Rama Revealed

3

Nicole finished brushing her teeth and gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Galileo was right, she thought. I am an old woman.

She began rubbing her face with her fingers, methodically massaging the wrinkles that seemed to be everywhere. She heard Benjy and the twins playing outside and then both Nai and Patrick calling them to school. I was not always old, she said to herself. There was a time when I too went to school.

Nicole closed her eyes, attempting to remember what she had looked like as a young girl. She was unable to conjure up a clear picture of herself as a child. Too many other pictures from the intervening years blurred and distorted Nicole’s image of herself as a schoolgirl.

At length she reopened her eyes and stared at the image in the mirror. In her mind she painted out all the bag$ and wrinkles on her face. She changed the color of her hair and eyebrows from gray to a deep black. Finally she managed to see herself as a beautiful woman of twenty-one. Nicole felt a brief but intense yearning for those days of her youth. For we were young, and we knew that we would never die, she remembered.

Richard stuck his head around the corner. “Ellie and I will be working with Hercules in the study,” he said. “Why don’t you join us?”

“In a few minutes,” Nicole answered. While she touched up her hair, Nicole reflected on the daily patterns of the human clan in the Emerald City. They usually all gathered for breakfast in the Wakefields’ dining room. School ended before lunch. Then everyone except Richard napped, their accommodation to the eight-hour-longer day. Most afternoons Nicole and Ellie and Richard were with the octospiders, learning more about their hosts or sharing experiences from the planet Earth. The other four adults spent almost all their time with Benjy and the children in their enclave at the end of the cul-de-sac.

And where does all this take us? Nicole suddenly wondered. For how many years will we be the guests of the octospiders? And what will happen if and when Rama reaches its destination?

They were all questions for which Nicole had no answers. Even Richard had apparently stopped worrying about what was going on outside the Emerald City. He was completely absorbed by the octospiders and his translator project. Now he only asked Archie for celestial navigation data every two months or so. Each time Richard would report to the others, without editorial comment, that Rama was still headed in the general direction of the star Tan Ceti.

Like little Marius, Nicole thought, we are content here in our womb. As long as the outside world does not force itself upon us, we do not ask the overwhelming questions.

Nicole left the bathroom and walked down the hall to (he study. Richard was sitting on the floor between Hercules and Ellie. “The easy part is tracking the color pattern and having the sequence stored in the processor,” he was saying. “The hardest part of the translation is automatically converting that pattern into a recognizable English sentence.”

Richard faced Hercules and spoke very slowly. “Because your language is so mathematical, with every color having an acceptable angstrom range defined a priori, all the sensor has to do is identify the stream of colors and the widths of the bands. The entire information content has then been captured. Because the rules are so precise, it’s not even difficult to code a simple fault protection algorithm, for use with juveniles or careless speakers, in case any single color errs to the left or the right in the spectrum.

“Changing what an octospider has said into our language, however, is a much more complex process. The dictionary for the translation is straightforward enough. Each word and the appropriate clarifiers can be readily identified. But it’s damn near impossible to make the next step, into sentences, without some human intervention.”

“That’s because the octospider language is fundamentally different from ours,” Ellie commented. “Everything is specified and quantified, to minimize the possibility of misunderstanding. There is no subtlety or nuance. Look how they use the pronouns ‘we,’ ‘they,’ and ‘you.’ The pronouns are always marked with numerical clarifiers, including ranges when there are uncertainties. An octospider never says ‘a few wodens’ or ‘several nillets’-always a number, or a numerical range, is used to specify the length of time more precisely.”

“From our point of view,” Hercules said in color, “there are two aspects to human language that are extremely difficult. One is the lack of precise specification, which leads to a massive vocabulary. The other is your use of indirectness to communicate. I still have trouble understanding Max because often what he says is not literally what he means.”

“I don’t know how to do this in your computer,” Nicole now said to Richard, “but somehow all the quantitative information contained in each octospider statement must be reflected by the translation. Almost every verb or adjective they use has a connected numerical clarifier. How, for example, did Ellie just translate “extremely difficult and ‘massive vocabulary’? What Hercules said, in octospider, was ‘difficult,’ with the number five used to clarify it, and ‘big vocabulary,’ with the number six as a clarifier for ‘big.’ All comparative clarifiers address the question of the strength of the adjective. Since their base number system is octal, the range for the comparatives is between one and seven. If Hercules had used a seven to clarify the word ‘difficult,’ Ellie would have translated the phrase as ‘impossibly difficult.’ If he had used a two as a clarifier in the same phrase, she might have said ‘slightly difficult.’”

“Mistakes in the strengths of the adjectives, although important,” Richard said as he fiddled absentmindedly with a small processor, “almost never lead to misunderstandings. Failure to interpret properly the verb clarifiers, however, is another issue altogether… as I have learned recently from my preliminary tests. Take the simple octospider verb ‘to go,’ which means, as you know, to move unaided, without a transport. The maroon-purple-lemon yellow strip, each color the same width, covers several dozen words in English, everything from ‘walk’ to ‘stroll,’ ‘saunter,’ ‘run,’ and even ‘sprint.’”

“That’s the same point I was just making,” Ellie said. “There is no translation without full interpretation of the clarifiers. For that particular verb, the octos use a double clarifier to address the issue of ‘how fast.’ In a sense, there are sixty-three different speeds at which they ‘go.’ To make matters even more complex, they may use a range clarifier as well, so their statement ‘Let’s go’ is subject to many, many possible translations.”

Richard grimaced and shook his head.

“What’s the matter, Father?” Ellie asked.

“I’m just disappointed,” he answered. “I had hoped to have a simplified version of the translator completed by now. But I made the assumption that the gist of what was being said could be determined without tracking all the clarifiers. To include all those short color strips will both increase the storage required and significantly slow down the translation. I may have trouble ever designing a translator that works in real time.”

“So what?” Hercules asked. “Why are you so concerned about this translator? Ellie and Nicole already understand our language very well.”

“Not really,” Nicole said. “Ellie is the only one of us who is truly fluent with your colors. I am still learning daily.”

“Although I originally began this project both as a challenge and as a means to force myself to become familiar with your language,” Richard replied to Hercules, “Nicole and I were talking last week about how important the translator has become. She says, and I agree with her, that our human clan here in the Emerald City is dividing into two groups. Ellie, Nicole, and I have made our life more interesting because of our increasing interactions with your species. The rest of the humans, including the children, remain essentially isolated. Eventually, if the others don’t have some way of communicating with you, they will become dissatisfied and/or unhappy. A good automatic translator is the key that will open up their lives here.”

The map was wrinkled and torn in a few places. Patrick helped Nai unroll it slowly and tack it to the wall of her dining room, which doubled as the schoolroom for the children.

“Nikki, do you remember what this is?” Nai asked.

“Of course, Mrs. Watanabe,” the little girl replied. “It’s our map of the Earth.”

“Benjy, can you show us where your parents and grandparents were born?”

“Not again,” Galileo muttered audibly to Kepler. “He’ll never get it right. He’s too dumb.”

“Galileo Watanabe.” The response was swift. “Go to your room and sit on your bed for fifteen minutes.”

“That’s all right, Nai,” Benjy said as he walked up to the map. “I’m used to it by now.”

Galileo, almost seven years old by human accounting, stopped at the door to see if his sentence would be reprieved. “What are you waiting for?” his mother scolded. “I said for you to go to your room.”

Benjy stood quietly in front of the map for about twenty seconds. “My mother,” he said at length, “was born here in France.” He backed away from the map briefly and located the United States on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean.

“My father,” Benjy said, “was born here in Boston, in America.”

Benjy started to sit down. “What about your grandparents?” Nai prompted. “Where were they born?”

“My mother’s mother, my grandmother,” Benjy said slowly, “was born in Africa.” He stared at the map for several seconds. “But I do not remember where that is.”

“I know, Mrs. Watanabe,” said little Nikki immediately. “May I show Benjy?”

Benjy turned and looked at the pretty girl with the jet-black hair. He smiled. “You can tell me, Nikki.”

The girl rose from her chair and crossed the room. She placed her finger on the western section of Africa. “Nonni’s mother was born here,” she said proudly, “in this green country. It’s called the Ivory Coast.”: “That’s very good, Nikki,” Nai said.

“I’m sorry, Nai,” Benjy now said. “I’ve been working so hard on fractions I haven’t had any time for geography.” His eyes followed his three-year-old niece back to her seat.

When he turned to face Nai again, Benjy’s cheeks were wet with tears. “Nai,” he said, “I don’t feel like school today… I think I’ll go back to my own house.”

“Okay, Benjy,” Nai said softly. Benjy moved toward the door. Patrick started to come over to his brother, but Nai waved him away.

The schoolroom was uncomfortably quiet for almost a minute. “Is it my turn now?” Kepler finally asked.

Nai nodded and the boy walked up to the map. “My mother was born here, in Thailand, in the town of Lamphun. That’s where her father was also born. My grandmother on my mother’s side was also born in Thailand, but in another city called Chiang Saen. Here it is, next to the Chinese border.” Kepler took one step to the east and pointed at Japan.

“My father, Kenji Watanabe, and both his parents were born in the Japanese city of Kyoto.”

The boy backed away from the map. He seemed to be struggling to say something. “What is it, Kepler?” Nai ‘asked.

“Mother,” the small boy said after an agonizing silence, “was Daddy a bad man?”

“Whaat?” said Nai, completely stunned. She bent down to her son’s level and looked him straight in the eyes. “Your father was a wonderful human being. He was intelligent, sensitive, loving, humorous-an absolute prince of a person. He…”

Nai had to stop herself. She could feel her own emotions ready to erupt. She stood up, gazed at the ceiling for a brief moment, and regained her composure. “Kepler,” she then said, “why are you asking such a question? You adored your father. How could you have possibly—”

“Uncle Max told us that Mr. Nakamura came from Japan. We know that he is a bad man. Galileo says that since Daddy came from the same place—”

“Galileo,” Nai’s voice thundered, scaring all the children. “Come here immediately.”

The boy scampered into the room and gave his mother a puzzled look.

“What have you been saying to your brother about your father?”

“What do you mean?” Galileo said, trying to look innocent.

“You told me that Daddy may have been a bad man, since he came from Japan like Mr. Nakamura.”

“Well, I don’t remember Daddy very clearly. All I said was that maybe—”

It took all of Nai’s self-control to keep her from slapping Galileo. She grabbed the boy by both of his shoulders. “Young man,” she said, “if I ever hear you say one word against your father again…”

Nai could not finish her sentence. She did not know what to threaten, or even what to say next. She suddenly felt completely overwhelmed by everything in her life.

“Sit down, please,” she said at length to her twin sons, “and listen very carefully.” Nai took a deep breath. “This map on the wall,” she said, pointing, “shows all the countries on the planet Earth. In every nation there are all kinds of people, some good, some bad, most a complex mixture of good and bad. No country has only good people, or bad people. Your father grew up in Japan. So did Mr. Nakamura. I agree with Uncle Max that Mr. Nakamura is a very evil man. But the fact that he is bad has nothing to do with his being Japanese. Your father, Mr. Kenji Watanabe, who was also Japanese, was as good a man as ever lived. I’m sorry that you cannot remember him and never really knew what he was like…”

Nai paused for a moment. “I will never forget your father,” she said in a softer voice, almost to herself. “I can still see him returning to our home in New Eden in the late afternoon. The two of you always shouted together, ‘Hi Daddy, Hi Daddy,’ as he entered the house. He would kiss me, lift both of you in his arms, and take you out to the swing set in the backyard. Always, no matter how trying his day had been, he was patient and caring…”

Her voice trailed off. Tears flooded Nai’s eyes and she felt her body beginning to tremble. She turned her back and faced the map. “Class dismissed for today,” she said.

Patrick stood beside Nai as the two of them watched the twins and Nikki playing with a big blue ball in the cul-de-sac. It was half an hour later. “I’m sorry, Patrick,” Nai said. “I didn’t expect to become…”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” the young man replied.

“Yes, I do,” Nai said. “Years ago I promised myself that I would never show such feelings in front of Kepler and Galileo. They can’t possibly understand.”

“They’ve forgotten it already,” Patrick said after a brief silence. “Look at them. They’re totally engrossed in their game.”

At that moment the twins were having one of their typical arguments. As usual, Galileo was trying to gain an advantage for himself in a game that did not have rigorous rules. Nikki stood beside the boys, following every word of their dispute.

“Boys, boys,” Nai called out. “Stop it. If you can’t play without arguing, then you’ll have to come inside.”

A few seconds later the blue ball was bouncing down the street toward the plaza and all three children were running gleefully after it. “Would you like something to drink?” Nai asked Patrick.

“Yes, I would… Do you have any more of that light green melon juice that Hercules brought last week? It was really tasty.”

“Yes,” answered Nai, bending down to the small cabinet in which they kept cool drinks. “By the way, where is Hercules? I haven’t seen him for several days.”

Patrick laughed. “Uncle Richard has recruited him to work full-time on the translator. Ellie and Archie are even there with them every afternoon.” He thanked Nai for the glass of juice.

Nai took a sip of her own drink and walked back into the living room. “I know you wanted to comfort Benjy this morning,” she said. “I only stopped you because I know your brother so well. He is very proud. He does not want anyone’s pity.”

“I understood,” Patrick said.

“Benjy realized this morning, at some level, that even little Nikki-whom he still thinks of as a baby-will quickly surpass him in school. The discovery shocked him, and reminded him again of his own limitations.”

Nai was standing in front of the map of Earth, which was still affixed to the wall. “Nothing on this map means anything significant to you, does it?” she said.

“Not really,” Patrick replied. “I have seen many photographs and movies, of course, and when I was about the twins’ age my father used to tell me about Boston, and the color of the leaves in New England during the autumn, and the trip he took to Ireland with his father. But my memories are of other places. The lair in New York is quite vivid, as well as the astonishing year we spent at the Node.” He was silent for a moment. “And the Eagle! What a creature! I remember him even more clearly than my father.”

“So do you consider yourself to be an Earthling?” Nai asked.

“That’s an interesting question,” Patrick replied. He finished his drink. “You know, I’ve never really thought about it… Certainly I consider myself to be a human. But an Earthling? I guess not.”

Nai reached out and touched the map. “My hometown of Lamphun, if it were larger, would have appeared here, just south of Chiang Mai. Sometimes it doesn’t seem possible to me that I actually lived there as a child.”

Nai’s fingers ran over the outline of Thailand as she stood quietly beside Patrick. “The other night,” she said at length, “Galileo threw a cup of water on my head while I was bathing the boys, and I suddenly had an incredibly vivid memory of the three days I spent in Chiang Mai with my cousins when I was fourteen years old. It was the time of the Songkran Festival in April, and everyone in the city was celebrating the Thai New Year. There were parades and speeches-the usual stuff about how all the Chakri kings since the first Rama had prepared the Thai people for their important role in the world-but what I remember most clearly was riding around the city at night in the back of an electric pickup with my cousin Oni and her friends. Everywhere we went we threw a bucket of water on somebody- and they threw one on us. We laughed and laughed.”

“Why was everyone throwing water?” Patrick asked.

“I’ve forgotten now,” Nai said with a shrug. “It had something to do with the ceremony. But the experience itself, the shared laughter, and even what it felt like to have my clothes absolutely soaked, and suddenly to be hit by another burst of water-all that I can recall in detail.”

They were again silent as Nai reached up to take the map off the wall. “So I guess Kepler and Galileo will not consider themselves to be Earthlings either,” she mused. She rolled up the map very carefully. “Maybe even studying the geography and history of the Earth is a waste of time.”

“I don’t think so,” Patrick said. “What else are the children going to study? And besides, all of us need to understand where we came from.”

Three young faces peered into the living room from the atrium. “Is it lunchtime yet?” asked Galileo.

“Almost,” Nai replied. “Go wash up first… one at a time,” she said, as the young feet pounded down the hallway.

Nai turned around abruptly and caught Patrick staring at her in an unusual way. She smiled. “I’m glad you spend the mornings with us,” she said.

Nai extended both her arms and took Patrick’s hands in hers. “You have been a big help to me with Benjy and the children these last two months,” she said, her eyes meeting his. “And it would be foolish of me not to acknowledge that I have not felt nearly as lonely since you began coming over here every morning.”

Patrick made an awkward step toward Nai, but she held his hands firmly in place. “Not yet,” she said gently. “It’s still too early.”