muscles had been inactive for too long. The Eagle had helped her shuffle the few steps between the container and the table. Her hands had trembled some while she had drunk the water and eaten the soup.
“So am I about eighty?” she now asked the Eagle in a halting voice, one that she barely recognized.
“More or less,” the alien replied. “It would be impossible to give you a meaningful age.”
Nicole stared across the table at her companion. The Eagle looked just the same as always. The powder- blue eyes on either side of his protruding gray beak had lost none of their mystical intensity. The feathers on the top of his head were still pure white, contrasting sharply with the dark gray feathers of his face, neck, and back. The four fingers on each hand, creamy white and featherless, were as smooth as a child’s.
Nicole studied her own hands for the first time. They were wrinkled and discolored from age spots. She turned them over and from somewhere in her memory she heard a laugh. Phthisic, Richard was saying. Isn’t that a great word? It means more withered than ‘withered’… I wonder if I’ll ever have a chance to use it… The memory faded. My hands are phthisic, Nicole thought.
“Don’t you ever age?” she asked the Eagle.
“No,” he replied. “At least not in the sense that you use the word. I am regularly maintained and subsystems that are exhibiting performance degradation are replaced.”
“So you never die either?”
He hesitated for a moment. “That’s not completely accurate,” the Eagle said. “Like all members of my group, I was created for a specific purpose. If there is no longer a need for me to exist and I cannot be readily programmed to accomplish some new, necessary function, then I will be unpowered.”
Nicole started to laugh but caught herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I know it’s not funny… but your choice of words struck me as peculiar. ‘Unpowered’ is such a—”
“It’s also the correct word,” the Eagle said. “Inside me are several tiny power sources, as well as a sophisticated power distribution system. All the power elements are essentially modular and therefore transferable from one of us to another. If I am no longer needed, the elements can be removed and used in another being.”
“Like an organ transplant,” Nicole said, finishing her water.
“Somewhat,” the Eagle replied. “Which brings me to another issue… During your long sleep, your heart actually stopped beating twice, the second time just after we arrived here in the Tau Ceti system. We have managed to keep you alive with drugs and mechanical stimulation, but your heart is now extremely weak. If you want to have an active life for any appreciable additional period, you will need to consider replacing your heart.”
“Is that why you left me in there”-Nicole pointed at the container—”for so long?” she asked.
“Partially,” said the Eagle. He had already explained to Nicole that most of the others from Rama had awakened much earlier, some as long as a year ago, and that they were living in crowded conditions in another venue not very far away. “But we were also concerned about how comfortable you might be over in the converted starfish. We refurbished that spacecraft in a hurry, so there are not many amenities. We were also concerned because you are by far our oldest human survivor.”
That’s right, Nicole said to herself. The octospider attack wiped out everyone over forty or so. I am the only old person left.
The Eagle had stopped talking for a moment. When Nicole looked at the alien again, his mesmerizing eyes seemed to be expressing an emotion. “Besides, you are special to us. You have played a key role in this endeavor.”
Is it possible, Nicole thought suddenly, still staring at the Eagle’s fascinating eyes, that this electronic creature actually has feelings? Could Richard have been right when he insisted that there are no aspects of our humanity that could not be eventually duplicated by engineering?
“We waited as long as we could to wake you,” the Eagle continued, “to minimize the length of time that you would have to spend in less than ideal conditions. Now, however, we are preparing to enter another phase of our operations. As you can see, this room was emptied, except for you, long ago. In another eight to ten days we will begin dismantling the walls. By then you should have recuperated enough.”
Nicole asked again about her family and friends. “As I told you before,” the Eagle said, “everyone survived the long sleep. However, the adjustment to living in what your friend Max calls the Grand Hotel has not been easy for anybody. All of those who were with you in the Emerald City, plus the girl Maria and Ellie’s husband, Robert, were originally assigned to two large rooms, side by side, in one section of the starfish. Everyone was told that the living arrangements were only temporary, and that eventually they would be transferred to better quarters. Nevertheless, Robert and Galileo were not able to adapt successfully to the unusual conditions in the Grand Hotel.”
“What happened to them?” Nicole asked with alarm.
“They were both transferred, for sociological reasons, to another, more highly regulated area of the spacecraft. Robert was moved first. He went into a severe depression shortly after he awakened from the long sleep and was never able to break out of it. Unfortunately, he died about four months ago. Galileo is all right physically, although his antisocial behavior has continued.”
Nicole felt a deep sorrow upon hearing the news of Robert’s death. She was sad for Nikki, who had never really had a chance to know her father, and for her daughter Ellie. Nicole had hoped that the marriage… She shook her head. Nicole admitted to herself that she had never really understood Robert. He was so complex, she thought. Talented, dedicated, yet surprisingly dysfunctional on a personal level.
“I guess,” she commented to the Eagle, “that the energy I expended to save Katie and Robert from the octospider agents was wasted effort.”
“Not really,” the Eagle replied simply. “It was important to you at the time.”
Nicole smiled and thought how wise the Eagle was in his understanding of humans. She stifled a yawn.
“Let me help you back to bed,” he said. “You’ve been up long enough for the first time.”
Nicole was very pleased with herself. She had finally managed a full lap around the perimeter of the room without stopping.
“Bravo,” the Eagle said, coming up beside her. “You are making fabulous progress. We never thought that you would walk so well in such a short period of time.”
“I definitely need some water now,” she said, smiling. ‘This old body is sweating furiously.”
The Eagle retrieved a glass of water from the table. When she was finished drinking, Nicole turned to her alien friend. “Now are you going to keep your part of the bargain?” she said. “Do you have a mirror and a change of clothes in that suitcase over there?”
“Yes, I do,” the Eagle answered. “And I even brought the cosmetics you requested. But first I want to examine you to see how your heart responded to the exercise.” He held a small black device in front of her and watched some markings appear on the tiny screen. ‘That’s good,” he said. “No, that’s excellent… No irregularities at all. Just an indication that your heart is working very hard, which would be expected in a human your age.”
“May I see that?” Nicole asked, pointing at the monitoring device. The Eagle handed it to her. “I suppose,” she said, “that this thing is receiving signals from inside my body… but what exactly are all those squiggles and strange symbols on the screen?”
“You have over a thousand tiny probes inside your body, more than half in the cardiac region. They not only measure the critical performance of your heart and other organs, but also regulate such important parameters as blood flow and oxygen allocation. Some of the probes even supplement the normal biological functions. What you are seeing on the screen is summary data from the time interval when you were exercising. It has been compressed and telemetered by the processor inside you.”
Nicole frowned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. Somehow the idea of all that electronic junk inside me is not very comforting.”
“The probes are not really electronic,” the Eagle said, “at least not in the way you humans use the word. And they are entirely necessary at this point in your life. If they weren’t there, you wouldn’t survive even one day.”
Nicole stared at the Eagle. “Why didn’t you just let me die?” she asked. “Do you have some purpose for me yet that justifies all this effort? Some function I must still perform?”
“Perhaps,” the Eagle said. “But perhaps we thought you might like to see your family and friends one more time.”
