The verisimilitude of the replays was astonishing. Not only did all Nicole’s family and friends look exactly as they had at the time that the events had taken place, but all the sets were perfect reconstructions as well. In one of the scenes Katie was water-skiing boldly near the shore of Lake Shakespeare, laughing and waving with the reckless abandon that was her trademark. In another Nicole watched a re-creation of the party the little troupe on Rama II had held to celebrate the one thousandth anniversary of the death of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Seeing Simone at age four and Katie at two, and both Richard and herself when they were still young and vigorous, brought tears to Nicole’s eyes.
It has been an astonishing life, Nicole thought. She rolled her wheelchair into the scene from Rama II and the action stopped. Nicole leaned over and picked up the robot TB that Richard had created to amuse the little girls. It felt properly weighted in her hands.
“How in the world did you do this?’. Nicole asked.
“Advanced technology,” the Eagle replied. “I couldn’t explain it to you.”
“And if I went over mere, where Katie is skiing, would the water feel wet to my touch?”
“Absolutely.”
Nicole rolled out of the scene holding the pseudo-robot in her hands. When she was gone, another TB materialized and the scene continued. I had forgotten, Richard, Nicole said to herself, all your brilliant little creations.
Her heart granted her a few more minutes to enjoy the vignettes taken from her life. Nicole thrilled again to the moment of Simone’s birth, relived her first night of love with Richard not long after he found her in New York, and experienced for a second time the fantastic array of sights and creatures that had greeted Richard and her when the gates of me Emerald City had first opened to them.
“Can you replay any event from my life that I might want?” Nicole asked, feeling a sudden constriction in her chest.
“As long as it happened after you arrived at Rama and I can find it in the archives,” the Eagle replied.
Nicole gasped. The final heart attack was under way. “Please,” she said, “may I see my last conversation with Richard before he left?”
It won’t be long, a voice inside Nicole said. She clenched her teeth and tried to concentrate on the scene” that had suddenly appeared in front of her. Richard was explaining to pseudo-Nicole why he was the one who should accompany Archie back to New Eden.
“I understand,” pseudo-Nicole said in the scene.
I understand, the real Nicole said to herself. That is the most important statement anyone can ever make. The whole key to life is understanding. And now I understand that I am a mortal creature whose time of death has come.
Another surge of intense pain was accompanied by a fleeting memory of a Latin line from an old poem: Timor Mortis conturbat me. But I will not be afraid because I understand.
The Eagle was watching her closely. “I would like to see Richard and Archie,” she said, laboring, “their final moments… in the cell… just before the biots came.”
I will not be afraid because I understand.
“And my children, if they can somehow be here. And Dr. Blue.”
The room became dark. Seconds ticked by. The pain was terrible. I will not be afraid…
The lights came on again. Richard and Archie were in their cell immediately in front of Nicole’s wheelchair. She heard the biots open the cellblock door down the hall.
“Freeze it there, please,” Nicole said with difficulty. Just to the left of the scene with Richard and Archie, her children and Dr. Blue were lined up in a tableau. Nicole struggled to her feet and walked the few meters to be among them. Tears poured from her eyes as she touched one final time the faces that she loved.
The walls of her heart began to collapse. Nicole stumbled into the scene in Richard’s cell and embraced the representation of her husband. “I understand, Richard,” she said.
Nicole dropped to her knees slowly. She turned to face the Eagle. “I understand,” she said with a smile.
And understanding is happiness, she thought.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ARTHUR C. CLARKE is a seminal figure in modern science fiction writing, and winner of all the field’s highest honors, including being named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1986. He is the author of more than fifty books with more than fifty million copies in print. His bestsellers include Childhood’s End; 2001: A Space Odyssey; 2010: Odyssey Two; 2061: Odyssey Three; The Ghost from the Grand Banks; Rendezvous with Rama; and, with Gentry Lee, Rama II and The Garden of Rama. He co-broadcast the Apollo 11, 12, and 15 missions with Walter Cronkite and Captain Wally Schirra and shared an Oscar nomination with Stanley Kubrick for the film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
GENTRY LEE has been chief engineer on Project Galileo, director of science analysis and mission planning for NASA’s Viking mission to Mars, and partner with Carl Sagan in the design, development, and implementation of the television series Cosmos. He is co-author of Rama II and The Garden of Rama. He lives in Texas, where he is at work on his first solo novel.
