floating mind thought, so much more than we ever use.

She felt astonishingly peaceful. Nicole closed her eyes briefly and when she opened them again she was a ten-year-old girl, weeping beside her father as her mother’s bier was consumed by flames in a burial ceremony befitting the Senoufo queen. The old man, her great-grandfather Omeh, dressed in a frightening mask to scare off any demons that might try to accompany Nicole’s mother to the afterlife, came over beside her and took her hand. “It is as the chronicles prophesied, Ronata,” he said, using Nicole’s Senoufo name, “our blood has been scattered to the stars.”

The variegated mask of the shaman disappeared into another set of colors, these in bands streaking around Dr. Blue’s head. Again Nicole heard Ellie’s voice. My daughter is a hybrid, she thought to herself without emotion. I have given birth to something that is more than human. A new kind of evolution has begun.

Her mind drifted again and she was a great bird plane flying high in the dark above the savannas of the Ivory Coast. Nicole had left the Earth, turned her back on the Sun, and blasted like a rocket toward the blackness and void beyond the solar system. In her-mind’s eye she could clearly see Omeh’s face. “Ronata,” he called into the night sky in the Ivory Coast, “do not forget. You are the chosen one.” And could he really have known, Nicole thought, still in the twilight zone between waking and sleeping, all those years ago, in Africa, on Earth? And if so, how? Or is there still another dimension to seeing that we have only just begun to understand?

Richard and Nicole were sitting together in the near darkness. They were temporarily alone. Ellie and Eponine were out with Archie, making all the arrangements for the departure the next morning.

“You’ve been very quiet all day,” Richard said.

“Yes, I have,” Nicole answered. “I have felt strange, almost drugged, ever since that last procedure this morning… My memory is unusually active. I’ve been thinking about my parents. And Omeh. And visions I had years ago.”

“Were you surprised at the results of the tests?” Richard asked after a short silence.

“Not really. I guess so much has happened to us… And you know, Richard, I can still remember when Ellie was conceived. You were not really yourself again yet.”

“I talked to Ellie and Archie quite a bit this afternoon while you were napping. The changes the octospiders induced in Ellie are permanent, like mutations. Nikki probably has some of the same characteristics-it depends on the exact genetic mixture. Of course hers will be diluted by another generation…”

Richard didn’t finish his thought. He yawned, and then reached over for Nicole’s hand. They sat quietly together for several minutes before Nicole broke the silence.

“Richard, do you remember my telling you about the Senoufo chronicles? About the woman from the tribe, the daughter of a queen, who was prophesied to carry the Senoufo blood ‘even unto the stars’?”

“Vaguely,” Richard answered. “We haven’t spoken about it for a long time.”

“Omeh was certain that I was the woman in the chronicles… ‘the woman without companion,’ he called her. Do you believe there is any possible way that we can have knowledge of the future?”

Richard laughed. “Everything in nature follows certain laws. Those laws can be expressed as differential equations in time. If we know precisely the initial conditions of the system at any given epoch, and the exact equations representing the laws of nature, then theoretically we can predict all outcomes. We can’t, of course, because our knowledge is always imperfect, and the rules of chaos limit the applicability of our estimation techniques.”

“Suppose,” Nicole said, propping herself up on an elbow, “there were individuals or even groups who did not know mathematics, but could somehow see or feel both the laws and the initial conditions you mentioned. Couldn’t they perhaps intuitively solve at least part of the equations and predict the future using insight that we cannot model or quantify?”

“It’s possible,” said Richard. “But remember, extraordinary claims require—”

“-extraordinary evidence. I know,” said Nicole. She paused for a moment. “I wonder what destiny is, then. Is it something we humans make up after the fact? Or is it real? And if destiny really exists as a concept, how can it be explained by the laws of physics?”

“I’m not following you, darling,” Richard said.

“It’s confusing even to me,” Nicole said. “Am I who I am because, as Omeh insisted when I was a little girl, it was always my destiny to travel in space? Or am I the person I am because of all the choices I have personally made and the skills I have consciously developed?”

Richard laughed again. “Now you’re very close to one of the fundamental philosophical conundrums, the debate between God’s omniscience and man’s free will.”

“I didn’t mean to be,” said Nicole reflectively. “I just can’t shake the notion that nothing that has happened in my absolutely incredible life would have been a surprise to Omeh.”