Three strange deaths among the crew created great concern back on the Earth, where all aspects of the historic mission were followed on television. When the giant cylinder underwent a midcourse maneuver that placed it on a trajectory that would impact the Earth, this concern changed to alarm and fear. The leaders of the world reluctantly concluded that, in the absence of any other information, they had no choice except to assume that Rama II was hostile. They could not allow the alien spacecraft to impact the Earth, or to come close enough that it might deploy any advanced weapons it might possess. A decision was made to destroy Rama II while it was still a safe distance away.
The exploration crew was ordered home, but three of its members, two men and a woman, were still on board Rama II when the alien spaceship avoided a nuclear phalanx launched from the Earth. Rama maneuvered away from the hostile Earth and departed at high speed from the solar system, carrying both its intact secrets and the three human passengers.
It took thirteen years at relativistic velocities for Rama II to travel from the neighborhood of Earth to its destination, a huge engineering complex called the Node that was located in a distant orbit around the star Sirius. The three humans on board the giant cylinder added five children and grew into a family. As they investigated the marvels of their home in space, the family again encountered the extraterrestrial species they had met earlier. However, by the time they reached the Node, the humans had already convinced themselves that these other aliens were, like them, only passengers in Rama.
The human family remained at the Node for slightly more than a year. During this time the Rama spacecraft was refurbished and outfitted for its third and final journey to the solar system. The family learned from the Eagle, a non-biological creation of the Nodal Intelligence, that the purpose of the Rama series of spacecraft was to acquire and catalog as much information as possible about spacefarers in the galaxy. The Eagle, who had the head, beak, and eyes of an eagle plus the body of a human, also informed them that the final Rama spacecraft, Rama III, would contain a carefully designed Earth habitat that could accommodate two thousand people.
A video was transmitted from the Node to the Earth announcing the imminent return of the third Rama spaceship. This video explained that an advanced extraterrestrial species wished to observe and study human activity over an extended period of time and requested that two thousand representative humans be sent to rendezvous with Rama III in orbit around Mars.
Rama III made the voyage from Sirius back to the solar system at a velocity more than half the speed of light. Inside the spacecraft, sleeping in special berths, were most of the human family who had been at the Node. In Mars orbit this family greeted the other humans from Earth and the pristine habitat inside Rama was quickly settled. The resultant colony, which was called New Eden, was completely enclosed and separated from the rest of the alien spacecraft by thick walls.
Almost immediately Rama III accelerated again to relativistic velocities, blasting out of the solar system in the direction of the yellow star Tau Ceti. Three years passed without any outside interference in human affairs. The citizens of New Eden became so involved with their everyday lives that they paid scant attention to the universe outside their settlement.
When a set of crises stressed the fledgling democracy in the paradise that had been created for the humans by the Romans, an opportunistic tycoon seized power in the colony and began to ruthlessly suppress all opposition. One of the original Rama II explorers fled from New Eden at this time, eventually making contact with a symbiotic pair of alien species living in the adjacent enclosed habitat. His wife remained in the human colony and tried unsuccessfully to be a conscience for the community. She was imprisoned after a few months, convicted of treason, and eventually scheduled for execution.
As the environmental and living conditions inside New Eden continued to deteriorate, ‘human troops invaded the adjacent living area in the Northern Hemicylinder of Rama and engaged in a war of annihilation against the symbiotic pair of alien species. Meanwhile, the mysterious Ramans, known only through the genius of their engineering creations, continued their detailed observation from afar, aware that it was only a matter of time until the humans came into contact with the advanced species inhabiting the region to the south of the Cylindrical Sea…
ESCAPE
1
“Nicole.”
At first the soft, mechanical voice seemed to be part of her dream. But when she heard her name repeated, slightly louder, Nicole awakened with a start.
A wave of intense fear swept through her. They have come for me, Nicole thought immediately. It is morning. I am going to die in a few hours.
She took a slow, deep breath and tried to quell her mounting panic. A few seconds later Nicole opened her eyes. It was completely dark in her cell. Puzzled, Nicole looked around for the person who had called her.
“We are here, on your cot, beside your right ear,” the voice said very softly. “Richard sent us to help you escape… but we must move quickly.”
For an instant Nicole thought that perhaps she was still dreaming. Then she heard a second voice, very similar to the first but nevertheless distinct. “Roll over on your right side and we will illuminate ourselves.”
Nicole rolled over. Standing on the cot next to her head she saw two tiny figures, no more than eight or ten centimeters high, each in the shape of a woman. They were glowing momentarily from some internal light source. One had short hair and was dressed in the armor of a fifteenth century European knight. The second figure was wearing both a crown upon her head and the full, pleated dress of a medieval queen.
“I am Joan of Arc,” the first figure said.
“And I am Eleanor of Aquitaine.”
Nicole laughed nervously and stared in astonishment at the two figures. Several seconds later, when the robots’ internal lights were extinguished, Nicole had finally composed herself enough to speak. “So Richard sent you to help me escape?” she said in a whisper. “Just how do you propose to do that?”
“We’ve already sabotaged the monitoring system,” tiny Joan said proudly. “And reprogrammed a Garcia biot… It should be here in a few minutes to let you out.”
“We have a nominal escape plan, along with several contingencies,” Eleanor added. “Richard has been working on it for months-ever since he finished making us.”
Nicole laughed again. She was still absolutely stunned. “Really?” she said. “And may I ask just where my genius of a husband is at this moment?”
“Richard is in your old lair underneath New York,” Joan replied. “He said to tell you that nothing has changed there. He is following our progress with a navigation beacon… Incidentally, Richard sends his love. He hasn’t forgotten—”
“Be still for a moment, please,” Eleanor interrupted as Nicole automatically scratched at the tickling sensation behind her right ear. “I’m deploying your personal beacon right now, and it’s very heavy for me.”
Moments later Nicole touched the tiny instrument package next to her ear and shook her head. “And can he hear us also?” she asked.
“Richard decided we couldn’t risk voice transmissions,” Eleanor answered. “They could be too easily intercepted by Nakamura. However, he will be monitoring our physical location.”
“You may get up now,” Joan said, “and put on your clothes. We want to be ready when the Garcia arrives.”
Will wonders never cease? Nicole thought while she was washing her face in the dark in the primitive basin. For a few brief seconds Nicole imagined that the two robots might be part of a clever New Eden government plot and that she was going to be killed trying to escape. Impossible, she told herself a few moments later. Even if one
