Rama II

20 BLESSED SLUMBER

The little girl had been alone for al­most two hours before she really understood what was happening to her. Omeh and one of the younger priests had placed Nicole right near a small, brackish pond, surrounded on all sides by the high grasses of the savanna. They had reminded her that they would return in the middle of the next day. Then they were gone.

At first Nicole had reacted as if the entire experience were a great game. She had taken out her kit made of antelope hide and carefully inventoried the contents. She had mentally divided the food into three parts, planning what she would eat for dinner, breakfast, and midmorning snack. There was not excessive food, but little Nicole judged that it would be enough. On the other hand, when she had visually measured the flask to determine the adequacy of her water supply, she had concluded that it was marginal. It would be good if she could End a spring or some pure running water that could be used in an emergency.

Nicole’s next activity had been to create a mental map of her location, paying special attention to any landmarks that would help her identify the brackish pond from a distance. She was an extremely organized little girl and, back at Chilly-Mazarin, often played by herself in a wooded vacant lot very close to her house. In her room at home Nicole had maps of the wood that she had carefully drawn by hand, her secret hiding places marked with stars and circles.

It was when she came upon four striped antelope, grazing calmly under the steady afternoon sun, that Nicole first understood how utterly isolated she was. Her first instinct was to look for her mother, to show Anawi the beautiful animals she had found. But mother is not here, the little girl thought, her eyes scanning the horizon. lam all alone. The last word echoed through her mind and she felt an inchoate despair. She fought against the despair and looked off into the distance to see if she could find any indica­tion of civilization. There were birds all around and some more grazing animals on the horizon at the limit of her vision, but no sign of any human beings. ! am all alone, Nicole said to herself again, a slight shiver of fear running through her body.

She remembered that she wanted to find another source of water and walked off in the direction of a large grove of trees. The little girl had no idea about distances in the open savanna. Although she did carefully stop every thirty minutes or so to ensure that she could still find her way back to the pond, it amazed her that the distant grove did not appear to be coming any closer. She walked on and on. As the afternoon waned, she became tired and thirsty. She stopped to drink some of her water. The tsetse flies surrounded her, buzzing around her face as she tried to drink. Nicole took out the two unguents, smelled them both, and applied the worse smelling of the two to her face and arms. Her choice was apparently correct; the flies also found the unguent noisome and kept their distance.

She reached the trees about an hour before dark. She was delighted to find that she had fortuitously stumbled upon a small oasis in the middle of the great stretch of savanna. There was a strong spring in the grove where the water rushed out of the ground and formed a circular pool about ten meters in diameter. The excess water in turn trickled out of one edge of the pool and became a creek that ran from the oasis back into the savanna. Nicole was exhausted and sweaty from her long walk. The water in the pool was inviting. Without thinking she pulled off her clothes, except for her under­pants, and jumped in for a swim. The water invigorated and soothed her tired little body. With her head underwater and her eyes closed, she swam and swam and fantasized that she was in the community pool in her suburb near Paris. In her imagination she had gone to the piscine, as she generally did once a week, and was playing water sports with her friends. The memory comforted her. After a long time Nicole rolled over on her back and took a few strokes. She opened her eyes and looked at the trees above her. The rays from the late afternoon sun were making magic as they cut through the branches and the leaves.

Seven-year-old Nicole stopped swimming and treaded water for several seconds, looking around the edge of the pool for her clothes. She didn’t see them. Puzzled, she scanned the perimeter of the pool more carefully. Still she saw nothing. In her mind she reconstructed all the scenes of her arrival in the grove and conclusively remembered exactly where she had placed both her clothes and the kit made from antelope hide. She climbed out of the water and examined the spot more closely. This is definitely the place, she thought. And my clothes and the kit are gone.

There was no way to quell the panic. It overpowered her in an instant. Her eyes flooded with tears, a wail broke from her throat. She closed her eyes and wept, hoping that this was all a bad dream and that she would wake up in the next few seconds and see her mother and father. But when she opened her eyes again, the same scene was still there. A half-naked little girl was alone in the wilds of Africa with no food, no water, and no hope of rescue before the middle of the next day. And it was almost dark.

With great effort Nicole managed at last to control both her fright and her tears. She decided to look for her clothes. Where they had been before, she found fresh prints of some kind. Nicole had no way of knowing what kind of animal might have made the tracks, so she assumed that it was one of the gentle antelope that she had seen that afternoon in the savanna. That would make sense, the little girl thought logically. This is probably the best water hole in the area. They stopped here and were curious about my things. My splashing must have scared them away.

As the light faded she followed the tracks along a tiny pathway through the trees. After a short trek she found the antelope hide, or rather what was left of it, discarded on the side of the path. The kit was torn completely open. All the food was gone, the water flask was mostly drained, and every­thing else had fallen out except the unguents and the tuber. Nicole finished the water that was left in the flask and put it with the tuber in her right hand. She discarded the messy unguents. She was about to continue follow­ing the path when she heard a sound, halfway between a yelp and a cry. The sound was very close. The path opened into the savanna about fifty meters ahead. Nicole strained her eyes and thought she saw motion, but she couldn’t make out anything specific. Then she heard the yelp again, louder this time. She dropped down on her stomach and crawled slowly along the path.

There was a small rise fifteen meters before the end of the grove. From that vantage point little Nicole saw the source of the yelp. Two lion cubs were playing with her green dress. Their watchful mother was on the oppo­site side, staring out into the savanna twilight. Nicole froze in terror as she comprehended that she was not visiting a zoo, that she was out in the wild and a real African lioness was only twenty meters away. Trembling with fear, she inched back along the path, very slowly, very quietly, lest she call atten­tion to her presence.

Back near the pool she resisted the urge to jump up and run pell-mell into the savanna. Then the lioness will see me for certain, she thought. But where to spend the night? I’ll find a ditch among the trees, she reasoned, away from the path. And lie still. Then maybe I’ll be safe. Still clutching the flask and the tuber, Nicole walked softly over to the spring. She took a drink and filled her flask. Next she crawled into the grove and found a ditch. Then, con­vinced that she was as safe as she could possibly be under the circumstances, the exhausted little girl fell asleep.

She woke up suddenly with a sensation that bugs were crawling all over her. She reached down and rubbed her bare stomach. It was covered with ants. Nicole screamed, and then she realized what she had done. In a flash she heard the lioness crashing through the brush, searching for the creature that had made the noise. The little girl shuddered and scraped the ants off with a stick. Then she saw the lioness staring at her, the feral eyes piercing the dark. Nicole was near collapse. In her fright she somehow remembered what Omeh had said about the tuber. She put the dirt-covered root into her mouth and chewed vigorously. It tasted awful. She forced herself to swallow. A moment later Nicole was rushing through the trees with the lioness chasing her. Branches and leaves cut her face and chest. She slipped once and fell. When she reached the pool she did not stop. Nicole ran across the water, her feet barely touching the top. She flapped her arms. They had changed to wings, white wings. She was no longer touching the water. She was a great white heron soaring up, up into the night sky. She turned and looked at the puzzled lioness far below her. Laughing to herself, Nicole intensified her wing motion and rose above all the trees. The great savanna unfolded below her. She could see for over a hundred kilometers.

She flew across to the brackish pond, turned west, and spotted a campfire. She zoomed toward it, her bird shrieks piercing the calm of the night. Omeh awakened with a start, saw the solitary bird spread out against the sky, and made a loud bird cry of his own. “Ronata?” his voice seemed to ask. But Nicole did not answer, She wanted to fly higher, even above the clouds.

On the other side of the clouds the Moon and stars were clear and bright. They beckoned to her. She thought she heard music in the distance, a tinkling like crystal bells, as she soared higher and higher. She tried to flap her wings. They would barely move. They had changed into control surfaces, which now extended to increase the lift in the ultrathin air. Her aft rockets began to fire. Nicole was now a silver shuttle, thin and sleek, leaving the Earth behind.

The music was louder out in orbit. There it was a magnificent symphony, enhancing the beauty of the majestic Earth below her. She heard her name being called. From where? Who could be calling way out here? The sound came from beyond the Moon. She changed her heading, pointed toward the void of deep space, and fired her rockets again. She swept past the Moon, heading away from the Sun. Her speed was still increasing exponentially. Behind her the Sun was growing smaller and smaller. It became a tiny light and then disappeared altogether. There was blackness all around– She held her breath and came to the surface of the water.

The lioness was prowling back and forth on the edge of the pool. Nicole could vividly see all the muscles in her powerful shoulders and read the expression on her face. Please leave me alone, Nicole said. I won’t hurt you or your babies.

“I recognize your smell,” the lioness answered. “My cubs were playing with that smell.”

I too am a cub, Nicole continued, and I want to return to my mother. But I am afraid.

“Come out of the water,” the lioness replied. “Let me see you. I do not believe that you are what you say.”

Summoning all her courage, her eyes riveted on the lioness, the little girl walked slowly out of the water. The lioness didn’t move. When the water was only waist deep, Nicole shaped her arms into a cradle and began to sing. It was a simple, peaceful melody, the one she remembered from the begin­ning of her life, when her mother or father would kiss her good night, put her down in the crib, and then turn out the light. The little animals in the mobile would go around and around while a woman’s soft voice sang the Brahms lullaby.

“Lay thee down, now, and rest… May thy slumber be blessed.”

The lioness rocked back on her haunches and threatened to pounce. The girl, still softly singing, continued walking toward the animal. When Nicole was completely out of the water and only about five meters away, the lioness jumped aside and leapt back into the grove. Nicole kept walking, the sooth­ing song giving her both comfort and strength. In a few minutes she was back out at the edge of the savanna. By sunrise she had reached the pond, where she lay down among the grasses and fell fast asleep. Omeh and the Senoufo priests found her lying there, half naked and still asleep, when the sun was high in the sky.

She could remember it all as if it were yesterday. Almost thirty years ago now, she recalled as she lay still awake in her small bed on the Newton, and the lessons I learned have never stopped being valuable, Nicole thought about the little seven-year-old girl who had been stranded in a completely alien world and had managed to survive. So why am I feeling sorry for myself now? she thought. That was a much tougher situation.

Immersing herself in her childhood experience had given her unexpected strength. Nicole was no longer depressed. Her mind was working overtime again, trying to formulate a plan that would give her the crucial answers to what had happened during the operation on Borzov. She had pushed her loneliness aside.

Nicole realized that she would have to stay onboard the Newton during the first sortie if she wanted to do a thorough analysis of all aspects of the Borzov incident. She resolved to bring up the issue with Brown or Heilmann in the morning.

At length the exhausted woman fell asleep. As she was drifting into the twilight world that separates waking and sleeping, Nicole was humming a tune to herself. It was the Brahms lullaby.