Nicole was not thinking about Andromeda. She was absorbed in delightful philosophical musings about life on different worlds, about cities, and about the likely range of creatures made from simple atoms who had evolved, with or without help from superior beings, into consciousness. She savored the moment, knowing that very soon there would be no more of the flights of imagination that had enriched her life so much.
12
“We spent so much time in that exhibit,” the Eagle said after he finished the scan, “that I think maybe we should revise our tour.”
They were sitting side by side in the car. “Is that your diplomatic way of telling me that my heart is failing more rapidly than you expected?” Nicole asked, forcing a smile.
“No, not really,” the Eagle said. “We really did spend almost twice as much time as I had planned. I hadn’t even considered the overflight of France, for example, or the visit to the octospider city.”
“That part was wonderful,” Nicole said. “I wish I could go there again, with Dr. Blue as my guide, and find out more about the way they live.”
“So you liked the octospider city better than the spectacular views of the stars?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Nicole replied. “It was all fantastic. What I have seen already has reconfirmed that I chose the right place to…” She did not finish the sentence. “I realized while I was on the platform that death is not just the end of thinking and being aware,” she said, “it is also the end of feeling. I don’t know why that wasn’t obvious to me before.”
There was a short silence. “So, my friend,” Nicole said brightly, “where do we go from here?”
“I thought we’d go next to engineering, where you can see models of Nodes, Carriers, and other spacecraft, after which, if we still have enough time, I plan to lake you to the biology section. Some of your ex-utero grandchildren are living in that region, in one of our better Earthlike habitats. Nearby is another compound housing a community of those intriguing aquatic eels or snakes that we encountered once together at the Node. And there is a taxonomic display that compares and contrasts, physically, all the spacefarers that have been studied in this region.”
“It all sounds great,” Nicole said. She laughed suddenly. “The human brain is amazing. Guess what just popped into my mind? The first line of Andrew Marvell’s poem To His Coy Mistress: ‘Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime…’ Anyway, I was going to say that since we do not have forever, let’s go first to the Carrier display. I would like to see the spacecraft in which Patrick, Nai, Galileo, and the others will be living. After that, we’ll see how much time is left.”
The car began to move. Nicole noted to herself mat the Eagle had not said anything about the results of his scan. The fear came back, stronger now. “The grave’s a fine and private place,” she recalled. “But none, I think, do there embrace.”
They were together on the flat surface of the Carrier model. “This is a one sixty-fourth scale model,” the Eagle said, “so you have some sense of how large the Carrier really is.”
Nicole stared off into the distance from her wheelchair. “Goodness,” she said, “this plane must be at the most one kilometer long.”
“That’s a decent guess,” the Eagle said. “The top of the actual Carrier is roughly forty kilometers long and fifteen kilometers wide.”
“And each of these bubbles encloses a different environment?”
“Yes,” the Eagle said. “The atmosphere and other conditions are controlled by the equipment that is here on the surface, as well as the additional engineering systems down below in the main volume of the spacecraft. Each of the habitats has its own spin rate to create the proper gravity. Partitions are available to separate species, if necessary, inside one of the bubbles. The residents from the starfish have been placed in the same domain because they are Comfortable in more or less the same ambient conditions. However, they do not have any access to each other.”
They were moving down a path among the equipment emplacements and the bubbles. “Some of these habitats,” Nicole said, examining a small oval protrusion rising above the plane no more than five meters, “seem too small and confining to hold more than just a few individuals.”
“There are some very small spacefarers,” the Eagle said. “One species, from a star system not too far from yours, is only about a millimeter in length. Their largest spacecraft are not even as big as this car.”
Nicole tried to imagine an intelligent group of ants, or aphids, working together to build a spacecraft. She smiled at her mental picture.
“And all these Carriers just travel from Node to Node?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Primarily,” the Eagle said. “When there are no longer any living creatures in a particular bubble, that habitat is reconditioned at one of the Nodes.”
“Like Rama,” Nicole said.
“In a way,” the Eagle said, “but with many significant differences. We are always intently studying whatever species are inside a Rama-class spacecraft. We try to place them in as realistic an environment as possible, so that we can observe them under ‘natural conditions.’ By contrast, we do not need any more data about the creatures assigned to the Carrier fleet. That’s why we don’t intercede in their affairs.”
“Except to preclude reproduction. By the way, in the structure of your ethics, is preventing reproduction somehow more humane, or whatever your equivalent word is, than terminating the creatures directly?”
“We think so,” the Eagle replied.
They had reached a location on the top of the Carrier model where a pathway branched off to the left back to the ramps and hallways of the Knowledge Module. “I think I’ve accomplished what I wanted here,” Nicole said. She hesitated for a moment. “But I do have a couple of other questions.”
“Go ahead,” the Eagle said.
“Assuming Saint Michael’s description of the purpose of Rama and the Node and everything else is correct, aren’t you yourself disturbing and changing the very process you’re observing? It seems to me that just by being here and interacting—”
“You’re right, of course,” the Eagle said. “Our presence here does slightly impact the course of evolution. It’s a situation analogous to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle from physics. We cannot observe without influencing. Nevertheless, our interactions can be considered by the Prime Monitor and taken into account in the overall modeling of the process. And we do have rules that minimize the ways in which we perturb the natural evolution.”
“I wish that Richard could have been with me to hear Saint Michael’s explanation of everything,” Nicole said. “He would have been fascinated, and, I am sure, would have had some excellent questions.”
The Eagle did not reply. Nicole sighed. “So what’s next, Monsieur le Tour Director?” she said.
“Lunch,” said the Eagle. “There are a couple of sandwiches, some water, and a delicious piece of your favorite octospider fruit in the car.”
Nicole laughed and turned her wheelchair into the pathway. “You think of everything,” she said.
“Richard didn’t believe in heaven,” Nicole said as the Eagle completed another scan. “But if he could have constructed his own perfect afterlife, it would definitely have included a place like this.”
The Eagle was studying the weird squiggles on the monitor in his hand. “I think it would be a good idea,” he said, looking up at Nicole, “to skip some of the tour… and go directly to the most important exhibits in the next domain.”
“That bad, huh?” Nicole said. She was not surprised. The occasional pain she had been feeling in her chest before the visits to France and the octospider city had now become continuous.
The fear was constant now as well. In between every word, every thought, she was acutely aware that her death was not very far away. So what are you afraid of? Nicole asked herself. How can nothingness be that bad? Still the fear persisted.
The Eagle explained that there was not enough time for an orientation to the second domain. They passed through the gates into the second of the concentric spheres and drove for about ten minutes. “The emphasis in this domain,” the Eagle said while driving, “is on the way everything changes in time. There is a separate section
