breaks anywhere. Probably this is some kind of identifier for the zoo, she was thinking when a bomb exploded nearby, waking the sleeping girl.
Over in the direction of the Emerald City, bombs were falling with increasing intensity. While Nicole comforted the child, she thought about what she should do next. A large fireball raced toward the sky as one of the falling bombs caused an even larger explosion on the ground. In the temporary light, Nicole could see that she and the child were on the top of a small hill, very close to the edge of the developed part of the Alternate Domain. The Central Plain began no more than a hundred meters to the west.
Nicole stood up with the girl on her shoulder. She was near exhaustion. “We’re going out there, away from the bombs,” she said out loud to the baby, motioning in the direction of the Central Plain. Nicole tossed the cylindrical object in her medical bag and grabbed a pair of the clean sacks. These may be useful in the cold, Nicole thought, throwing the heavy sacks over her shoulders.
It took an hour for her to trudge with the baby and the sacks to a spot in the Central Plain that Nicole thought was far enough away from the bombs. She lay down on her back, the child cradled on her chest, and wrapped the sacks around both of them. Nicole was asleep in seconds.
Nicole was awakened by the movement of the girl. She had been having a conversation with Katie in her dream, but Nicole could not recall what they had been saying to each other. She sat up and changed the baby, using a clean cloth from her medical bag. The child stared at Nicole curiously with her wide blue eyes. “Good morning, little girl, whoever you are,” Nicole said brightly. The child smiled for the first time.
It was no longer completely dark. Firefly clusters illuminated the Emerald City in the distance, and the gaping holes in the dome allowed the light to shine on the surrounding area of Rama. The war must have ended, Nicole thought, seeing the light, or at least the raids have been suspended.
“Well, my newest friend,” Nicole said, standing up and stretching after placing the baby carefully on one of the clean sacks, “let’s see what adventures are in store for us today.”
The girl quickly crawled off the sack into the dirt of the Central Plain. Nicole picked her up and replaced her in the middle of the sack. Again she crawled toward the dirt. “Whoa, there, little one,” Nicole said with a laugh, picking the girl up a second time.
It was difficult for Nicole to gather up their belongings while she was holding the child in her arms. Eventually she succeeded and began walking slowly toward civilization. They were about three hundred meters from the closest buildings of the Alternate Domain. During her walk, Nicole decided that she would go first to the hospital to find Dr. Blue. Assuming that she had correctly concluded that the war was over or at least had been temporarily halted, Nicole planned to spend the morning finding out everything she could about the child. Who were her parents, Nicole formed the questions in her mind, and how long ago were they kidnapped from New Eden? She was angry with the octospiders. Why didn’t you tell me there were other human beings in the Emerald City? Nicole intended to ask the Chief Optimizer. And how can you defend the way you treated this child and her mother?
The girl, who was wide awake, would not sit still in Nicole’s arms. Nicole became uncomfortable. She decided to stop for a rest. While the child was playing in the dirt, Nicole stared at the destruction in front of her, both in the Alternate Domain and, in the distance, in the part of the Emerald City that she could see. Nicole suddenly felt-very sad. What is it all for? she asked herself. An image of Katie entered her mind, but Nicole pushed it aside, choosing instead to sit down in the dirt and entertain the child. Five minutes later they heard the whistle.
The sound was coming from the sky, from Rama itself. Nicole jumped to her feet, her pulse immediately skyrocketing. She felt a slight pain in her chest, but nothing could diminish her excitement. “Look,” she shouted to the baby girl, “look over there, in the south!”
In the distant southern bowl, streamers of colored light were playing around the tip of the Big Horn, the massive spire that thrust upward along the spin axis of the cylindrical spacecraft. The streamers coalesced and formed a red ring near the tip of the spire. A few moments later this huge red ring sailed slowly north along the axis of Rama. Around the Big Horn, more colors danced until they formed into a second ring, orange in color, which eventually followed the red ring, also in a northerly direction in the sky of Rama.
The whistle continued. It was not a harsh or shrill whistle. To Nicole it almost sounded musical. “Something’s going to happen,” Nicole said exultantly to the girl, “something good!”
The little girl had no idea what was occurring, but she laughed heartily when the woman picked her up and tossed her skyward. And for her the rings were definitely eye-catching. Now a yellow and a green ring were both crossing the black sky of Rama, and the red one in the front of the procession had just reached the Cylindrical Sea.
Again Nicole tossed the child a foot or two in the air. This time the girl’s necklace escaped from under her shirts and nearly flew off her head. Nicole caught the girl and gave her a hug. “I had almost forgotten about your necklace,” Nicole said. “Now that we have some decent light, may I take a look at it?”
The girl giggled as Nicole pulled the rope necklace over her head. At the bottom of the necklace, carved on a round piece of wood about four centimeters in diameter, was the outline of a man with arms upraised, surrounded on all sides by what appeared to be a fire. Nicole had seen a similar wood carving many years before, on Michael O’Toole’s desk in his room inside the Newton. Saint Michael of Siena, Nicole said to herself, turning the carving over.
On the back the word MARIA was carefully printed in lowercase letters. “That must be your name,” Nicole said to the girl. “Maria… Maria.” There was no indication of recognition. The child started to frown just before Nicole laughed and tossed her into the air one more time.
A few minutes later Nicole put the squirming child down again. Maria immediately crawled into the dirt. Nicole kept one eye on Maria and one eye on the colored rings in the Rama sky. All eight rings could now be seen, the blue, brown, pink, and purple over the Southern Hemicylinder and the first four in the line in the sky above the north. As the red ring vanished in the northern bowl, another red ring formed at the tip of the Big Horn.
Just like all those years ago, Nicole thought. But her mind was not really focused on the rings yet. She was searching her memory, trying to remember every missing persons report that had ever been filed in New Eden. There had been a handful of boating accidents on Lake Shakespeare, she recalled, and every now and then one of the patients in the mental hospital at Avalon had disappeared. But how could a couple vanish like that? And where was Maria’s father? There were many questions that Nicole wanted to ask the octospiders.
The dazzling rings continued to float above her head. Nicole remembered that day long ago when Katie, as a girl of ten or eleven, had been so thrilled by the huge rings in the sky that she had screamed with joy. She was always my most uninhibited child, Nicole thought, unable to stop herself. Her laugh was so complete, so genuine… Katie had so much potential.
With great effort Nicole forced herself to concentrate on Maria. The child was sitting down, merrily eating the dirt from the Central Plain. “No, Maria,” Nicole said, gently touching the child’s hands. “That’s dirty.”
The girl screwed up her beautiful face and began to cry.
Like Katie, Nicole thought immediately. She couldn’t stand for me to tell her no. Memories of Katie now flooded into her mind. Nicole saw her daughter first as a baby, then as a precocious early adolescent at the Node, and finally as a young woman in New Eden. The deep heartache that accompanied the images of her lost daughter completely overwhelmed Nicole. Tears ran down her cheeks and her body began to shake with sobs. “Oh, Katie,” Nicole yelled out loud. “Why? Why? Why?”
She buried her face in her hands. Maria had stopped crying and was looking at Nicole with a quizzical look.
“It’s all right, Nicole,” a voice behind her said. “It will all be over soon.”
Nicole thought her mind was playing tricks. She turned around slowly. The Eagle was approaching with outstretched arms.
The third red ring had reached the northern bowl and there were no more colored lights around the Big Horn. “So will all the lights come on when the rings are finished?” Nicole asked the Eagle.
“What a good memory,” he said. “You might be right.”
Nicole was again holding Maria in her arms. She kissed the child gently on the cheek and Maria smiled. “Thank you for the girl,” Nicole said. “She is wonderful… and I understand what you’re telling me.”
The Eagle faced Nicole. “What are you talking about?” he said. “We didn’t have anything to do with the child.”
