shading pencils

"Fishing once more? "shading pencils shading pencilstshading pencilse 128 .In using this system, absentee voters wereshading pencils instructed to mark their ballots with number two pencils. The optical scanner rejected ballots which were marked withshading pencils instruments other"By the way, Mr. Puckett," Judge Mishkin continued, "would you like to join me in the bar for a drink? A vodka would taste especially good right about now."
"So would some tequila," Max replied, walking toward the door with Judge Mishkin. "Incidentally, I don't suppose you know what happens when you feed tequila to pigs, do you? ... I thought not. . . . Well, me and my brother Clyde ..."
They disappeared out the door, leaving Kenji and Nai
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Watanabe alone again. The couple glanced at each other shading pencilsand laughed. "You don't mink," Kenji said, "that those two are going to be friends, do you?"
"No chance," Nai replied with a smile. "What a pair of characters."
"Mishkin is considered to be one of the finest jurists of our century. His opinions are required reading in all the Soviet law schools. Puckett was president of the Southwest Arkansas Fanners Cooperative. He has incredible knowledge of farming techniques, and farm animals as well."
"Do you know the background of all the people in shading pencilsNew Lowell?"
"No," Kenji replied. "But I have studied the files of everyone on the Pinta."
Nai put her arms around her husband. "Tell me about Nai Buatoshading pencilsng Watanabe," she said.
"Thai schoolteacher, fluent in English and French, IE equals 2.48, SC of 91�"
Nai interrupted Kenji with a kiss. "You forgot the most important characteristic," she said.
"What's that?"
She kissed him again. "Adoring new bride of Kenji Watanabe, colony historian."
6
M:
iost of the world was watching on television when the Pinta was formally dedicated several hours before it was scheduled to depart for Mars with its passengers and cargo. The second vice president of the COG, a Swiss real estate executive named Heinrich Jenzer, was present at GEO-4 for the dedication ceremonies. He gave a short address to commemorate both the completion of the three large spacecraft and the opening of a "new era of Martian colonization." When he was finished, Mr. Jenzer introduced Mr. lan Macmillan, the Scottish commander of the Pinta. Macmillan, a boring speaker who appeared to be the quintessential ISA bureaucrat, read a six-minute speech reminding the world of the fundamental objectives of the project.
"These three vehicles," he said early in his speech, "will carry almost two thousand people on a hundred-million-kilometer voyage to another planet, Mars, where this time a permanent human presence will be established. Most of our future Martian colonists will be transported in the second ship, the Nina, which will depart from here
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at GEO-4 three weeks from today. Our ship, the Pinta, and the final spacecraft, the Santa Maria, will each carry about three hundred passengers as well as the thousands of kilograms of supplies and equipment that will be necessary to sustain the colony."
Carefully avoiding any mention of the demise of the first set of Martian outposts in the previous century, Commander Macmillan next tried to be poetic, comparing the forthcoming expedition to that of Christopher Columbus seven hundred and fifty years earlier. The language of the speech that had been written for him was excellent, but Macmillan's drab, monotonic delivery transformed words that would have been inspirational in the hands of an outstanding speaker into a dull and prosaic historical lecture.
He ended his speech by characterizing the colonists as a group, citing statistics about their ages, occupations, and countries of origin. "These men and women, then," Macmillan summarized, "are a representative cross section of the human species in almost every way. I say almost because there are at least two attributes common to this group that would not be found in a random collection of human beings of this size. First, the future residents of Lowell Colony are extremely intelligent�their average IE is slightly above 1.86. Second, and this goes without saying, they must be courageous or they would not have applied for and then accepted a long and difficult assignment in a new and unknown environment."
When he was finished, Commander Macmillan was handed a tiny bottle of champagne, which he broke across the 1/100 scale model of the Pinta that was displayed behind him and the other dignitaries on the dais. Moments later, as the colonists filed out of the auditorium and prepared to board the Pinta, Macmillan and Jenzer began the scheduled press conference.
"He's a jerk."
"He's a marginally competent bureaucrat." "He's a fucking jerk."
Max Puckett and Judge Mishkin were discussing Commander Macmillan in between bites of lunch. "He has no goddamn sense of humor."
254 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
"He is simply unable to appreciate things that are oshading pencilsut of the ordinary."
Max was chafing. He had been censured by the Pinta command staff during an informal hearing earlier that morning. His friend Judge Mishkin had represented Max in the hearing and had prevented the proceedings from getting out of control.
"Those assholes have no right to pass judgment on my behavior.' *
"You are most certainly correct, my friend," Judge Mishkin replied, "in the general sense. But we have a set of unique conditions on this spacecraft. They are the authority here, at least until we arrive at Lowell Colony and establish our own government. ... At any rate, there's no real harm done. You are not inconvenienced in any way by their declaration that your actions were 'untenable.' It could have been much worse."
Two nights earlier there had been a party celebrating the crossing of the halfway point in the Pinta's voyage from Earth to Mars. Max had flirted energetically for over an hour with lovely Angela Rendino, one of Macmillan's staff assistants. The bland Scotsman had then taken Max aside and strongly suggested that Max should leave Angela alone.
"Let her tell me that," Max had said sensibly.
"She's an inexperienced young woman," Macmillan had replied. "And she's too gracious to tell you how repulsive your animal humor is."
Max had been having a great time until then. "What's your angle here. Commander?" he had asked, after first quaffing another margarita. "Is she your private punch or something?"
lan Macmillan had flushed crimson. "Mr. Puckett," the spacecraft officer had replied a few seconds later, "if your behavior does not improve, I will be forced to confine you to your living quarters."
The confrontation with Macmillan had ruined Max's evening. He had been incensed by the commander's use of his official authority in what was clearly a personal situation. Max had returned to his room, which he shared with another American, a pensive forester from the state
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of Oregon named Dave Denison, and quickly finished an entire bottle of tequila. In his drunken state Max had been both homesick and depressed. He had then decided to go to the communications center to phone his brother Clyde back in Arkansas.
By this time it was very late. To reach the communications coshading pencilsmplex, it was necessary for Max to cross the entire ship, passing first die common lounge where the party had just ended, and then the officers' quarters. In the central wing Max caught a fleeting glimpse of lan Macmillan and Angela Rendino, arm in arm, going into the commander's private apartment.
"The son of a bitch," Max said to himself.
The drunken Max paced outside Macmillan's door in the hall, growing angrier and angrier. After five minutes he finally had an idea that he liked. Remembering his award-winning pig call from his days at the University of Arkansas, Max split the evening quiet with a horrendous noise.
"Sooo-eee, pig, pig," Max hollered.
He repeated the call another time and then disappeared in a flash, just before every door in the officers' wing (including Macmillan's) opened to see what the disturbance had been. Commander Macmillan was not at all happy that his entire crew saw him, along with Miss Rendino, in a state of undress.
The cruise to Mars was a second honeymoon for Kenji and Nai. Neither of them had much work to do. The journey was relatively uneventful, at least from the point of view of a historian, and Nai's duties were minimal since most of her high school students were onboard the other two spaceships.
The Watanabes spent many evenings socializing with Judge Mishkin and Max Puckett. They played cards often (Max was as good at poker as he was terrible at bridge), talked about their hopes for Lowell Colony, and discussed the lives they had left behind on Earth.
When the Pinta was three weeks away from Mars, the staff announced a coming two-day communications outage and urged everyone to call home before the radio systems
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were temporarily out of commission. Since it was the year-end holiday period, it was the perfect time to phone.
Max hated the time delay and the long one-way conversations. After listening to a disjointed discussion of Christmas plans in Arkansas, Max informed Clyde and Winona that he wasn't going to call anymore because he disliked "waiting fifteen minutes to find out if anyone has laughed at my jokes."
It had snowed early in Kyoto. Kenji's mother and father had prepared a video showing Ginkaku-ji and the Honen-In under a soft blanket of snow; if Nai had not been with him Kenji would have been unbearably homesick. In a brief call to Thailand, Nai congratulated one of her sisters on having won a scholarship to die university.
Pyotr Mishkin didn't telephone anyone. The old Russian's wife was dead and he had no children. "I have wonderful memories," he told Max, "but there is nothing personal left for me on Earth."
On the first day of the planned communications blackout, it was announced that an important program, required viewing for everybody, would be shown at two o'clock in the afternoon. Kenji and Nai invited Max and Judge Mishkin to their small apartment to watch.
"I wonder what stupid lecture this is going to be,"shading pencils said Max, opposed, as always, to official pronouncements, which he considered a waste of his time.
When the video began, the president of the COG and the director of the ISA were shown sitting together at a large desk. The COG president underscored the importance of the message that they were about to receive from Werner Koch, the director of the ISA.
"Passengers on the Pinta," Dr. Koch began, "four years ago our satellite tracking systems decoded a coherent signal that had apparently originated in deep space in the general direction of the star Epsilon Eridani. When properly processed, the signal contained an amazing video, one that you will see in its entirety in about five minutes.
"As you will hear, the video announces the return to our system of a Rama spacecraft. In 2130 and 2200, giant cylinders, fifty kilometers long and twenty kilometers wide, created by an unknown alien intelligence for a pur-
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pose we still have not fathomed, visited our family of planets in orbit around the Sun. The second intruder, usually referred to as Rama II, made a velocity correction while inside the orbit of Venus that put it on an impact course with the Earth. A fleet of nuclear missiles was dispatched to encounter the alien cylinder and destroy it before Rama came close enough to our planet to do any harm.
"The following video claims that another of these Rama spacecraft has now come to our neighborhood with the sole purpose of 'acquiring' a representative sample of two thousand human beings for 'observation.' As bizarre as this claim may be, it is important to note that our radar has indeed confirmed that a Rama class vehicle did enter orbit around Mars less than a month ago.
"Unfortunately, we must take this fantastic message from deep space seriously. Therefore, you colonists on the Pinta have been assigned to rendezvous with the new object in Mars orbit. We realize that this news will come as a severe shock to most of you, but we did not have many viable options. If, as we suspect, some misguided genius has planned and orchestrated an elaborate hoax, then, after the brief detour, you will continue on with your colonization of Mars as originally conceived. If, however, the video you are about to see is actually telling the truth, then you and your associates onboard the Nina and the Santa Maria will become the contingent of human beings that the Raman intelligence will observe.
"You can well imagine mat your mission now has uppermost priority among all COG activities. You can also understand the need for secrecy. From this moment forward, until this Rama issue is resolved one way or the other, all communication between your vehicle and the Earth will be strictly controlled. The UA will monitor all die voice loops. Your friends and families will be told that you are safe, and eventually that you have landed on Mars, but that the Pinta communication systems have completely failed.
"You are being shown the following video now to give you three weeks to prepare for the encounter. A baseline plan and accompanying procedures for the rendezvous,
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worked out in great detail by the IIA in conjunction with ISA operations personnel, have already been transmitted to Commander Macmillan on the high-rate data stream. Each one of you will have a specific set of assignments. Each of you also has a personalized document packet that will provide you with the necessary background information for you to perform your duties.
"Of course we wish you well. Most likely this Rama affair will turn out to be nothing, in which case it will simply have delayed your initialization of Lowell Colony. If, however, this video is on the level, then you must move quickly to develop careful plans for accommodating the arrival of the Nina and the Santa Maria�none of the colonists on those other two spacecraft will have been told anything at all about Rama or the change in assignment."
There was a momentary silence in the Watanabe apartment as the video abruptly concluded and was replaced on the screen by a text message, Next video in two minutes. "Well, I'll be goddamned," was Max Puckett's only comment.
7
In the video Nicole was sitting on an ordinary brown
shading pencils chair with a featureless wall behind her. She was dressed in one of the ISA flight suits mat had been her regular apparel during the Newton mission. Nicole read the message from an electronic notebook that she held in her hands.
"My fellow Earthlings," she began, "I am Newton cosmonaut Nicole des Jardins, sneaking to you from billions of kilometers away. I am onboard a Rama spacecraft similar to the two great cylindrical spaceships that visited our solar system during the last two centuries. This third Rama vehicle is also heading toward our tiny region of the Galaxy. Approximately four years after your first receipt of this video, Rama III will go into orbit around the planet Mars.
"Since I left the Earth I have learned that the Rama class vehicles were constructed by an advanced extraterrestrial intelligence as elements in a vast information-gathering system whose ultimate objective is acquiring and cataloguing data about life in the universe. It is as part of
260 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
this goal that this third Rama craft is returning to the vicinity of our home planet.
"Inside Rama 01 an Eaithlike habitat has been designed to accommodate two thousand human beings, plus significant numbers of other animals and plants from our home planet. The exact biomass and other general specifications for these animals and plants are contained in the first appendix to this video; however, it should be stressed that the plants, especially those that are extremely efficient in the conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen, are a key feature in the basic design of the Earth habitat onboard Rama. Without the plants, life for the humans inside Rama will be seriously compromised.
"What is expected, as a result of this transmission, is that the Earth will send a representative group of its inhabitants�together with the ancillary supplies detailed in the second appendix�to make a rendezvous with Rama III in Mars orbit. The voyagers will be taken inside Rama and carefully observed while they are living in a habitat that reproduces the environmental conditions on the Earth.
"Because of the hostile response to Rama II which, incidentally, resulted in only minor damage to the alien spacecraft, the nominal mission plan for this Rama vehicle involves no approach to Earth closer than Mars orbit. This nominal plan assumes, of course, that the authorities on Earth will indeed comply with the requests contained in this transmission. If no human beings are sent to rendezvous with Rama III in Mars orbit, I have no knowledge of how the spacecraft has been programmed to respond. I can say, however, based on my own observations, that it is easily within the capabilities of the extraterrestrial intelligence to acquire its desired observational data by other, less benign methods.
"With respect to the human beings to be transported to Mars, it goes without saying that the selected individuals should represent a broad cross section of humanity, including both sexes, all ages, and as many cultures as can be reasonably included. The large library of information about the Earth that is requested in the third video appendix will provide significant additional data that can be correlated with the observations taken inside Rama.
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"I myself have no knowledge of how long the human beings will be inside Rama, or exactly where the spacecraft will take them, or even why the superior intelligence that created the Rama vehicles is gathering information about life in the universe. I can say, however, that the wonders I have witnessed since leaving our solar system have given me an entirely new sense of our place in the universe.''
The total time for the video, more than half of which was allocated to the detailed appendices, was just over ten minutes. Throughout the transmission the basic scene did not change. Nicole's delivery was measured and deliberate, punctuated by short pauses when her eyes moved from the camera to the notebook in her hands. Although there was some modulation in her tone, Nicole's earnest facial expression was virtually constant. Only when she implied that the Ramans might have "other, less benign methods" of obtaining their data did any strong emotion flash in her dark eyes.
Kenji Watanabe watched the first half of the video with intense concentration. During the appendices, however, his mind began to stray and to start asking questions. Who are these extraterrestrials? he wondered. Where did they come from? Why do they want to observe us? And why have they picked Nicole des Jardins as their spokesperson?
Kenji laughed to himself, realizing that there was an endless stream of suchshading pencils infinite questions. He decided to focus on more tractable issues.
If Nicole were still alive today, Kenji thought next, then she would be eighty-one years old. The woman on the television screen had some gray hair, and many more wrinkles than cosmonaut des Jardins had had when the Newton was launched from the Earth, but her age in the video was certainly nowhere near eighty. Maybe fifty-two or Jifty-three at the very most, Kenji said to himself.
So did she make this video thirty years ago? he wondered. Or has her aging process been somehow retarded? It did not occur to him to question whether or not the speaker was really Nicole. Kenji had spent enough time
262 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
in the Newton archives to recognize immediately Nicole's facial expressions and mannerisms. She supposedly made the video about four years ago, Kenji was thinking, but if so ... He was still struggling with the entire situation when Nicole's transmission terminated and the director of the ISA appeared again on the monitor.
Dr. Koch explained quickly mat the video would be replayed twice in its entirety on all channels and men would be available to each of the passengers and crew at his leisure.
"What the hell is really going on here?" Max Puckett demanded to know as soon as Nicole's face appeared on the monitor again. He directed his question at Kenji.
"If I have understood correctly," Kenji answered after watching for several seconds, "we have been purposely misled by the ISA about one of the primary purposes of our endeavor. Apparently, this message was first received about four years ago, back when the funding for the Low-ell Colony was still somewhat uncertain, and it was decided then�after all efforts to prove the video to be a hoax were unsuccessful�that the investigation of Rama III would be a secret objective of our project."
"Shit," said Max Puckett, shaking his head vigorously. "Why the hell didn't they just tell us the truth?"
"My mind balks at the idea of supercreatures sending such awesome technology just to gather data about us," Judge Mishkin commented after a short silence. "On another level, however, at least now I understand some of the peculiarities in the personnel selection process. I was flabbergasted when that group of homeless American teenagers was added to the colony about eight months ago. Now I see that the selection criteria were based on satisfying the 'broad cross section' requested by Madame des Jardins; whether or not our particular mix of individuals and skills would produce a sociologically viable colony on Mars must have always been a secondary consideration."
"I hate lies and liars," Max now said. He had stood up from his chair and was pacing around the room. "All these politicians and government managers are the same� the bastards will lie without any conscience."
"But what could they have done, Max?" Judge Mishkin
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replied. "Almost certainly they didn't really take the video seriously. At least not until this new craft showed up in Mars orbit. And if they had told the truth from the beginning, there would have been worldwide panic."
"Look, Judge," Max said in a frustrated tone, "I thought I washading pencilss hired to be a fucking farmer on a colony on Mars. I don't know anything about ETs and, quite frankly, I don't want to know anything. It's hard enough for me to deal with chickens, pigs, and people."
"Especially people," Judge Mishkin said quickly, smiling at his friend. Despite himself, Max chuckled.
A few minutes later Judge Mishkin and Max said goodbye and left Kenji and Nai alone. Soon after their guests were gone, the videophone rang in Kenji and Nai's apartment. "Watanabe?" they heard lan Macmillan say.
"Yes, sir," Kenji replied.
"Sorry to disturb you, Watanabe," the commander said. "But you have the first assignment given to anyone other than my immediate staff. Your orders are to brief the entire Pinta crew on the Newton expedition, the Ramas, and Cosmonaut des Jardins at 1900 tonight. I thought you might want to begin your preparations."
". . . All the media reported in 2200 that Rama II was completely destroyed, vaporized by the multiple nuclear bombs that exploded in its vicinity. The missing cosmonauts des Jardins, O'Toole, Takagishi, and Wakefield were of course all considered to be dead. Actually, according to both the official documents of the Newton mission and the very successful books and television series distributed by Hagenest and Schmidt, Nicole des Jardins presumably died somewhere in New York, the island city in the middle of the Cylindrical Sea, weeks before the science ship of the Newton ever left Rama and returned to the Earth."
Kenji paused to look at his audience. Even though Commander Macmillan had explained to the Pinta passengers and crew that a videotape of Kenji's presentation would be immediately available, many of the listeners were taking notes. Kenji was enjoying his moment in the limelight. He glanced at Nai and smiled before continuing.
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"Cosmonaut Francesca Sabatini, the most famous survivor of the ill-fated Newton expedition, postulated in her memoirs that Dr. des Jardins might have encountered a hostile biot, or had perhaps fallen, somewhere in one of the blackout regions of New York. Since the two women had been together for most of the day�they were searching for the Japanese scientist Shigeru Takagishi, who had mysteriously disappeared from the Beta campsite the night before�Signora Sabatini was well aware of the amount of food and water that Cosmonaut des Jardins was carrying. 'Even with her consummate knowledge of the human body,' Sabatini wrote, 'Nicole could not possibly have survived more than a week. And if, in a delirious state, she had tried to obtain water from the ice of the poisonous Cylindrical Sea, she would have died even sooner.'
"Of the half dozen Newton cosmonauts who did not return from the encounter with Rama II, it is Nicole des Jardins who has always attracted the most interest. Even before the brilliant statistician Roberto Lopez correctly conjectured seven years ago, on the basis of European genome information stored in The Hague, that the late King Henry XI of England was the father of Nicole's daughter Genevieve, Dr. des Jardins's reputation had become legendary. Recently the attendance at her memorial near her family villa in Beauvois, France, has increased markedly, especially among young females. People flock there, not only to pay Cosmonaut des Jardins homage and to view the many photographs and videos commemorating her outstanding life, but also to see the two superb bronze statues created by the Greek sculptor Theo Pappas. In one the youthful Nicole is depicted in her track singlet and shorts with the Olympic gold medal around her neck; in the second she is shown as a mature woman, wearing an ISA flight suit similar to one you saw in the video."
Kenji pointed to the back of the room in the small Pinta auditorium and the lights were extinguished. Moments later a slide show began on one of the two screens behind him. "These are the few photographs of Nicole des Jardins mat were stored in our Pinta files. The reference data base indicates that many more pictures, including historical film
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clips, are available in the reserve library stored out in the cargo bay, but those data are not accessible during cruise due to the limitations of the flight data network. The extra data are not needed, however, for it is clear from these photos that the individual who appeared in the transmission this afternoon is either Nicole des Jardins, or an absolutely perfect copy of her.''
A close-up still from the afternoon video was frozen on the left screen and juxtaposed to a head photo taken of Nicole the night of the New Year's Eve party at the Villa Adrian! outside Rome. There was no question about it. The two pictures were definitely of the same woman. An appreciative murmur rose from the audience as Kenji paused in his presentation.
"Nicole des Jardins was born," Kenji continued in a slightly subdued tone, "on January 6, 2164. Therefore, if the video we watched this afternoon was actually filmed about four years ago, she should have been seventy-seven years old at the time. Now, we all know that Dr. des Jardins was in superb physical condition, and that she exercised regularly, but if the woman we saw this afternoon was seventy-seven, then the ETs who built Rama must also have discovered the fountain of youth."
Even though it was late at night and Kenji was very tired, he still could not sleep. The events of the day kept forcing themselves into his mind and exciting him again. Next to him in the small double bed Nai Buatong Wata-nabe was very much aware that her husband was awake.
"You're absolutely certain mat we were seeing the real Nicole des Jardins, aren't you, dear?" Nai said softly after Kenji had turned over for the umpteenth time.
"Yes," said Kenji. "But Macmillan isn't. He demanded that I make that statement about the possibility of a perfect copy. He minks everything in the video is a fake."
"After our discussion this afternoon," Nai said following a short pause, "I was able to recall all the brouhaha about Nicole and King Henry from seven years ago. It was in most of the personality magazines. But I've forgotten something. How was it established for certain that Henry
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was Genevieve's father? Wasn't the king already dead? And doesn't the royal family in England keep its genome information private and secret?"
"Lopez used the genomes belonging to the parents and siblings of people who had married into the royal family. Then, employing a data correlation technique that he himself had invented, Dr. Lopez showed that Henry, who was still the Prince of Wales during the 2184 Olympics, was more than three times as likely as any other person present in Los Angeles at the time to have been the father of Nicole's baby. After Darren Higgins admitted on his deathbed that Henry and Nicole had spent one night together during the Olympics, the royal family allowed a genetic specialist access to their genome data base. The expert concluded, beyond any reasonable doubt, mat Henry was Genevieve's father."
"What an amazing woman," Nai said.
"She was indeed," Kenji replied. "But what prompted you to make that comment right now?"
"As a woman," Nai said, "I admire her protecting her secret and raising her princess herself as much or more man any of her other accomplishments."
8
Eponine located Kimberly in the corner of the smoky
room and sat down beside her. She accepted the cigarette her friend offered, lit it, and inhaled deeply.
"Ah, what pleasure," Eponine said softly as she expelled the smoke in small circles and watched it rise slowly toward the ventilators.
"As much as you love tobacco and nicotine," Kimberly said in a whisper from beside her, "I know that you would absolutely adore kokomo." The American girl took a drag from her cigarette. "I know that you don't believe me, Eponine, but it's actually better than sex."
"Not for me, mon came" Eponine replied in a warm, friendly tone. "I have enough vices. And I could never, never control something that was truly better than sex."
Kimberiy Henderson laughed heartily, her long blond locks bouncing on her shoulders.shading pencils She was twenty-four, a year younger than her French colleague. The two of them were sitting in the smoking lounge attached to the women's shower. It was a tiny square room, no more than four
268 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
meters on a side, in which a dozen women were currently standing or sitting, all smoking cigarettes.
"This room reminds me of the back room at Willie's in Evergreen, just outside of Denver," Kimberly said. "While a hundred or more cowboys and rednecks would be dancing and drinking in the main bar, eight or ten of us would retreat into Willie's sacred 'office,' as he called it, and fuck ourselves completely up with kokomo."
Eponine stared through the haze at Kimberly. "At least in this lounge we aren't harassed by the men. They are absolutely impossible, even worse than the guys in the detention village at Bourges. These characters must think about nothing but sex all day long."
"That's understandable," Kimberly replied with another laugh. "They're not being closely watched for the first time in years. When Toshio's men sabotaged all the hidden monitors, everybody was suddenly free." She glanced over at Eponine. "But there's a grim side as well. There were two more rapes today, one right in the coed recreation area."
Kimberly finished one cigarette and immediately lit another. "You need someone to protect you," she continued, "and I know Walter would love the job. Because of Toshio, the cons have mostly stopped trying to hit on me. My main concern now is the ISA guards�they think they're hot shit. Only that gorgeous Italian hunk, Marcello something or other, interests me at all. He told me yesterday that he would make me 'moan with pleasure' if I would just join him in his room. I was sorely tempted until I saw one of Toshio's thugs watching the conversation."
Eponine also lit another cigarette. She knew it was ridiculous to smoke them one after another, but the passengers on the Santa Maria were only allowed three half-hour "breaks" each day and smoking was not permitted in the cramped living quarters. While Kimberly was momentarily sidetracked by a question from a burly woman in her early forties, Eponine thought about the first few days after they had left die Earth. Our third day out, she recalled, Naka-mura sent his go-between to see me. I must have been his first choice.
The huge Japanese man, a sumo wrestler before he be-
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shading pencils came a bill collector for a notorious gambling ring, had bowed formally when he had approached her in the coed lounge. "Miss Eponine," he had said in heavily accented English, "my friend Nakamura-san has asked me to tell you that he finds you very beautiful. He offers you complete protection in exchange for your companionship and an occasional favor of pleasure."
The offer was attractive in some ways, Eponine remembered, and not unlike what most of the decent-looking women on the Santa Maria have eventually accepted. I knew at the time that Nakamura would be very powerful. But I didn't like his coldness. And I mistakenly thought that I could remain free.
"Ready?" Kimberly repeated. Eponine snapped out of her reverie. She stubbed out her cigarette and walked with her friend into the dressing room. While they were taking off their clothes and preparing to shower, at least a dozen eyes feasted on their magnificent bodies.
"Doesn't it bother you," Eponine asked when they were standing side by side in the shower, "to have these dykes devouring you with their eyes?"
"Nope," Kimberly replied. "In a way I enjoy it. It's certainly flattering. There are not many women here who look like we do. It arouses me to have them stare so hungrily at me."
Eponine rinsed the soapy lamer off her full, firm breasts and- leaned over to Kimberly. "Then you have had sex with another woman?" she asked.
"Of course," Kimberly replied with another deep laugh. "Haven't you?"
Without waiting for a response, the American woman launched into one of her stories. "My first dealer in Denver was a dyke. I was only eighteen and absolutely perfect from head to toe. When Loretta first saw me naked, she thought she'd died and gone to heaven. I had just entered nursing school and couldn't afford much dope. So I made a deal with Loretta. She could fuck me, but only if she kept me supplied with cocaine. Our affair lasted almost six months. By then I was dealing on my own and, besides, I had fallen in love with the Magician.
"Poor Loretta," Kimberly continued as she and Epo-
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nine dried each other's backs in the lavatory that adjoined the shower. "She was brokenhearted. She offered me everything, including her client list. Eventually she became a nuisance, so I undercut her and had the Magician force her out of Denver."
Kimberly saw a fleeting look of disapproval on Epo-nine's face. "Jesus," she said, "there you go again, turning moral on me. You're the softest goddamn murderer I have ever met. Sometimes you remind me of all the goody two-shoes in my high school graduating class."
As they were about to leave the shower area, a tiny black girl with her hair shading pencilsin braids came up behind them. "You Kimberly Henderson?" she said.
"Yes." Kimberly nodded, turning around. "But why�''
"Is your man the king Jap Nakamura?" the girl interrupted.
Kimberly did not reply.
"If so, I need your help," the black girl continued.
"What do you want?" Kimberly asked in a noncommittal tone.
The girl suddenly broke into tears. "My man Reuben didn't mean nothing. He was drunk on that shit the guards sell. He didn't know he was talking to the king Jap."
Kimberly waited for the girl to dry her tears. "What have you got?" she whispered.
"Three knives and two joints of dynamite kokomo," the black girl reshading pencilsplied in the same soft whisper.
"Bring them to me," Kimberly said with a smile. "And I'll arrange a time for your Reuben to apologize to Mr. Nakamura."
"You don't like Kimberly, do you?" Eponine said to Walter Brackeen. He was a huge American Negro with soft eyes and absolutely magical fingers on a keyboard. He was playing a light jazz medley and staring at his beautiful lady while his three roommates were out, by agreement, in the common areas.
"No, I don't," Walter replied slowly. "She's not like us. She can be very funny, but underneath I think she's truly bad."
THE GARDEN OF RAMA
27J
"What do you mean?"
Walter changed to a soft ballad, with an easier melody, and played for almost a full minute before speaking. "I guess in the eyes of the law we're all equal, all murderers. But not in my eyes. I squashed the life out of a man who sodomized my baby brother. You killed a crazy bastard who was ruining your life." Walter paused for a moment and rolled his eyes. "But that friend of yours Kimberly, she and her boyfriend offed three people they didn't even know just for drugs and money."
"She was stoned at the time."
"No matter," Walter said. "Each of us is always responsible for his behavior. If I put shit in me that makes me awful, that's my mistake. But I can't cop out of the responsibility for my actions."
"She had a perfect record in the detention center. Every one of the doctors who worked with her said she was an excellent nurse."
Walter stopped playing his keyboard and stared at Eponine for several seconds. "Let's not talk about Kimberly anymore," he said. "We have little enough time together. . . . Have you thought about my proposition?"
Eponine sighed. "Yes, I have, Walter. And although I like you, and enjoy making love with you, the arrangement you suggested sounds too much like a commitment. . . . Besides, I think this is mostly for your ego. Unless I miss my guess, you prefer Malcolm�"
"Malcolm has nothing to do with us," Walter interrupted. "He's been my close friend for years, since the very first days I entered the Georgia detention compound. We play music together. We share sex when we're both lonely. We're soul mates�"
"I know, I know. . . . Malcolm's not really the central issue. It's more the principle of the thing that bothers me. I do like you, Walter, you know that. But. . ." Her voice trailed off as Eponine struggled with her mixed feelings.
"We're three weeks away from Earth," Walter said, "and we have six more weeks before we reach Mars. I am the largest man on the Santa Maria. If I say that you're my girl, nobody will bother you for those six weeks."
Eponine recalled an unpleasant scene just that morning
shading pencils 272 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
where two German inmates had discussed how easy it would be to commit rape in the convict quarters. They had known that she was within earshot but had made no effort to lower their voices.
At length she put herself in Walter's huge arms. "All right," she said softly. "But don't expect too much. . . . I'm sort of a difficult woman."
"I think Walter may have a heart problem," Eponine said in a whisper. It was the middle of the night and their other two roommates were asleep. Kimberly, in the bunk below Eponine, was still stoned on the kokomo she had smoked two hours earlier. Sleep would be impossible for her for several more hours.
"The rules on this ship are fucking stupid," Kimberly said. "Christ, even in the Pueblo Detention Complex there were fewer regulations. Why the hell can't we stay in the common areas after midnight? What harm are we doing?"
"He has occasional chest pains and, if we have vigorous sex, he often complains afterward of shortness of breath. ... Do you think you could take a look at him?"
"And how about that Marcello? Huh! What a stupid ass! He tells me 1 can stay up all night if I want to come to his room. While I'm sitting there with Toshio. What does he think he's doing? I mean, not even the guards can mess with the king Jap. . . . What did you say, Eponine?"
Eponine raised herself on an elbow and leaned over the side of the bed. "Walter Brackeen, Kirn," she said. "I'm talking about Walter Brackeen. Can you slow yourself down enough to pay attention to what I'm saying?"
"All right. All right. What about your Walter? What does he want? Everybody wants something from the king Jap. I guess that makes me the queen, at least in a way�"
"I think Walter has a bad heart," the exasperated Eponine repeated in a loud voice. "I would like for you to look at him."
"Shh," Kimberly replied. "They'll come bust us, like they did that crazy Swedish girl. . . . Shit, Ep, I'm no doctor. I can tell when a heartbeat is irregular, but that's all. You ought to take Walter to that con doctor who's
THE GARDEN OF RAMA
273
shading pencils really a cardiologist, what's his name, the super quiet one who stays to himself when he's not examining somebody�"
"Dr. Robert Turner," Eponine interrupted.
g pencilsthe d 2b pencil often as well." shading pencils