“I know, I know,” Nicole said impatiently. “But you guys are scientists. You must have done some computations.”
“Between six and ten hours,” the Eagle said.
In six to ten hours I will be dead, Nicole thought. The fear was more palpable now. She could not push it completely aside.
“What’s it like to be dead?” Nicole asked.
“We thought you’d ask that question,” the Eagle answered. “We are told that it’s similar to being unpowered.”
“Nothingness, forever?” Nicole said.
“I guess so.”
“And the act of dying itself?” she said. “Is there anything special about that?”
“We don’t know,” the Eagle said. “We were hoping that you would share with us as much as you can.’1
They flew in silence for quite a while. Ahead of them, the Node grew quickly in size. At one point the spacecraft changed its orientation slightly and the Knowledge Module moved to the center of their window. During the final approach, the other three vertices of the Node were below them.
“Why do you want to spend your final moments in the Knowledge Module?” the Eagle asked as they drew nearer to the magnificent tetrahedron.
Nicole laughed. “Now, that’s a preprogrammed question if ever I heard one,” she said. “I can already see my answer stored in some almost endless file, under Death: Human Beings, and other related categories.”
The Eagle did not say anything.
“When Richard and I were marooned in New York years ago,” Nicole said, “and did not think we had much of a chance to escape, we talked about what we would like to be doing during the last moments before our deaths. We agreed that our first choice would be making love together. Our second choice was to be learning something new, to be experiencing the thrill of discovery one last time.”
“That’s a very advanced concept,” the Eagle said.
“And a practical one too,” Nicole said. “Unless I miss my guess, this Knowledge Module of yours will be intriguing enough that I will not even be aware that the last seconds of my life are ticking down. If I am completely involved in something right up until the end, maybe the fear of death won’t overpower me.”
The Knowledge Module now filled their entire window. “Before we enter,” the Eagle said, “I want to give you some information about this place. The spherical module is actually three separate concentric domains, each with a specific purpose. The outermost and smallest region is focused on knowledge associated with the present, or near present. The next inner region is where all the historical information about this part of the galaxy has been stored. The large inner sphere contains all the models for predicting the future, as well as stochastic scenarios for the next eons.”
“I thought you had- never been inside,” Nicole said.
“I haven’t,” the Eagle replied. “But my Knowledge Module data base was updated and expanded last night.”
A door in the outer surface of the sphere opened and the shuttle started to enter. “Just a minute,” Nicole said. “Do I understand that I will almost certainly never leave this module alive?”
“Yes,” said the Eagle.
“Then will you please turn this vehicle around slowly and let me take one last look at the outside world?”
The shuttle executed a slow yaw maneuver and Nicole, sitting forward in her seat, gazed fixedly out the window. She saw the other spherical modules of the Node, the transportation corridors, and, in the distance, the starfish, where her family and friends were packing their bags for their transfer. In one orientation the yellow star Tau Ceti, so much like the Sun, was the only large object in the window, and despite its radiance and the scattered light from the Node, Nicole could still discern a few other stars against the blackness of space.
Nothing in this scene will be changed by my death, Nicole thought. There will just be one less pair of eyes to observe its splendor. And one less collection of chemicals risen to consciousness to wonder what it all means.
“Thank you,” Nicole said after the full turn was completed. “We may now proceed.”
11
Vehicles entering the Knowledge Module from space, as well as the tubes arriving from the other three modules, all ended up at a long slender station located on one side of the midlevel annulus that completely encircled the huge sphere.
“There are only two entrances, a hundred and eighty degrees apart, into each of the three concentric domains of the Knowledge Module,” the Eagle said as Nicole and he were carried swiftly along the annulus by a moving sidewalk. To their right was the transparent outer surface of the module. On their left was a cream- colored, windowless wall.
“Will I be able to take off my suit and helmet soon?” Nicole asked from her wheelchair.
“Yes, after we enter the exhibits,” the Eagle said. “I had to specify some kind of tour-they couldn’t change the atmosphere of the entire module overnight-and in those places you will not need your space suit.”
“So you have already selected what we are going to see?”
“It was unavoidable,” the Eagle said. “This place is immense, much larger than one of the hemicylinders of Rama, and absolutely crammed full of information. I tried to design our tour based on my knowledge of your interests and our allocated time. If it turns out that there are other things—”
“No, no,” Nicole said. “I wouldn’t have any idea what to request. I’m certain that what you did was fine.”
They were approaching a place where the moving sidewalk stopped and a broad corridor went off to the left. “By the way,” the Eagle said, “I didn’t explain to you that our tour is restricted to the outer two regions. The Predictions Domain is off limits for us.”
“Why is that?” Nicole asked, activating her wheelchair and moving along the corridor beside the Eagle.
“I don’t know for certain,” he said. “But it doesn’t really matter, if I understand your purpose here. There will be more than enough to occupy you in the two available domains.”
In front of them was a high blank wall. As the Eagle and Nicole approached, a wide door in the wall opened inward, revealing a tall circular room with a ten-meter-diameter sphere in its center. The wall and ceiling of the room were both cluttered with small fixtures or equipment and many strange markings. The Eagle told Nicole that he had no idea what any of it meant.
“What I have been told,” the alien said, “is that the orientation for your visit to this domain is supposed to take place inside that sphere in front of us.”
The gleaming sphere divided in half at the midsection. The upper half of the hollow ball lifted up just enough that the Eagle and Nicole could pass underneath into the interior of the sphere. Once they were inside, the top half of the sphere returned to its original position and they were completely enclosed.
It was only dark for a second or two. Then small scattered lights illuminated some of the side of the sphere that was facing them. “It’s decorated with a lot of the tail,” Nicole commented.
“What we’re looking at,” the Eagle said, “is a model of this entire domain. Our point of view is from the inside, as if we were at the very center of the Knowledge Module and neither of the two inner domains existed. You’ll notice that the way the objects are placed along and against the surface, not only in front of and behind us, but also above and below us, nothing intrudes into the empty central space more than a fixed distance. The outer wall of the next concentric domain is located at that spot in the real module. Now the lights will show you, on the model, where we will be going in the next few hours.”
A large sector of the inner sphere surface facing them, about thirty percent of the area altogether, was suddenly visible in a soft light.
“Everything in the lit region,” the Eagle said, making a circular gesture with his hand, “is associated with spacefaring. We will confine our tour to this portion of the domain. The blinking red light on the surface in front of us is where we are presently.”
