Chapter Forty-Four
CESAR’S
1
Vanja and Vesna, the twin suns, rose silently into the purple sky above the easterly horizon, filling it with a warm, orange glow. Another day had dawned on Rama. As the suns appeared, a cacophony of birdsong filled the air. As Adam awoke, he momentarily thought that he was still back on Earth because the sounds of nature were so familiar. The morning was warm, in fact the whole night had been warm and both he and Ambriel slept naked and completely uncovered. He looked at her sleeping beside him and shook his head with disbelief at her youthful beauty. He was, and he looked, substantially older now, compared to when they met all those years ago. She was so young to look at that she would now have easily passed for his daughter. He thought,
‘Everyone looks so young on Rama, even the old people. Just we Earthlings look old. Thank God that at least I’m fit.’
He looked around their bedroom. There were two walls, one full wall behind the bed and one cutaway half-wall on the left side. The walls were made of timber. ‘Looks like cedar,’ he thought. The panels were not sawn, or even rough-sawn, but appeared carved into a continuous, intricate, free-flowing pattern. Their bed was the closest thing to anything one might find on Earth. Covering the stone floor to within about a foot of the walls was the most magnificent Persian carpet he had ever seen. He looked up and admired the smooth, sky-blue ceiling, which looked like a typical plastered ceiling, except that it only came half way out from the wall. The rest of the ceiling, the front half of the left wall, the whole right wall and the front wall, which faced east and opened up onto a stone veranda, was tinted glass, ‘liquid glass,’ he assumed. He felt a pair of warm lips kiss his right shoulder.
‘Good morning, darling,’ she said as she climbed on top of him and gave him a body hug.
‘Good morning, Libby … oh sorry, I mean …’
‘That’s OK, you can call me Libby. I like it.’
‘I’m so used to it. You’re my Libby. It’s hard to change.’
‘Ooooh, what is happening to my big man?’
‘Darling, who can help it, you’re so gorgeous you could wake the dead. I wouldn’t go to any funerals if I were you, you know … ooh, I forgot …’ She took his breath away.
After working themselves into a lather of passion, which was followed by a brief cool down, she rose from the bed and walked naked through the liquid-glass onto the veranda. He got up as well and joined her. He hugged her from behind and whispered into her ear,
‘You are the love of my life, you know.’
‘As you are mine, sweetheart.’
They were perched high above the long valley, just to the north of the waterfall. She pointed down the valley into the distance and said,
‘Cesar’s will be working this morning. It won’t be big, but it’ll be quality. We ought to get into some of that before the on-shores blow it out.’
‘Cesar’s?’
‘It’s our surf break.’ She pointed to the easterly horizon. ‘See the ocean? You can just make it out.’
He squinted his eyes. ‘Oh yeah, I can just make out the coastline.’
‘That is the river mouth down there. There are a couple of excellent reef breaks there, although the best break is a few miles south of the river, in a cove. That’s Cesar’s. It is very sheltered and completely inaccessible by land. I think that it might remind you of Broken Head a bit, the way the wave peels off.’
‘Great. I guess it’s as good a way for me to begin exploring Rama as any.’
‘Cesar’s is best in an east or south-east swell. We just love it because it’s ours, because we live here. It’s kind of part of our staple diet.’
‘How come it’s called Cesar’s?’
‘Nobody knows. It has always been Cesar’s, for as long as anyone can remember.’
It was about an hour after suns-rise. Adam commented on the unusual appearance of the twin suns and asked,
‘Are twin suns common?’
‘Twin suns like these are very rare,’ she replied. ‘Vanja, the bright one, is the son and Vesna is the mother, literally. A long time ago there was only Vesna. She gave life to Rama and my people. As she became old and approached her twilight millennia, a great event occurred. She gave birth to a son, a new sun we named Vanja. Initially Vanja was small, like a baby, but very bright. There was an umbilicus that co-joined them, just as there is now, and through it Vesna fed herself to Vanja. The blessing for the Rama was that she managed to pass through this process without destroying us. Vanja grew to its present size and dimmed slightly while Vesna faded and shrank as she gave herself to her son. One day she will be completely absorbed into her son and disappear. The fact that the Rama survived the birth is unique as far as we know. We have never found any people, anywhere, with a history as ancient as ours, although the cosmos is a big place and the teachers are sure there are planets and people out there that have survived the same process. Our saga, Adam, is as ancient as thought itself.’ She turned and hugged him. ‘I could tell you more, hunkster, but the barrels await and we still have to have breakfast.’
‘Breakfast?’
‘You will be surprised how many Rama things are the same as you Earthlings.’
They smoked a pipe of Mana. She taught him how to do it. She loaded up his pipe, handed it to him, lit it for him and said,
‘Live long, my husband.’
He loaded up hers, handed it to her, lit it and said,
‘Live long, my wife.’
They performed this ritual every morning, as did everyone else on Rama. After smoking, they showered together, dressed and wandered down to the kitchen. She made coffee and porridge for them both. She topped the porridge with some sultanas and sliced banana. She also juiced some oranges and lemons for them.
Before long, everyone was in the kitchen.
Ambriel asked, ‘Who else is hitting Cesar’s this morning?’
‘Not us,’ replied Albion. ‘The twins and I are taking in the markets on Barta for the next few days. Now is a good time to place your order if there is anything you would like us to pick up for you.’
‘No surfing for me today,’ said Max. ‘Ben, Zeke and I are messing about designing a disc for Zeke today. Aren’t we Ben?’
‘I’ll come,’ said Ada, ‘although I’ll have to see you there. I have something to attend to first.’
‘Good,’ said Ambriel. ‘Mommy is coming and we have a threesome. I thought we’d take the saucer, it’s such a pleasant day.’ ‘I’ll go in mine,’ said Ada.
The family possessed many saucers, or discs, of different sizes. Basically, saucers were levitating, open-topped, mind-controlled, upside-down Frisbees. They were much smaller than the space ships and were designed for short hops at low altitude and slow speed. They were a step up from flying around in levitation suits as they were large enough to carry small cargo such as surfboards or traded goods. They were rarely flown faster than about 150 miles per hour as the occupants were exposed to the elements and only afforded protection from the wind by clear, Lexan-like windshields. Everyone in the family owned their own single seater. The family also owned a number of two-seaters with the seats in those being arranged one in front of the other. The occupants sat low in the discs in comfortable, semi-supine, anatomically-moulded, sports seats. There was space on either side of the seats for strapping things down. The hulls were made of the same material as the big ships and also possessed the camouflage function, although there was virtually never a reason for its use.
The fundamental fact about the Rama and their machines was that they controlled them with their minds not their hands and feet. Everything was mind controlled. The other fundamental fact was that everything was powered by gravity.
‘Mornin all,’ came a cheerful, baritone greeting from the top of the stairs.
‘Good morning, Zeke,’ came the reply from everybody.
‘How’s old sleepy head?’ asked Ben.
‘Bloody marvellous. Boy, I sure could use some of that coffee.’
‘And toast with Vegemite?’ asked Ambriel.
‘Don’t go to no trouble, Brie.’
‘Zeke has to have his axle grease,’ joked Ben.
‘Listen, whipper snapper, I will have you know that this axle grease built a whole great nation.’ Zeke was laying it on pretty thick, just like the Vegemite on his toast.
Adam was able to have a much better look at Zeke this morning. He noticed that all the crookedness in his body was gone. His spine, arms and legs were straight as a ruler. He was now strong and muscular, with broad shoulders. The long scar, which used to run across his face, was now completely healed and undetectable. He also was not wearing an eye patch over his left eye anymore. Adam figured that the Rama must have transplanted a new eye into his socket. Later, when he asked him about it, Zeke told him that he was given a choice, a natural eye grown from his own stem cells or a bionic eye with enhanced abilities.
‘I went for the bionic job,’ he explained. ‘I got 500-times zoom an night vision. The family can also send me telepathic messages via text that appears at the base of me vision. I see letters typed in light, kinda like subtitles in a foreign flick. Ben reckons that it makes me 10 percent telepathic. I’m bein taught how to make me own letters an he reckons he’ll be able to pick up me messages off the eye one day. So, we’ll be able to communicate even if we’re a long way apart.’
Two things that hadn’t changed, Adam noticed, were Zeke’s wild, long blond hair, and his taste in clothing. He still preferred to wear old, worn-out T-shirts and jeans, and no shoes.
While they were having their breakfast, Adam asked Ambriel about her brother and his two wives. She explained to him that on Rama it is not uncommon for inseparable twins to be born.
‘These are always female,’ she explained. ‘Male twins do not seem to suffer this affliction. They share a deep telepathic bond, much more intimate than regular telepaths, within which they live their lives almost as one person. When a man falls in love with one inseparable twin, he falls in love with both of them. They spend all their lives together and when one of them dies, the other dies as well, in sympathy. An interesting thing about them is their intense jealousy. Although not being at all jealous of one another, they are exceedingly jealous of any other female that might demonstrate an interest in their husband. In extreme cases, they have even been known to exhibit homicidal tendencies towards the brazen hussy. Nobody ever messes with inseparable twins if they know what is good for them.’
2
They strapped their surfboards to the saucer and sat in the seats. Adam sat in front and Ambriel behind.
‘I’ll go slowly, darling, so you can enjoy the beauty of the Eos Valley.’
‘Thank you. I saw a bit of it with Ben when we arrived. My initial impression was that it looked like Switzerland. What is the name of the river?’
‘It’s the same, the Eos, and the sea, in fact all the seas on Rama, which are all interconnected, are named Oceanus. The waterfall, as you might have guessed, is named the Eos Falls. Ready?’
‘As I’ll ever be.’
‘OK, here we go.’
The saucer silently lifted from its parking spot in the rear of one of the garages and floated out into the spacious back yard. It then rose further and flew over the house and over the edge of the escarpment and giant waterfall.
‘I have to tell you the truth, Lib, I am a bit excited.’
‘I’m not surprised, sweetie. I was extremely excited the first time I came to Earth.’
‘Wow, this is my first day on Rama. You know, if it wasn’t for the two suns in the sky, a person could easily forget that they were on a completely different planet.’
‘You cannot imagine how exciting it is for us to have the Earth to visit. Although it occurred a long time before my birth, the discovery of Earth was a huge watershed in our history. You will find so many things on Rama that have been brought here from Earth.’
‘What, you go there to get stuff?’
‘Yes, of course. For us, going to Earth is not unlike you taking a trip to the local mall. Where do you think your morning coffee came from?’
‘So, what you are telling me is that the Rama are visiting Earth all the time?’
‘Yes, sometimes for the smallest things, like a packet of Vittoria Coffee. I’m sure that you know what running out of coffee feels like. Well, we are not much different to you in that respect.’ They both had a good laugh. ‘Although,’ she sighed, ‘all that will all change very soon. There will be no more shopping, unfortunately, however there will be a new Earth, a new wilderness, one where there will be no fences and in which the Rama will not need to be a secret. And there will be surfing. Some things will be lost, but many things will be gained as well.’
‘I still have to come to full terms with all this, Libby. I’m not sure that I’ve even remotely grasped the implications of the coming event.’
‘Plenty of time for that, darling. By the way, did I mention how much I love you today?’
The saucer descended down the front of the two-thousand-foot-high Eos Falls. They floated down to the base of the falls within the deep, rocky V, the place where the two escarpments met. She flew close to the cascading water causing them both to become wet from the spray. She laughed and said,
‘Lucky we’re dressed for surfing.’
‘Yes, I love this.’
At the base of the falls the air glistened in a fog of opaque spray as it was intensely lit by the warm glow of the morning suns. The roar of the water crashing onto the giant boulders was made twice as deafening as it echoed back and forth off the vertical rock walls of the escarpments.
They flew low and slow down the upper reaches of the Eos. They flew over some rapids.
‘Those rapids are great for canoeing,’ she said. ‘Also, many Rama come to free-climb the falls. Rock climbing is a favourite sport on our planet, just as it is on yours. Alpine climbing is as well. Many expeditions climb Mount Ourea, the highest mountain on Rama. It can be a dangerous practice and some get killed.’
‘Mt. Ourea? I think Ben told me that the big mountain behind your house is the biggest mountain on Rama.’
‘It is, sweetie, although it’s your house as well now.’
They cruised down the centre of the valley maintaining an altitude of about a hundred feet.
‘There are many farms along the riverbanks,’ commented Adam.
‘Yes. They live to farm. They grow everything imaginable.’ She pointed to a house off to the left. ‘That’s Ferdinand’s farm. We get all our vegetables from him and his wife bakes delicious pastries.’
‘Do you trade with these people?’
‘Yes, we trade with all types of goods that we bring back from our journeys to other worlds, however the main things we trade with are our sails. Gravity sails are the most valuable things on Rama. They power everyone’s houses and allow the people to get around. We have traded sails with all these farmers for a lifetime of supply of produce. They are very happy with the trade as we do not use much and the free energy of the sails allows them to produce a great abundance of food, which they can then trade with others for other things they may want. Once a farmer has traded for a sail, he knows that he and his family will soon become wealthy.’
‘Is your family the only one that manufactures gravity sails?’
‘Oh no. There are many families that possess that art, although each family’s design is unique and a treasured secret.’
‘I see.’
They glided above the serpentine Eos towards the ocean. The valley had widened to what Adam guessed was about three miles across at that point. He expressed his feeling.
‘You know what gets me, Lib?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m having a bit of trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that I am two million light years away from where I was yesterday.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s inconceivable.’
‘Isn’t She the prettiest valley on mornings like this, darling.’
‘Er, yes … yes, She certainly is beautiful.’
…….