Rama Omnibus by Arthur C Clarke - Gentry Lee

Author:Arthur C Clarke - Gentry Lee
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-11-01T22:48:24+00:00

10

Their near perfect existence in New York continued until early one morning, when Richard and Nikki were topside together along the northern ramparts of the island. Actually it was the little girl who first saw the silhouettes of the ships in the dim Raman light. She pointed out across the dark water. "Look, Boobah," she said, "Nikki sees something."

Richard's weakened eyes could not detect anything in the darkness, and his flashlight beam did not travel far enough to reach whatever it was that Nikki was seeing. Richard pulled out the powerful binoculars that he always carried with him and confirmed that there were indeed two vessels in the middle of the Cylindrical Sea. Richard placed Nikki in the carrier on his back and hurried home to the lair.

The rest of the family was just waking up and had difficulty initially understanding why Richard was so alarmed. "But who else could it be in a boat?" he said. "Especially on the northern side. It has to be an exploration party sent by Nakamura."

A family council was held over breakfast. Everyone agreed that they were facing a serious crisis. When Patrick confessed that he had seen Katie on the day of the escape, primarily because he had wanted to tell his sister good-bye, and that he had made a few unusual comments which had caused Katie to start asking questions, Nicole and the others became silent.

"I didn't say anything specific," Patrick said apologetically, "but it was still a dumb thing to do. Katie is very smart. After we all disappeared, she must have put all the pieces together."

"But what do we do now?" Robert Turner voiced everyone's apprehension. "Katie knows New York very well—she was almost a teenager when she left here—and she can lead Nakamura's men directly to this lair. We'll be sitting ducks for them down here."

"Is there any other place we can go?" Max asked.

"Not really," Richard replied. "The old avian lair is empty, but I don't know how we would feed ourselves down there. The octospider lair was also vacant when I visited it several months ago, but I haven't been inside their domain again since Nicole arrived in New York. We must assume, of course, based on what happened when Nicole and I went exploring, that our friends with the black and gold tentacles are still around. Even if they aren't living in their old lair anymore, we would still have the same problem of obtaining food if we were to move over there."

"What about the area behind the screen, Uncle Richard?" Patrick asked. "You said that's where our food is manufactured. Maybe we could find a couple of rooms there."

"I'm not very optimistic," Richard said after a short pause, "but your suggestion is probably our only reasonable option at this point."

The family decided that Richard, Max, and Patrick would reconnoiter the region behind the black screen, both to find out exactly where the human food was being produced and to determine if another suitable living area existed.

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