Arthur C. Clarke - Rama 3 - The Garden of Rama

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE GARDEN OP KAMA

A Bantam Spectra Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Bantam hardcover edition published September

1991

Bantam export edition I July 1992

Bantam edition I October 1992

SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed "s" are

trademarks of Bantam Boots, a division of Bantam

Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

Clarke and Gentry Lee.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-2888.

Nopart of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted

in airy form or by any means, electronic or

mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any

information

storage and retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the publisher. For information address:

Bantam Books.

If you purchased this book without a cover you

should be aware that

this book is stolen property. It was reported as '

'unsold and destroyed''

to the publisher and neither the author nor the

publisher hat received

any payment for this "stripped book."

B8NM53-29817-8 Published simultaneously in the

United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a

division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group,

Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam

Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered

in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other

countries. Marca Regtstrada. Bantam Boots, 666

Fifth Avenue, New York. New York 10103.

HUNTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

RAD 0987634321

Many people made valuable contributions to this

novel. First among them, in terms of overall impact,

was our editor, Lou Aronica. His early comments

shaped the structure of the whole novel and his

insightful final editing significantly strengthened the

flow of the book.

Our good friend and polymath Gerry Snyder was

again extremely helpful, generously tackling any

technical problem, whether large or small. If the

medical passages in the story are accurate and have

verisimilitude, then credit should go to Dr. Jim

Willerson. Any errors in the same passages are

strictly the responsibility of the authors.

During the early writing, Jihei Akita went out of his

way to help us find the proper locations for the

Japanese scenes. He also was more than willing to

discuss at length both the customs and history of his

nation. In Thailand, Ms. Watcharee Monviboon was

an excellent guide to the marvels of that country.

The novel deals in considerable detail with women,

especially the way they feel and think. Both Bebe

Barden and Stacey Lee were always available for

conversations about the nature of the female. Ms.

Barden was also especially helpful with the ideas for

the life and poetry of Benita Garcia.

Stacey Kiddoo Lee made many direct contributions

vr ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Garden of Rama, but it was her unselfish

support of the entire effort that was absolutely

critical. During the writing of the novel Stacey also

gave birth to her fourth son, Travis Clarke Lee. For

everything, Stacey, thank you very much.

NICOLE'S JOURNAL

29 December 2200 "Two nights ago, at 10:44

I Greenwich time on the

Earth, Simone Tiasso Wakefield greeted the

universe. It was an incredible experience. I thought I

had felt powerful emotions before, but nothing in my

life-not the death of my mother, not the Olympic

gold medal in Los Angeles, not my thirty-six hours

with Prince Henry, and not even the birth of

Genevieve under the watchful eyes of my father at

the hospital in Tours-was as intense as my joy and

relief when I finally heard Simone's first cry.

Michae! had predicted that the baby would arrive on

Christmas Day. In his usual lovable way, he told us

that he believed God was going to "give us a sign"

by having our spacechild born on Jesus' assumed

birthday. Richard scoffed, as my husband always

does when Michael's religious fervor gets carried

away. But after I felt the first strong contractions on

Christmas Eve, even Richard almost became a

believer.

I slept fitfully the night before Christmas. Just before

I awakened, I had a deep, vivid dream. I was

walking beside our pond at Beauvois, playing with

my pet duck Du-

nois and his wild mallard companions, when I heard

a voice calling me. I could not identify the voice, but

I definitely knew it was a woman speaking. She told

me that the birth was going to be extremely difficult

and that I would need every bit of my strength to

bring my second child into the light.

On Christmas itself, after we exchanged the simple

presents that each of us had clandestinely ordered

from the Ramans, I began to train Michael and

Richard for a range of possible emergencies. I mink

Simone would indeed have been born on Christmas

Day if my conscious mind had not been so aware

that neither of the two men was even remotely

prepared to help me in case of a major problem. My

will alone probably delayed the baby's birth those

final two days.

One of the contingency procedures we discussed on

Christmas was a breech baby. A couple of months

ago, when my unborn baby girl still had some

freedom of movement inside my womb, I was fairly

certain that she was upside down. But I thought she

had turned around during the last week before she

dropped into the birth position. I was only partially

correct. She did manage to come headfirst down the

birth canal; however, her face was upward, toward

my stomach, and after the first serious set of

contractions, the top of her little head became

awkwardly wedged against my pelvis.

In a hospital on Earth the physician would probably

have performed a cesarean section. Certainly a

doctor would have been on guard for fetal stress and

at work early with all the robot instruments, striving

to turn Si-mone's head around before she wedged

into such an uncomfortable position.

Toward the end the pain was excruciating. In

between the strong contractions driving her against

my unyielding bones, I tried to yell out orders to

Michael and Richard. Richard was almost useless. He

could not deal with my pain (or "the mess," as he

later called it), much less either assist with the

episiotomy or use the makeshift forceps we had

obtained from the Ramans. Michael, bjess his heart,

sweat pouring off his forehead despite the cool

temperature in the room, struggled gallantly to

follow my sometimes

incoherent instructions. He used the scalpel from my

kit to open me up wider and then, after only a

moment's hesitation due to all the blood, he found

Simone's head with the forceps. Somehow he

managed, on his third attempt, both to force her

backward in the birth canal and to turn her over so

she could be born.

Both men screamed when she crowned. I kept

concentrating on my breathing pattern, worried that

I might not maintain consciousness. Despite the

intense pain, I too bellowed when my next powerful

contraction shot Simone forward into Michael's

hands. As the father it was Richard's job to cut the

umbilical cord. When Richard had finished, Michael

lifted Simone up for me to see. "It's a girl," he said

with tears in his eyes. He laid her softly on my

stomach and I rose up slightly to look at her. My first

impression was that she looked exactly like my

mother.

I forced myself to stay alert until the placenta was

removed and I had finished stitching, with Michael's

assistance, the cuts he had made with the scalpel.

Then I collapsed. I don't remember many details

from the next twenty-four hours. I was so tired from

the labor and delivery (my contractions were down

to five minutes apart eleven hours before Simone

was actually bora) that I slept at every opportunity.

My new daughter nursed readily, without any urging,

and Michael .insists that she even nursed once or

twice while I was only partially awake. My milk now

surges into my breasts immediately after Simone

begins to suckle. She seems quite satisfied when

she's finished. I'm delighted that my milk is

adequate for her-I was worried that I might have the

same problem that I had with Genevieve.

One of the two men is beside me every time I wake

up. Richard's smiles always seem a little forced, but

they are appreciated nevertheless. Michael is quick

to place Simone in my arms or at my breasts when I

am awake. He holds her comfortably, even when she

is crying, and keeps mumbling, "She's beautiful."

At the moment Simone is sleeping beside me

wrapped in the quasi-blanket manufactured by the

Ramans (it is extremely difficult to define fabrics,

particularly quality words like soft, in any of the

quantitative terms that our

6 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE

hosts can understand). She does indeed look like my

mother. Her skin is quite dark, maybe even darker

than mine, and the thatch of hair on her head is jet

black. Her eyes are a rich brown. With her head still

coned and misshapen from the difficult birth, it is not

easy to call Simone beautiful. But of course Michael

is right. She is gorgeous. My eyes can readily see

the beauty beyond the fragile, reddish creature

breathing with such frantic rapidity. Welcome to the

world, Simone Wakefield.

6January2201 I have been depressed now

I for two days. And tired,

oh, so tired. Even though I am well aware that I

have a typical case of postpartum syndrome, I have

been unable to relieve my feelings of depression.

This morning was the worst. I woke before Richard

and lay quietly on my portion of the mat. I looked

over at Simone, who was sleeping peacefully in the

Raman cradle against the wall. Despite my feelings

of love for her, I could not manage any positive

thoughts about her future. The glow of ecstasy that

had surrounded her birth and lasted for seventy-two

hours had completely vanished. An endless stream

of hopeless observations and unanswerable

questions kept running through my mind. What kind

of life will you have, my little Simone? How can we,

your parents, possibly provide for your happiness?

My darling daughter, you live with your parents and

their good friend Michael O'Toole in an underground

lair onboard a gargantuan spacecraft of

extraterrestrial origin. The three adults in your life

are all cosmonauts from the planet Earth, part of the

crew of the Newton expedition

8 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE

sent to investigate a cylindrical worldlet called Rama

almost a year ago. Your mother, father, and General

O'Toole were the only human beings still onboard

this alien craft when Rama abruptly changed its

trajectory to avoid being annihilated by a nuclear

phalanx launched from a paranoid Earth.

Above our lair is an island city of mysterious

skyscrapers, which we call New York. It is

surrounded by a frozen sea that completely circles

this huge spacecraft and cuts it in half. At this

moment, according to your father's calculations, we

are just inside the orbit of Jupiter (although the

great gasball itself is way over on the other side of

the Sun), following a hyperbolic trajectory that will

eventually leave the solar system altogether. We do

not know where we are going. We do not know who

built this spaceship or why they built it. We know

there are other occupants onboard, but we have no

idea where they came from and, in addition, have

reason to suspect that at least some of them may be

hostile.

Over and over my thoughts the last two days have

continued in this same pattern. Each time I come to

the same depressing conclusion: It is inexcusable

that we, as supposedly mature adults, would bring

such a helpless and innocent being into an

environment about which we understand so little and

over which we have absolutely no control.

Early this morning, as soon as I realized that today

was my thirty-seventh birthday, I began to cry. At

first the tears were soft and soundless, but as the

memories of all my past birthdays flooded into my

mind, deep sobs replaced the soft tears. I was

feeling an acute, aching sorrow, not just for Simone,

but also for myself. And as I remembered the

magnificent blue planet of our origin and could not

imagine it in Simone's future, I kept asking myself

the same question. Why have I given birth to a child

in the middle of this mess?

There's that word again. It's one of Richard's

favorites. In his vocabulary, mess has virtually

unlimited applications. Anything that is chaotic

and/or out of control, whether it is a technical

problem or a domestic crisis (like

THE GARDEN OF RAMA 9

a wife sobbing in the grips of a fierce postpartum

depression), is referred to as a mess.

The men were not much help earlier this morning.

Their futile attempts to make me feel better only

added to my gloom. A question: Why is it that

almost every man, when confronted by an unhappy

woman, immediately assumes that her unhappiness

is somehow related to him? Actually I'm not being

fair. Michael has had three children in his life and

knows something about the feelings I'm

experiencing. Mostly he just asked me what he could

do to help. But Richard was absolutely devastated by

my tears. He was frightened when he woke up and

could hear my weeping. At first he thought that I

was having some terrible physical pain. He was only

minimally reassured when I explained to him that I

was simply depressed.

After first establishing that he was not to blame for

my mood, Richard listened silently while I expressed

my concerns about Simone's future. I admit that I

was slightly overwrought, but he didn't seem to

grasp anything I was saying. He kept repeating the

same phrase-that Simone's future was no more

uncertain than our own-believing that since there

was no logical reason for me to be so upset, my

depression should immediately vanish. Eventually,

after over an hour of miscommunication, Richard

correctly concluded that he was not helping and

decided to leave me alone.

•(Six hours later.) I'm feeling better now. There are

still three more hours before my birthday is over. We

had a small party tonight. I just finished nursing

Simone and she is again lying beside me. Michael

left us about fifteen minutes ago to go to his room

down the hall. Richard fell asleep within five minutes

after his head was on the pillow. He had spent all

day working on my request for some improved

diapers.

Richard enjoys spending his time supervising and

cataloging our interactions with the Ramans, or

whoever it is that operates the computers we.

activate by using the keyboard in our room. We have

never seen anyone or anything in the dark tunnel

immediately behind the black

ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE

screen. So we don't know for certain if there really

are creatures back there responding to our requests

and ordering their factories to manufacture our odd

items, but it is convenient to refer to our hosts and

benefactors as the Ramans.

Our communication process with them is both

complicated and straightforward. It is complicated

because we talk to them using pictures on the black

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTSTHEGARDENOPKAMAABantamSpectraBookPUBLISHINGHISTORYBantamhardcovereditionpublishedSeptember1991BantamexporteditionIJuly1992BantameditionIOctober1992SPECTRAandtheportrayalofaboxed"s"aretrademarksofBantamBoots,adivisionofBantamDoubledayDellPublishingGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.Copyright0...

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