The Fountains of Paradise

While the different religions wrangle with one another as to which of them is in possession of the truth, in our view the truth of religion may be altogether disregarded… If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilised individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.

Freud: New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1932).

Of course man made God in his own image; but what was the alternative? Just as a real understanding of geology was impossible until we were able to study other worlds beside Earth, so a valid theology must await contact with extra-terrestrial intelligences. There can be no such subject as comparative religion, as long as we study only the religions of man.

El Hadj Mohammed ben Selim, Professor of Comparative Religion: Inaugural Address, Brigham Young University, 1998.

We must await, not without anxiety, the answers to the following questions; (a) What, if any, are the religious concepts of entities with zero, one, two, or more than two 'parents' (b) is religious belief found only among organisms that have close contact with their direct progenitors during their formative years?

If we find that religion occurs exclusively among intelligent analogs of apes, dolphins, elephants, dogs, etc., but not among extra-terrestrial computers, termites, fish, turtles or social amoebae, we may have to draw some painful conclusions .. Perhaps both love and religion can arise only among mammals, and for much the same reasons. This is also suggested by a study of their pathologies; anyone who doubts the connection between religious fanaticism and perversion should take a long, hard look at the Malleus Maleficarium or Huxley's The Devils of Loudon.

(Ibid.)

Dr. Charles Willis' notorious remark (Hawaii, 5970) that “Religion is a by-product of malnutrition” is not, in itself, much more helpful than Gregory Bateson's somewhat indelicate one-syllable refutation. What Dr. Willis apparently meant was (i) the hallucinations caused by voluntary or involuntary starvation are readily interpreted as religious visions (2) hunger in this life encourages belief in a compensatory afterlife, as a – perhaps essential – psychological survival mechanism…

It is indeed one of the ironies of fate that research into the so-called consciousness-expanding drugs proved that they did exactly the opposite, by leading to the detection of the naturally occurring “apothetic” chemicals in the brain. The discovery that the most devout adherent of any faith could be converted to any other by a judicious dose of 2-4-7 ortho-para-theosamine was, perhaps, the most devastating blow ever received by religion.

Until, of course, the advent of Starglider.

R. Gabor: The Pharmacological Basis of Religion (Miskatonic University Press, 2069).

12. Starglider

Something of the sort had been expected for a hundred years, and there had been many false alarms. Yet when it finally happened, mankind was taken by surprise.

The radio signal from the direction of Alpha Centauri was so powerful that it was first detected as interference on normal commercial circuits. This was highly embarrassing to all the radio astronomers who, for so many decades, had been seeking intelligent messages from space – especially as they had long ago dismissed the triple system of Alpha, Beta and Proxima Centauri from all serious consideration.

At once, every radio telescope that could scan the southern hemisphere was focused upon Centaurus. Within hours, a still more sensational discovery was made. The signal was not coming from the Centaurus system at all – but from a point half a degree away. And it was moving.

That was the first hint of the truth. When it was confirmed, all the normal business of mankind came to a halt.

The power of the signal was no longer surprising; its source was already well inside the solar system, and moving sunward at six hundred kilometres a second. The long-awaited, long-feared visitors from space had arrived at last.

Yet for thirty days the intruder did nothing, as it fell past the outer planets, broadcasting an unvarying series of pulses that merely announced “Here I am!”. It made no attempt to answer the signals beamed at it, nor did it make any adjustments to its natural, comet-like orbit. Unless it had slowed down from some much higher speed, its voyage from Centaurus must have lasted two thousand years. Some found this reassuring, since it suggested that the visitor was a robot space-probe; others were disappointed, feeling that the absence of real, live extra-terrestrials would be an anti-climax.

The whole spectrum of possibilities was argued, ad nauseam, in all the media of communications, all the parliaments of man.

Every plot that had ever been used in science fiction, from the arrival of benevolent gods to an invasion of blood-sucking vampires, was disinterred and solemnly analysed. Lloyds of London collected substantial premiums from people insuring against every possible future – including some in which there would have been very little chance of collecting a penny.

Then, as the alien passed the orbit of Jupiter, man's instruments began to learn something about it. The first discovery created a short-lived panic; the object was five hundred kilometres in diameter – the size of a small moon. Perhaps, after all, it was a mobile world, carrying an invading army.

This fear vanished when more precise observations showed that the solid body of the intruder was only a few metres across. The five-hundred-kilometre halo around it was something very familiar – a flimsy, slowly revolving parabolic reflector, the exact equivalent of the astronomers' orbiting radio telescopes. Presumably this was the antenna through which the visitor kept in touch with its distant base. And through which, even now, it was doubtless beaming back its discoveries, as it scanned the solar system and eavesdropped upon all the radio, TV and data broadcasts of mankind.

Then came yet another surprise. That asteroid-sized antenna was not pointed in the direction of Alpha Centauri, but towards a totally different part of the sky. It began to look as if the Centauri system was merely the vehicle's last port of call, not its origin.

The astronomers were still brooding over this when they had a remarkable stroke of luck. A solar weather probe on routine patrol beyond Mars became suddenly dumb, then recovered its radio voice a minute later. When the records were examined, it was found that the instruments had been momentarily paralysed by intense radiation. The probe had cut right across the visitor's beam – and it was then a simple matter to calculate precisely where it was aimed.

There was nothing in that direction for fifty-two light-years, except a very faint – and presumably very old – red dwarf star, one of those abstemious little suns that would still be shining peacefully billions of years after the galaxy's splendid giants had burned themselves out. No radio telescope had ever examined it closely; now all those that could be spared from the approaching visitor were focused upon its suspected origin.

And there it was, beaming a sharply-tuned signal in the one centimetre band. The makers were still in contact with the vehicle they had launched, thousands of years ago; but the messages it must be receiving now were from only half a century in the past.

Then, as it came within the orbit of Mars, the visitor showed its first awareness of mankind, in the most dramatic and unmistakable way that could be imagined. It started transmitting standard 3075-line television pictures, interleaved with video text in fluent though stilted English and Mandarin. The first cosmic conversation had begun – and not, as had always been imagined, with a delay of decades, but only of minutes.

13. Shadow at Dawn

Morgan had left his hotel in Ranapura at four a.m. on a clear, moonless night. He was not too happy about the choice of time, but Professor Sarath, who had made all the arrangements, had promised him that it would be well worthwhile. “You won't understand anything about Sri Kanda,” he had said, “unless you have watched the dawn from the summit. And Buddy – er, the Maha Thero – won't receive visitors at any other time. He says it's a splendid way of discouraging the merely curious.” So Morgan had acquiesced with as much good grace as possible.

To make matters worse, the Taprobanean driver had persisted in carrying on a brisk though rather one-sided conversation, apparently designed to establish a complete profile of his passenger's personality. This was all done with such ingenuous good nature that it was impossible to take offence, but Morgan would have preferred silence.

He also wished, sometimes devoutly, that his driver would pay rather more attention to the countless hairpin bends round which they zipped in the near-darkness. Perhaps it was just as well that he could not see all the cliffs and chasms they were negotiating as the car climbed up through the foothill. This road was a triumph of nineteenth-century military engineering – the work of the last colonial power, built in the final campaign against the proud mountain folk of the interior. But it had never been converted to automatic operation, and there were times when Morgan wondered if he would survive the journey.

And then, suddenly, he forgot his fears and his annoyance at the loss of sleep.

“There it is!” said the driver proudly, as the car rounded the flank of a hill.

Sri Kanda itself was still completely invisible in a darkness which as yet bore no hint of the approaching dawn. Its presence was revealed by a thin ribbon of light, zig-zagging back and forth under the stars, hanging as if by magic in the sky. Morgan knew that he was merely seeing the lamps set two hundred years ago to guide pilgrims as they ascended the longest stairway in the world, but in its defiance of logic and gravity it appeared almost a prevision of his own dream. Ages before he was born, inspired by philosophers he could barely imagine, men had begun the work he hoped to finish. They had, quite literally, built the first crude steps on the road to the stars.

No longer feeling drowsy, Morgan watched as the band of light grew closer, and resolved itself into a necklace of innumerable, twinkling beads. Now the mountain was becoming visible, as a black triangle eclipsing half the sky. There was something sinister about its silent, brooding presence; Morgan could almost imagine that it was indeed the abode of gods who knew of his mission, and were gathering their strength against him.

These ominous thoughts were entirely forgotten when they arrived at the cable car terminus and Morgan discovered to his surprise – it was still only five a.m. – that at least a hundred people were milling around in the little waiting-room. He ordered a welcome hot coffee for himself and his garrulous driver – who, rather to his relief, showed no interest in making the ascent. “I've done it at least twenty times,” he said with perhaps exaggerated boredom. “I'm going to sleep in the car until you come down.”

Morgan purchased his ticket, did a quick calculation, and estimated that he would be in the third or fourth load of passengers. He was glad that he had taken Sarath's advice and slipped a thermocloak in his pocket; at a mere two-kilometre altitude, it was already quite cold. At the summit, three kilometres higher still, it must be freezing.

As he slowly shuffled forward in the rather subdued and sleepy line of visitors, Morgan noted with amusement that he was the only one not carrying a camera. Where were the genuine pilgrims, he wondered? Then he remembered; they would not be here. There was no easy way to heaven, or Nirvana, or whatever it was that the faithful sought. Merit was acquired solely by one's own efforts, not with the aid of machines. An interesting doctrine, and one containing much truth; but there were also times when only machines could do the job.

At last he got a seat in the car, and with a considerable creaking of cables they were on their way. Once again, Morgan felt that eerie sense of anticipation. The elevator he was planning would hoist loads more than ten thousand times as high as this primitive system, which probably dated right back to the twentieth century. And yet, when all was said and done, its basic principles were very much the same. Outside the swaying car was total darkness, except when a section of the illuminated stairway came into view. It was completely deserted, as if the countless millions who had toiled up the mountain during the last three thousand years had left no successor. But then Morgan realised that those making the ascent on foot would already be far above on their appointment with the dawn; they would have left the lower slopes of the mountain hours ago.

At the four-kilometre level the passengers had to change cars and walk a short distance to another cable-station, but the transfer involved little delay. Now Morgan was indeed glad of his cloak, and wrapped its metallised fabric closely round his body. There was frost underfoot, and already he was breathing deeply in the thin air. He was not at all surprised to see racks of oxygen cylinders in the small terminus, with instructions for their use prominently displayed.

And now at last, as they began the final ascent, there came the first intimation of the approaching day. The eastern stars still shone with undiminished glory – Venus most brilliantly of all – but a few thin, high clouds began to glow faintly with the coming dawn. Morgan looked anxiously at his watch, and wondered if he would be in time. He was relieved to see that daybreak was still thirty minutes away.

One of the passengers suddenly pointed to the immense stairway, sections of which were occasionally visible beneath them as it zigzagged back and forth up the mountain's now rapidly steepening slopes. It was no longer deserted; moving with dreamlike slowness, dozens of men and women were toiling painfully up the endless steps. Every minute more and more came into view; for how many hours, Morgan wondered, had they been climbing? Certainly all through the night, and perhaps much longer-for many of the pilgrims were quite elderly, and could hardly have managed the ascent in a single day. He was surprised to see that so many still believed.

A moment later, he saw the first monk – a tall, saffron-robed figure moving with a gait of metronome-like regularity, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and completely ignoring the car floating above his shaven head. He also appeared capable of ignoring the elements, for his right arm and shoulder were bare to the freezing wind.

The cable car was slowing down as it approached the terminus; presently it made a brief halt, disgorged its numbed passengers, and set off again on its long descent. Morgan joined the crowd of two or three hundred people huddling in a small amphitheatre cut in the western face of the mountain. They were all staring out into the darkness, though there was nothing to see but the ribbon of light winding down into the abyss. Some belated climbers on the last section of the stairway were making a final effort, as faith strove to overcome fatigue.

Morgan looked again at his watch; ten minutes to go. He had never before been among so many silent people; camera-touting tourists and devout pilgrims were united now in the same hope. The weather was perfect; soon they would all know if they had made this journey in vain.

There came a delicate tinkling of bells from the temple, still invisible in the darkness a hundred metres above their heads; and at the same instant all the lights along that unbelievable stairway were extinguished. Now they could see, as they stood with their backs towards the hidden sunrise, that the first faint gleam of day lay on the clouds far below; but the immense bulk of the mountain still delayed the approaching dawn.

Second by second the light was growing on either side of Sri Kanda, as the sun outflanked the last strongholds of the night. Then there came a low murmur of awe from the patiently waiting crowd.

One moment there was nothing. Then, suddenly, it was there, stretching half the width of Taprobane – a perfectly symmetrical, sharp-edged triangle of deepest blue. The mountain had not forgotten its worshippers; there lay its famous shadow across the sea of clouds, a symbol for each pilgrim to interpret as he wished.

It seemed almost solid in its rectilinear perfection, like some overturned pyramid rather than a mere phantom of light and shade. As the brightness grew around it, and the first direct rays of the sun struck past the flanks of the mountain, it appeared by contrast to grow even darker and denser; yet through the thin veil of cloud responsible for its brief existence, Morgan could dimly discern the lakes and hills and forests of the awakening land.

The apex of that misty triangle must be racing towards him at enormous speed, as the sun rose vertically behind the mountain, yet Morgan was conscious of no movement. Time seemed to have been suspended; this was one of the rare moments of his life when he gave no thought to the passing minutes. The shadow of eternity lay upon his soul, as did that of the mountain upon the clouds.

Now it was fading swiftly, the darkness draining from the sky like a stain dispersing in water. The ghostly, glimmering landscape below was hardening into reality; halfway to the horizon there was an explosion of light as the sun's rays struck upon some building's eastern windows. And even beyond that – unless his eyes had tricked him – Morgan could make out the faint, dark band of the encircling sea.

Another day had come to Taprobane.

Slowty, the visitors dispersed. Some returned to the cable-car terminus, while others, more energetic, headed for the stairway, in the mistaken belief that the descent was easier than the climb. Most of them would be thankful enough to catch the car again at the lower station; few indeed would make it all the way down.

Only Morgan continued upwards, followed by many curious glances, along the short flight of steps that led to the monastery and to the very summit of the mountain. By the time he had reached the smoothly-plastered outer wall – now beginning to glow softly in the first direct rays of the sun – he was very short of breath, and was glad to lean for a moment against the massive wooden door.

Someone must have been watching; before he could find a bell-push, or signal his presence in any way, the door swung silently open, and he was welcomed by a yellow-robed monk, who saluted him with clasped hands.

“Ayu bowan, Dr. Morgan. The Mahanayake Thero will be glad to see you.”

14. The Education of Starglider

(Extract from Starglider Concordance, First Edition, 2071)

We now know that the interstellar spaceprobe generally referred to as Starglider is completely autonomous, operating according to general instructions programmed into it sixty thousand years ago. While it is cruising between suns, it uses its five-hundred-kilometre antenna to send back information to its base at a relatively slow rate, and to receive occasional up-dates from “Starholme”, to adopt the lovely name coined by the poet Liwellyn ap Cymru.

While it is passing through a solar system, however, it is able to tap the energy of a sun, and so its rate of information transfer increases enormously. It also “recharges its batteries”, to use a doubtless crude analogy. And since – like our own early Pioneers and Voyagers – it employs the gravitational fields of the heavenly bodies to deflect it from star to star, it will operate indefinitely, unless mechanical failure or cosmic accident terminates its career. Centaurus was its eleventh port of call; after it had rounded our sun like a comet, its new course was aimed precisely at Tau Ceti, twelve light years away. If there is anyone there, it will be ready to start its next conversation soon after AD 8100.

For Starglider combines the functions both of ambassador and explorer. When, at the end of one of its millennial journeys, it discovers a technological culture, it makes friends with the natives and starts to trade information, in the only form of interstellar commerce that may ever be possible. And before it departs again on its endless voyage, after its brief transit of their solar system, Starglider gives the location of its home world – already awaiting a direct call from the newest member of the galactic telephone exchange.

In our case, we can take some pride in the fact that, even before it had transmitted any star charts, we had identified its parent sun and even beamed our first transmissions to it. Now we have only to wait 104 years for an answer. How incredibly lucky we are, to have neighbours so close at hand.

It was obvious from its very first messages that Starglider understood the meaning of several thousand basic English and Chinese words, which it had deduced from an analysis of television, radio and – especially – broadcast video-text services. But what it had picked up during its approach was a very unrepresentative sample from the whole spectrum of human culture; it contained little advanced science, still less advanced mathematics – and only a random selection of literature, music and the visual arts.

Like any self-taught genius, therefore, Starglider had huge gaps in its education. On the principle that it was better to give too much than too little, as soon as contact was established Starglider was presented with the Oxford English Dictionary, the Great Chinese Dictionary (Romandarin edition), and the Encyclopaedia Terrae. Their digital transmission required little more than fifty minutes, and it was notable that, immediately thereafter, Starglider was silent for almost four hours – its longest period off the air. When it resumed contact, its vocabulary was immensely enlarged, and for over 99 percent of the time it could pass the Turing test with ease – i.e., there was no way of telling from the messages received that Starglider was a machine, and not a highly intelligent human.

There were occasional giveaways – for example, incorrect use of ambiguous words, and the absence of emotional content in the dialogue. This was only to be expected; unlike advanced terrestrial computers – which could replicate the emotions of their builders, when necessary – Starglider's feelings and desires were presumably those of a totally alien species, and therefore largely incomprehensible to man.

And, of course, vice versa. Starglider could understand precisely and completely what was meant by “the square on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares on the other two sides”. But it could scarcely have the faintest glimmer of what lay in Keats' mind when he wrote:

Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn…

Still less – Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Nevertheless, in the hope of correcting this deficiency, Starglider was also presented with thousands of hours of music, drama, and scenes from terrestrial life, both human and otherwise. By general agreement, a certain amount of censorship was enforced here. Although mankind's propensity for violence and warfare could hardly be denied (it was too late to recall the Encyclopaedia) only a few carefully selected examples were broadcast. And, until Starglider was safely out of range, the normal fare of the video networks was uncharacteristically bland.

For centuries – perhaps, indeed, until it had reached its next target – philosophers would be debating Starglider's real understanding of human affairs and problems. But on one point there was no serious disagreement. The hundred days of its passage through the solar system altered irrevocably men's views of the universe, its origin, and their place in it.

Human civilisation could never be the same, after Starglider had gone.

15. Bodhidharma

As the massive door, carved with intricate lotus patterns, clicked softly shut behind him, Morgan felt that he had entered another world. This was by no means the first time he had been on ground once sacred to some great religion; he had seen Notre Dame, Saint Sophia, Stonehenge, the Parthenon, Karnak, Saint Paul's, and at least a dozen other major temples and mosques. But he had viewed them all as frozen relics of the past – splendid examples of art or engineering, but with no relevance to the modern mind. The faiths that had created and sustained them had all passed into oblivion, though some had survived until well into the twenty-second century.

But here, it seemed, time had stood still. The hurricanes of history had blown past this lonely citadel of faith, leaving it unshaken. As they had done for three thousand years, the monks still prayed, and meditated, and watched the dawn.

During his walk across the worn flagstones of the courtyard, polished smooth by the feet of innumerable pilgrims, Morgan experienced a sudden and wholly uncharacteristic indecision. In the name of progress, he was attempting to destroy something ancient and noble; and something that he would never fully understand.

The sight of the great bronze bell, hanging in a campanile that grew out of the monastery wall, stopped Morgan in his tracks. Instantly, his engineer's mind had estimated its weight at not less than five tons, and it was obviously very old. How on earth… ?

The monk noticed his curiosity, and gave a smile of understanding.

“Two thousand years old,” he said. “It was a gift from Kalidasa the Accursed, which we felt it expedient not to refuse. According to legend, it took ten years to carry it up the mountain – and the lives of a hundred men.”

“When is it used?” asked Morgan, after he had digested this information.

“Because of its hateful origin, it is sounded only in time of disaster. I have never heard it, nor has any living man. It tolled once, without human aid, during the great earthquake of 2057. And the time before that was 1522, when the Iberian invaders burned the Temple of the Tooth and seized the Sacred Relic.”

“So after all that effort – it's never been used?”

“Perhaps a dozen times in the last two thousand years. Kalidasa's doom still lies upon it.”

That might be good religion, Morgan could not help thinking, but hardly sound economics. And he wondered irreverently how many monks had succumbed to the temptation of tapping the bell, ever so gently, just to hear for themselves the unknown timbre of its forbidden voice.

They were walking now past a huge boulder, up which a short flight of steps led to a gilded pavilion. This, Morgan realised, was the very summit of the mountain; he knew what the shrine was supposed to hold, but once again the monk enlightened him.

“The footprint,” he said. “The Muslims believed it was Adam's; he stood here after he was expelled from Paradise. The Hindus attributed it to Siva or Saman. But to the Buddhists, of course, it was the imprint of the Enlightened One.”

“I notice your use of the past tense,” Morgan answered in a carefully neutral voice. “What is the belief now?”

The monk's face showed no emotion as he replied: “The Buddha was a man, like you and me. The impression in the rock – and it is very hard rock – is two metres long.”

That seemed to settle the matter, and Morgan had no further questions while he was led along a short cloister that ended at an open door. The monk knocked, but did not wait for any response as he waved the visitor to enter.

Morgan had half-expected to find the Mahanayake Thero sitting cross-legged on a mat, probably surrounded by incense and chanting acolytes. There was, indeed, just a hint of incense in the chill air, but the Chief Incumbent of the Sri Kanda vihare sat behind a perfectly ordinary office desk, equipped with standard display and memory units. The only unusual item in the room was the head of the Buddha, slightly larger than life, on a plinth in one corner. Morgan could not tell whether it was real, or merely a projection.

Despite his conventional setting, there was little likelihood that the head of the monastery would be mistaken for any other type of executive. Quite apart from the inevitable yellow robe, the Mahanayake Thero had two other characteristics that, in this age, were very rare indeed. He was completely bald; and he was wearing spectacles.

Both, Morgan assumed, were by deliberate choice. Since baldness could be so easily cured, that shining ivory dome must have been shaved or depilated. And he could not remember when he had last seen spectacles, except in historical recordings or dramas.

The combination was fascinating, and disconcerting. Morgan found it virtually impossible to guess the Mahanayake Thero's age; it could be anything from a mature forty to a well-preserved eighty. And those lenses, transparent though they were, somehow concealed the thoughts and emotions behind them.

“Ayu bowan, Dr. Morgan,” said the prelate, gesturing his visitor to the only empty chair. “This is my secretary, the Venerable Parakarma. I trust you won't mind if he makes notes.”

“Of course not,” said Morgan, inclining his head towards the remaining occupant of the small room. He noticed that the younger monk had flowing hair and an impressive beard; presumably shaven pates were optional.

“So, Dr. Morgan,” the Mahanayake Thero continued, “you want our mountain.”

“I'm afraid so, your – er – reverence. Part of it, at any rate.”

“Out of all the world – these few hectares?”

“The choice is not ours, but Nature's. The earth terminus has to be on the equator, and at the greatest possible altitude, where the low air density maintains wind forces.”

“There are higher equatorial mountains in Africa and South America.”

Here we go again, Morgan groaned silently. Bitter experience had shown him that it was almost impossible to make laymen, however intelligent and interested, appreciate this problem, and he anticipated even less success with these monks. If only the earth was a nice, symmetrical body, with no dents and bumps in its gravitational field.

“Believe me,” he said fervently, “we've looked at all the alternatives. Cotopaxi and Mount Kenya – and even Kilimanjaro, though that's three degrees south-would be fine except for one fatal flaw. When a satellite is established in the stationary orbit, it won't stay exactly over the same spot. Because of gravitational irregularities, which I won't go into, it will slowly drift along the equator. So all our synchronous satellites and space-stations have to burn propellent to keep them on station; luckily the amount involved is quite small. But you can't keep nudging millions of tons – especially when it's in the form of slender rod tens of thousands of kilometres long – back into position. And there's no need to. Fortunately for us -”

“– not for us,” interjected the Mahanayake Thero, almost throwing Morgan off his stride.

“– there are two stable points on the synchronous orbit. A satellite placed at them will stay there – it won't drift away. Just as if it's stuck at the bottom of an invisible valley. One of those points is out over the Pacific, so it's no use to us. The other is directly above our heads.”

“Surely a few kilometres one way or the other would make no difference. There are other mountains in Taprobane.”

“None more than half the height of Sri Kanda – which brings us down to the level of critical wind forces. True, there are not many hurricanes exactly on the equator. But there are enough to endanger the structure, at its very weakest point.”

“We can control the winds.”

It was the first contribution the young secretary had made to the discussion, and Morgan looked at him with heightened interest.

“To some extent, yes. Naturally, I have discussed this point with Monsoon Control. They say that absolute certainty is out of the question especially with hurricanes. The best odds they will give me are fifty to one. That's not good enough for a trillion dollar project.”

The Venerable Parakarma seemed inclined to argue. “There is an almost forgotten branch of mathematics, called Catastrophe Theory, which could make meteorology a really precise science. I am confident that -”

“I should explain,” the Mahanayake Thero interjected blandly, “that my colleague was once rather celebrated for his astronomical work. I imagine you have heard of Dr. Choam Goldberg.”

Morgan felt that a trap-door had been suddenly opened beneath him. He should have been warned! Then he recalled that Professor Sarath had indeed told him, with a twinkle in his eye, that he should “watch out for Buddy's private secretary – he's a very smart character”.

Morgan wondered if his cheeks were burning, as the Venerable Parakarma, alias Dr. Choam Goldberg, looked back at him with a distinctly unfriendly expression. So he had been trying to explain orbital instabilities to these innocent monks; the Mahanayake Thero had probably received much better briefing on the subject than he had done.

And he remembered that the world's scientists were neatly divided on the subject of Dr. Goldberg… those who were sure that he was crazy, and those who had not yet made up their minds. For he had been one of the most promising young men in the field of astrophysics when, five years ago, he had announced, “Now that Starglider has effectively destroyed all traditional religions, we can at last pay serious attention to the concept of God.”

And, with that, he had disappeared from public view.

16. Conversations with Starglider

Of all the thousands of questions put to Starglider during its transit of the solar system, those whose answers were most eagerly awaited concerned the living creatures and civilisations of other stars. Contrary to some expectations, the robot answered willingly, though it admitted that its last update on the subject had been received over a century ago.

Considering the immense range of cultures produced on Earth by a single species, it was obvious that there would be even greater variety among the stars, where every conceivable type of biology might occur. Several thousand hours of fascinating – often incomprehensible, sometimes horrifying – scenes of life on other planets left no doubt that this was the case.

Nevertheless, the Starholmers had managed a rough classification of cultures according to their standards of technology – perhaps the only objective basis possible. Humanity was interested to discover that it came number five on a scale which was defined approximately by: 1 – Stone tools. 2 – Metals, fire. 3 – Writing, handicrafts, ships. 4 – Steam power, basic science. 5 – Atomic energy, space travel.

When Starglider had begun its mission, sixty thousand years ago, its builders were, like the human race, still in category Five. They had now graduated to Six, characterised by the ability to convert matter completely into energy, and to transmute all elements on an industrial scale.

“And is there a Class Seven?” Starglider was immediately asked. The reply was a brief “Affirmative”. When pressed for details, the probe explained: “I am not allowed to describe the technology of a higher grade culture to a lower one.” There the matter remained, right up to the moment of the final message, despite all the leading questions designed by the most ingenious legal brains of Earth.

For by this time Starglider was more than a match for any terrestrial logician. This was partly the fault of the University of Chicago's Department of Philosophy; in a fit of monumental hubris, it had clandestinely transmitted the whole of the Summa Theologica, with disastrous results.

Starglider to Earth:

I have analysed the arguments of your Saint Thomas Aquinas as requested in your message 145 sequence 3 of 2069 June 02 GMT 18.42. Most of the content appears to be sense-free random noise and so devoid of information, but the printout that follows lists 192 fallacies expressed in the symbolic logic of your reference Mathematics 43 of 2069 May 29 GMT 02.51.

Fallacy I… (hereafter a 75-page printout.)

As the log timings show, it took Starglider rather less than an hour to demolish Saint Thomas. Although philosophers were to spend the next several decades arguing over the analysis, they found only two errors; and even those could have been due to a misunderstanding of terminology.

It would have been most interesting to know what fraction of its processing circuits Starglider applied to this task; unfortunately, no-one thought of asking before the probe had switched to cruise mode and broken contact. By then, even more deflating messages had been received…

2069 June 04 GMT 07.59 Message 9056 sequence 2.

Starglider to Earth:

I am unable to distinguish clearly between your religious ceremonies and apparently identical behaviour at the sporting and cultural functions you have transmitted to me. I refer you particularly to the Beatles, 1965; the World Soccer Final, 2046; and the Farewell appearance of the Johann Sebastian Clones, 2056.

2069 June 05 GMT 20.38 Message 4675 sequence 2. Starglider to Earth:

My last update on this matter is 175 years old, but if I understand you correctly the answer is as follows. Behaviour of the type you call religious occurred among 3 of the 15 known Class One cultures, 6 of the 28 Class Two cultures, 5 of the 14 Class Three cultures, 2 of the 10 Class Four cultures, and 3 of the 174 Class Five cultures. You will appreciate that we have many more examples of Class Five, because only they can be detected over astronomical distances.

2069 June 06 GMT 12.09 Message 5897 sequence 2. Starglider to Earth:

You are correct in deducing that the 3 Class Five cultures that engaged in religious activities all had two-parent reproduction and the young remained in family groups for a large fraction of their lifetime. How did you arrive at this conclusion?

2069 June 08 GMT 15.37 Message 6943 sequence 2. Starglider to Earth:

The hypothesis you refer to as God, though not disprovable by logic alone, is unnecessary for the following reason.

If you assume that the universe can be quote explained unquote as the creation of an entity known as God, he must obviously be of a higher degree of organisation than his product. Thus you have more than doubled the size of the original problem, and have taken the first step on a diverging infinite regress. William of Ockham pointed out as recently as your fourteenth century that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. I cannot therefore understand why this debate continues.

2069 June 11 GMT 06.84. Message 8964 sequence 2. Starglider to Earth:

Starholme informed me 456 years ago that the origin of the universe has been discovered but that I do not have the appropriate circuits to comprehend it. You must communicate direct for further information.

I am now switching to cruise mode and must break contact. Goodbye.

In the opinion of many, that final and most famous of all its thousands of messages proved that Starglider had a sense of humour. For why else would it have waited until the very end to explode such a philosophical bomb-shell? Or was the entire conversation all part of a careful plan, designed to put the human race in the right frame of reference – when the first direct messages from Starholme arrived in, presumably, 104 years?

There were some who suggested following Starglider, since it was carrying out of the solar system not only immeasurable stores of knowledge, but the treasures of a technology centuries ahead of anything possessed by man. Although no spaceship now existed that could overtake Starglider – and return again to earth after matching its enormous velocity one could certainly be built.

However, wiser councils prevailed. Even a robot space-probe might have very effective defences against boarders – including, as a last resort, the ability to self-destruct. But the most telling argument was that its builders were “only” fifty-two light years away. During the millennia since they had launched Starglider, their spacefaring ability must have improved enormously. If the human race did anything to provoke them they might arrive, slightly annoyed, in a very few hundred years.

Meanwhile, among all its countless other effects upon human culture, Starglider had brought to its climax a process that was already well under way. It had put an end to the billions of words of pious gibberish with which apparently intelligent men had addled their minds for centuries.

17. Parakarma

As he quickly checked back on his conversation, Morgan decided that he had not made a fool of himself. Indeed, the Mahanayake Thero might have lost a tactical advantage by revealing the identity of the Venerable Parakarma. Yet it was no particular secret; perhaps he thought that Morgan already knew.

At this point there was a rather welcome interruption, as two young acolytes filed into the office, one carrying a tray loaded with small dishes of rice, fruits and what appeared to be thin pancakes, while the other followed with the inevitable pot of tea. There was nothing that looked like meat; after his long night, Morgan would have welcomed a couple of eggs, but he assumed that they too were forbidden. No – that was too strong a word; Sarath had told him that the Order prohibited nothing, believing in no absolutes. But it had a nicely calibrated scale of toleration, and the taking of life – even potential life – was very low on the list.

As he started to sample the various items – most of them quite unknown to him – Morgan looked enquiringly at the Mahanayake Thero, who shook his head.

“We do not eat before noon. The mind functions more clearly in the morning hours, and so should not be distracted by material things.”

As he nibbled at some quite delicious papaya, Morgan considered the philosophical gulf represented by that simple statement. To him, an empty stomach could be very distracting indeed, completely inhibiting the higher mental functions. Having always been blessed with good health, he had never tried to dissociate mind and body, and saw no reason why one should make the attempt.

While Morgan was eating his exotic breakfast the Mahanayake Thero excused himself, and for a few minutes his fingers danced, with dazzling speed, over the keyboard of his console. As the readout was in full view, politeness compelled Morgan to look elsewhere. Inevitably, his eyes fell upon the head of the Buddha. It was probably real, for the plinth cast a faint shadow on the wall behind. Yet even that was not conclusive. The plinth might be solid enough, and the head a projection carefully positioned on top of it; the trick was a common one.

Here, like the Mona Lisa, was a work of art that both mirrored the emotions of the observer and imposed its own authority upon them. But La Gioconda's eyes were open, though what they were looking at no-one would ever know. The eyes of the Buddha were completely blank empty pools in which a man might lose his soul, or discover a universe.

Upon the lips there lingered a smile even more ambiguous than the Mona Lisa's. Yet was it indeed a smile, or merely a trick of the lighting? Already it was gone, replaced by an expression of superhuman tranquillity. Morgan could not tear his eyes away from that hypnotic countenance, and only the familiar rustling whirr of a hard-copy readout from the console brought him back to reality – if this was reality.

“I thought you might like a souvenir of your visit,” said the Mahanayake Thero.

As Morgan accepted the proffered sheet, he was surprised to see that it was archival quality parchment, not the usual flimsy paper, destined to be thrown away after a few hours of use. He could not read a single word; except for an unobtrusive alphanumeric reference in the bottom left-hand corner, it was all in the flowery curlicues which he could now recognise as Taprobani script.

“Thank you,” he said, with as much irony as he could muster. “What is it?” He had a very good idea; legal documents had a close family resemblance, whatever their languages or eras.

“A copy of the agreement between King Ravindra and the Maha Sangha, dated Vesak AD 854 of your calendar. It defines the ownership of the temple land – in perpetuity. The rights set out in this document were even recognised by the invaders.”

“By the Caledonians and the Hollanders, I believe. But not by the Iberians.”

If the Mahanayake Thero was surprised by the thoroughness of Morgan's briefing, not even the twitch of an eyebrow betrayed the fact.

“They were hardly respecters of law and order, particularly where other religions were concerned. I trust that their philosophy of might equals right does not appeal to you.”

Morgan gave a somewhat forced smile. “It certainly does not,” he answered. But where did one draw the line? he asked himself silently. When the overwhelming interests of great organizations were at stake, conventional morality often took second place. The best legal minds on earth, human and electronic, would soon be focused upon this spot. If they could not find the right answers, a very unpleasant situation might develop one which could make him a villain, not a hero.

“Since you have raised the subject of the 854 agreement, let me remind you that it refers only to the land inside the temple boundaries – which are clearly defined by the walls.”

“Correct. But they enclose the entire summit.”

“You have no control over the ground outside this area.”

“We have the rights of any owner of property. If the neighbours create a nuisance, we would have legal redress. This is not the first time the point has been raised.”

“I know. In connexion with the cable-car system.”

A faint smile played over the Maha Thero's lips. “You have done your homework,” he commended. “Yes, we opposed it vigorously, for a number of reasons – though I admit that, now it is here, we have often been very thankful for it.” He paused thoughtfully, then added: “There have been some problems, but we have been able to co-exist. Casual sightseers and tourists are content to stay on the lookout platform; genuine pilgrims, of course, we are always happy to welcome at the summit.”

“Then perhaps some accommodation could be worked out in this case. A few hundred metres of altitude would make no difference to us. We could leave the summit untouched, and carve out another plateau, like the cable car terminus.”

Morgan felt distinctly uncomfortable under the prolonged ~ scrutiny of the two monks. He had little doubt that they recognized the absurdity of the suggestion, but for the sake of the record he had to make it.

“You have a most peculiar sense of humour, Dr. Morgan,” the Mahanayake Thero replied at last. “What would be left of the spirit of the mountain of the solitude we have sought for three thousand years – if this monstrous device is erected here? Do you expect us to betray the faith of all the millions who have come to this sacred spot, often at the cost of their health – even their lives?”

“I sympathise with your feelings,” Morgan answered. (But was he lying? he wondered.) “We would, of course, do our best to minimise any disturbance. All the support facilities would be buried inside the mountain. Only the elevator would emerge, and from any distance it would be quite invisible. The general aspect of the mountain would be totally unchanged. Even your famous shadow, which I have just admired, would be virtually unaffected.” The Mahanayake Thero turned to his colleague as if seeking confirmation. The Venerable Parakarma looked straight at Morgan and said: “What about noise?”

Damn, Morgan thought; my weakest point. The payloads would emerge from the mountain at several hundred kilometres an hour – the more velocity they could be given by the ground-based system the less the strain on the suspended tower. Of course, passengers couldn't take more than half a gee or so, but the capsules would still pop out at a substantial fraction of the speed of sound.

“There will be some aerodynamic noise,” Morgan admitted. “But nothing like that near a large airport.”

“Very reassuring,” said the Mahanayake Thero. Morgan was certain that he was being sarcastic, yet could detect no trace of irony in his voice. He was either displaying an Olympian calm, or testing his visitor's reactions. The younger monk, on the other hand, made no attempt to conceal his anger.

“For years,” he said with indignation, “we have been protesting about the disturbance caused by re-entering spacecraft. Now you want to generate shock waves in… in our back garden.”

“Our operations will not be transonic, at this altitude,” Morgan replied firmly. “And the tower structure will absorb most of the sound energy. In fact,” he added, trying to press what he had suddenly seen as an advantage, “in the long run, we'll help to eliminate re-entry booms. The mountain will actually be a quieter place.”

“I understand. Instead of occasional concussions, we shall have a steady roar.”

I'm not getting anywhere with this character, thought Morgan; and I'd expected the Mahanayake Thero to be the biggest obstacle.

Sometimes, it was best to change the subject entirely. He decided to dip one cautious toe into the quaking quagmire of theology.

“Isn't there something appropriate,” he said earnestly, “in what we are trying to do? Our purposes may be different, but the net results have much in common. What we hope to build is only an extension of your stairway. If I may say so, we're continuing it – all the way to Heaven.”

For a moment, the Venerable Parakarma seemed taken aback at such effrontery. Before he could recover, his superior answered smoothly: “An interesting concept– but our philosophy does not believe in Heaven. Such salvation as may exist can be found only in this world, and I sometimes wonder at your anxiety to leave it. Do you know the story of the Tower of Babel?”

“Vaguely.”

“I suggest you look it up in the old Christian Bible – Genesis II. That, too, was an engineering project to scale the heavens. It failed, owing to difficulties in communication.”

“Though we shall have our problems, I don't think that will be one of them.”

But looking at the Venerable Parakarma, Morgan was not so sure. Here was a communications gap which seemed in some ways greater than that between Homo sapiens and Starglider. They spoke the same language, but there were gulfs of incomprehension which might never be spanned.

“May I ask,” continued the Mahanayake with imperturbable politeness, “how successful you were with the Department of Parks and Forests?”

“They were extremely co-operative.”

“I am not surprised; they are chronically under-budgeted, and any new source of revenue would be welcome. The cable system was a financial windfall, and doubtless they hope your project will be an even bigger one.”

“They will be right. And they have accepted the fact that it won't create any environmental hazards.”

“Suppose it falls down?”

Morgan looked the venerable monk straight in the eye.

“It won't,”, he said, with all the authority of the man whose inverted rainbow now linked two continents.

But he knew, and the implacable Parakarma must also know, that absolute certainty was impossible in such matters. Two hundred and two years ago, on 7 November 1940, that lesson had been driven home in a way that no engineer could ever forget.

Morgan had few nightmares, but that was one of them. Even at this moment the computers at Terran Construction were trying to exorcise it.

But all the computing power in the universe could provide no protection against the problems he had not foreseen – the nightmares that were still unborn.

18. The Golden Butterflies

Despite the brilliant sunlight and the magnificent views that assailed him on every side, Morgan was fast asleep before the car had descended into the lowlands. Even the innumerable hairpin bends failed to keep him awake – but he was suddenly snapped back into consciousness when the brakes were slammed on and he was pitched forward against his seat-belt.

For a moment of utter confusion, he thought that he must still be dreaming. The breeze blowing gently through the half-open windows was so warm and humid that it might have escaped from a Turkish bath; yet the car had apparently come to a halt in the midst of a blinding snow-storm.

Morgan blinked, screwed up his eyes, and opened them to reality. This was the first time he had ever seen golden snow…

A dense swarm of butterflies was crossing the road, headed due east in a steady, purposeful migration. Some had been sucked into the car, and fluttered around frantically until Morgan waved them out; many more had plastered themselves on the windscreen. With what were doubtless a few choice Taprobani expletives, the driver emerged and wiped the glass clear; by the time he had finished, the swarm had thinned out to a handful of isolated stragglers.

“Did they tell you about the legend?” he asked, glancing back at his passenger.

“No,” said Morgan curtly. He was not at all interested, being anxious to resume his interrupted nap.

“The Golden Butterflies – they're the souls of Kalidasa's warriors – the army he lost at Yakkagala.”

Morgan gave an unenthusiastic grunt, hoping that the driver would get the message; but he continued remorselessly.

“Every year, around this time, they head for the Mountain, and they all die on its lower slopes. Sometimes you'll meet them halfway up the cable ride, but that's the highest they get. Which is lucky for the Vihara.”

“The Vihara?” asked Morgan sleepily.

“The Temple. If they ever reach it, Kalidasa will have conquered, and the bhikkus – the monks – will have to leave. That's the prophecy – it's carved on a stone slab in the Ranapura Museum. I can show it to you.”

“Some other time,” said Morgan hastily, as he settled back into the padded seat. But it was many kilometres before he could doze off again, for there was something haunting about the image that the driver had conjured up.

He would remember it often in the months ahead – when waking, and in moments of stress or crisis. Once again he would be immersed in that golden snowstorm, as the doomed millions spent their energies in a vain assault upon the mountain and all that it symbolised.

Even now, at the very beginning of his campaign, the image was too close for comfort.

19. By the Shores of Lake Saladin

Almost all the Alternative History computer simulations suggest that the Battle of Tours (AD 732) was one of the crucial disasters of mankind. Had Charles Martel been defeated, Islam might have resolved the internal differences that were tearing it apart and gone on to conquer Europe. Thus centuries of Christian barbarism would have been avoided, the Industrial Revolution would have started almost a thousand years earlier, and by now we would have reached the nearer stars instead of merely the further planets…

But fate ruled otherwise, and the armies of the Prophet turned back into Africa. Islam lingered on, a fascinating fossil, until the end of the twentieth century. Then, abruptly, it was dissolved in oil…

(Chairman's Address: Toynbee Bi-centennial Symposium, London, 2089.)

“Did you know,” said Sheik Farouk Abdullah, “that I have now appointed myself Grand Admiral of the Sahara Fleet?”

“It wouldn't surprise me, Mr. President,” Morgan answered, as he gazed out across the sparkling blue expanse of Lake Saladin. “If it's not a naval secret, how many ships do you have?”

“Ten at the moment. The largest is a thirty-metre hydroskimmer run by the Red Crescent; it spends every weekend rescuing incompetent sailors. My people still aren't much good on the water – look at that idiot trying to tack! After all, two hundred years really isn't long enough to switch from camels to boats.”

“You had Cadillacs and Rolls-Royces in between. Surely that should have eased the transition.”

“And we still have them; my great-great-great-grandfather's Silver Ghost is just as good as new. But I must be fair – it's the visitors who get into trouble, trying to cope with our local winds. We stick to power-boats. And next year I'm getting a submarine guaranteed to reach the lake's maximum depth of 78 metres.”

“Whatever for?”

“For they tell us that the Erg was full of archaeological treasures. Of course, no-one bothered about them before it was flooded.”

It was no use trying to hurry the President of ANAR – the Autonomous North African Republic – and Morgan knew better than to attempt it. Whatever the Constitution might say, Sheik Abdullah controlled more power and wealth than almost any single individual on earth. Even more to the point, he understood the uses of both.

He came from a family that was not afraid to take risks, and very seldom had cause to regret them. Its first and most famous gamble – which had incurred the hatred of the whole Arab world for almost half a century – was the investment of its abundant petro-dollars in the science and technology of Israel. That farsighted act had led directly to the mining of the Red Sea, the defeat of the deserts, and, very much later, to the Gibraltar Bridge.

“I don't have to tell you, Van,” said the Sheik at last, “how much your new project fascinates me. And after all that we went through together while the Bridge was being built, I know that you could do it – given the resources.”

“Thank you.”

“But I have a few questions. I'm still not clear why there's Midway Station – and why it's at a height of twenty-five thousand kilometres.”

“Several reasons. We needed a major power plant at about that level, which would involve fairly massive construction there in any case. Then it occurred to us that seven hours was too long to stay cooped up in a rather cramped cabin, and splitting the journey gave a number of advantages. We shouldn't have to feed the passengers in transit-they could eat and stretch their legs at the Station. We could also optimise the vehicle design; only the capsules on the lower section would have to be streamlined. Those on the upper run could be much simpler and lighter. The Midway Station would not only serve as a transfer point, but as an operations and control center and ultimately, we believe, as a major tourist attraction and resort in its own right.”

“But it's not midway! It's almost – ah – two-thirds of the distance up to stationary orbit.”

“True; the mid-point would be at eighteen thousand, not twenty-five. But there's another factor – safety. If the section above is severed, the Midway Station won't crash back to Earth.”

“Why not?”

“It will have enough momentum to maintain a stable orbit. Of course, it will fall earthward, but it will always remain clear of the atmosphere. So it will be perfectly safe – it will simply become a space station, moving in a ten-hour, elliptical orbit. Twice a day it will be right back where it started from, and eventually it could be reconnected. In theory, at least…”

“And in practice?”

“Oh, I'm sure it could be done. Certainly the people and equipment on the station could be saved. But we wouldn't have even that option if we established it at a lower altitude. Anything falling from below the twenty-five thousand kilometre limit hits the atmosphere and burns up in five hours, or less.”

“Would you propose advertising this fact to passengers on the Earth-Midway run?”

“We hope they would be too busy admiring the view to worry about it.”

“You make it sound like a scenic elevator.”

“Why not? Except that the tallest scenic ride on earth only goes up a mere three kilometres! We're talking about something ten thousand times higher.”

There was a considerable pause while Sheik Abdullah thought this over.

“We missed an opportunity,” he said at last. “We could have had five-kilometre scenic rides up the piers of the Bridge.”

“They were in the original design, but we dropped them for the usual reason – economy.”

“Perhaps we made a mistake; they could have paid for themselves. And I've just realised something else. If this – hyperfilament – had been available at the time I suppose the Bridge could have been built for half the cost.”

“I wouldn't lie to you, Mr. President. Less than a fifth. But construction would have been delayed more than twenty years, so you haven't lost by it.”

“I must talk that over with my accountants. Some of them still aren't convinced it was a good idea, even though the traffic growth rate is ahead of projection. But I keep telling them that money isn't everything – the Republic needed the Bridge psychologically and culturally, as well as economically. Did you know that 18 percent of the people who drive across it do so just because it's there, not for any other reason? And then they go straight back again, despite having to pay the toll both ways.”

“I seem to recall,” said Morgan dryly, “giving you similar arguments, a long time ago. You weren't easy to convince.”

“True. I remember that the Sydney Opera House was your favourite example. You liked to point out how many times that had paid for itself – even in hard cash, let alone prestige.”

“And don't forget the Pyramids.”

The Sheik laughed. “What did you call them? The best investment in the history of mankind?”

“Precisely. Still paying tourist dividends after four thousand years.”

“Hardly a fair comparison, though. Their running costs don't compare with those of the Bridge much less your proposed Tower's.”

“The Tower may last longer than the Pyramids. It's in a far more benign environment.”

“That's a very impressive thought. You really believe that it will operate for several thousand years?”

“Not in its original form, of course. But in principle, yes. Whatever technical developments the future brings, I don't believe there will ever be a more efficient, more economical way of reaching Space. Think of it as another bridge. But this time a bridge to the stars or at least to the planets.”

“And once again you'd like us to help finance it. We'll still be paying for the last bridge for another twenty years. It's not as if your space elevator was on our territory, or was of direct importance to us.”

“But I believe it is, Mr. President. Your republic is a part of the terran economy, and the cost of space transportation is now one of the factors limiting its growth. If you've looked at those estimates for the 50's and 60's…”

“I have – I have. Very interesting. But though we're not exactly poor, we couldn't raise a fraction of the funds needed. Why, it would absorb the entire Gross World Product for a couple of years!”

“And pay it back every fifteen, for ever afterwards.”

“If your projections are correct.”

“They were, for the Bridge. But you're right, of course, and I don't expect ANAR to do more than start the ball rolling. Once you've shown your interest, it will be that much easier to get other support.”

“Such as?”

“The World Bank. The Planetary banks. The Federal government.”

“And your own employers, the Terran Construction Corporation? What are you really up to, Van?”

Here it comes, thought Morgan, almost with a sigh of relief. Now at last he could talk frankly with someone he could trust, someone who was too big to be involved in petty bureaucratic intrigues – but who could thoroughly appreciate their finer points.

“I've been doing most of this work in my own time I'm on vacation right now. And incidentally, that's just how the Bridge started! I don't know if I ever told you that I was once officially ordered to forget it… I've learned a few lessons in the past fifteen years.”

“This report must have taken a good deal of computer time. Who paid for that?”

“Oh, I have considerable discretionary funds. And my staff is always doing studies that nobody else can understand. To tell the truth, I've had quite a little team playing with the idea for several months. They're so enthusiastic that they spend most of their free time on it as well. But now we have to commit ourselves or abandon the project.”

“Does your esteemed Chairman know about this?”

Morgan smiled, without much humour. “Of course not, and I don't want to tell him until I've worked out all the details.”

“I can appreciate some of the complications,” said the President shrewdly. “One of them, I imagine, is ensuring that Senator Collins doesn't invent it first.”

“He can't do that – the idea is two hundred years old. But he, and a lot of other people, could slow it down. I want to see it happen in my lifetime.”

“And, of course, you intend to be in charge… Well, what exactly would you like us to do?”

“This is merely one suggestion, Mr. President – you may have a better idea. Form a consortium – perhaps including the Gibraltar Bridge Authority, the Suez and Panama Corporations, the English Channel Company, the Bering Dam Corporation. Then, when it's all wrapped up, approach TCC with a request to do a feasibility study. At this stage, the investment will be negligible.”

“Meaning?”

“Less than a million. Especially as I've already done 80 percent of the work.”

“And then?”

“Thereafter, with your backing, Mr. President, I can play it by ear. I might stay with TCC. Or I might resign and join the consortium – call it Astroengineering. It would all depend on circumstances. I would do whatever seemed best for the project.”

“That seems a reasonable approach. I think we can work something out.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Morgan answered with heartfelt sincerity. “But there's one annoying roadblock we have to tackle at once – perhaps even before we set up the consortium. We have to go to the World Court, and establish jurisdiction over the most valuable piece of real estate on Earth.”

20. The Bridge that Danced

Even in this age of instantaneous communications and swift global transport, it was convenient to have a place that one could call one's office. Not everything could be stored in patterns of electronic charges; there were still such items as good old-fashioned books, professional certificates, awards and honours, engineering models, samples of material, artists' rendering of projects (not as accurate as a computer's, but very ornamental), and of course the wall-to-wall carpet which every senior bureaucrat needed to soften the impact of external reality.

Morgan's office, which he saw on the average ten days per month, was on the sixth or LAND floor of the sprawling Terran Construction Corporation Headquarters in Nairobi. The floor below was SEA, that above it ADMINISRATI0N-meaning Chairman Collins and his empire. The architect, in a fit of naпve symbolism, had devoted the top floor to SPACE. There was even a small observatory on the roof, with a thirty-centimetre telescope that was always out of order, because it was only used during office parties, and frequently for most non-astronomical purposes. The upper rooms of the Triplanetary Hotel, only a kilometre away, were a favourite target, as they often held some very strange forms of life – or at any rate of behaviour.

As Morgan was in continuous touch with his two secretaries one human, the other electronic – he expected no surprises when he walked into the office after the brief flight from ANAR. By the standards of an earlier age, his was an extraordinarily small organisation. He had less than three hundred men and women under his direct control; but the computing and information-processing power at their command could not be matched by the merely human population of the entire planet.

“Well, how did you get on with the Sheik?” asked Warren Kingsley, his deputy and long time friend, as soon as they were alone together.

“Very well; I think we have a deal. But I still can't believe that we're held up by such a stupid problem. What does the legal department say?”

“We'll definitely have to get a World Court ruling. If the Court agrees that it's a matter of overwhelming public interest, our reverend friends will have to move… though if they decide to be stubborn, there would be a nasty situation. Perhaps you should send a small earthquake to help them make up their minds.”

The fact that Morgan was on the board of General Tectonics was an old joke between him and Kingsley; but GT – perhaps fortunately – had never found a way of controlling and directing earthquakes, nor did it ever expect to do so. The best that it could hope for was to predict them, and to bleed off their energies harmlessly before they could do major damage. Even here, its record of success was not much better than 75 percent.

“A nice idea,” said Morgan, “I'll think it over. Now, what about our other problem?”

“All set to go – do you want it now?”

“O.K. – let's see the worst.”

The office windows darkened, and a grid of glowing lines appeared in the centre of the room.

“Watch this, Van,” said Kingsley. “Here's the regime that gives trouble.”

Rows of letters and numbers materialised in the empty air – velocities, payloads, accelerations, transit times – Morgan absorbed them at a glance. The globe of the earth, with its circles of longitude and latitude, hovered just above the carpet; and rising from it, to little more than the height of a man, was the luminous thread that marked the position of the orbital tower.

“Five hundred times normal speed; lateral scale exaggeration fifty. Here we go.”

Some invisible force had started to pluck at the line of light, drawing it away from the vertical. The disturbance was moving upwards as it mimicked, via the computer's millions of calculations a second, the ascent of a payload through the earth's gravitational field.

“What's the displacement?” asked Morgan, as his eyes strained to follow the details of the simulation.

“Now about two hundred metres. It gets to three before -”

The thread snapped. In the leisurely slow-motion that represented real speeds of thousands of kilometres an hour, the two segments of the severed tower began to curl away from each other – one bending back to earth, the other whipping upwards to space…

But Morgan was no longer fully conscious of this imaginary disaster, existing only in the mind of the computer; superimposed upon it now was the reality that had haunted him for years.

He had seen that two-century-old film at least fifty times, and there were sections that he had examined frame by frame, until he knew every detail by heart. It was, after all, the most expensive movie footage ever shot, at least in peacetime. It had cost the State of Washington several million dollars a minute.

There stood the slim (too slim!) and graceful bridge, spanning the canyon. It bore no traffic, but a single car had been abandoned midway by its driver. And no wonder, for the bridge was behaving as none before in the whole history of engineering.

It seemed impossible that thousands of tons of metal could perform such an aerial ballet; one could more easily believe that the bridge was made of rubber than of steel. Vast, slow undulations, metres in amplitude, were sweeping along the entire width of the span, so that the roadway suspended between the piers twisted back and forth like an angry snake. The wind blowing down the canyon was sounding a note far too low for any human ears to detect, as it hit the natural frequency of the beautiful, doomed structure. For hours, the torsional vibrations had been building up, but no-one knew when the end would come. Already, the protracted death-throes were a testimonial that the unlucky designers could well have foregone.

Suddenly, the supporting cables snapped, flailing upwards like murderous steel whips. Twisting and turning, the roadway pitched into the river, fragments of the structure flying in all directions. Even when projected at normal speed, the final cataclysm looked as if shot in slow motion; the scale of the disaster was so large that the human mind had no basis of comparison. In reality, it lasted perhaps five seconds; at the end of that time, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge had earned an inexpungable place in the history of engineering. Two hundred years later there was a photograph of its last moments on the wall of Morgan's office, bearing the caption “One of our less successful products”.

To Morgan that was no joke, but a permanent reminder that the unexpected could always strike from ambush. When the Gibraltar Bridge was being designed, he had gone carefully through von Kбrmбn's classic analysis of the Tacoma Narrows disaster, learning all he could from one of the most expensive mistakes of the past. There had been no serious vibrational problems even in the worst gales that had come roaring in from the Atlantic, though the roadway had moved a hundred metres from the centre line precisely as calculated.

But the space elevator was such a leap forward into the unknown that some unpleasant surprises were a virtual certainty. Wind forces on the atmospheric section were easy to estimate, but it was also necessary to take into account the vibrations induced by the stopping and starting of the payloads – and even, on so enormous a structure, by the tidal effects of the sun and moon. And not only individually, but acting all together; with, perhaps, an occasional earthquake to complicate the picture, in the so-called “worst case” analysis.

“All the simulations, in this tons-of-payload-per-hour regime, give the same result. The vibrations build up until there's a fracture at around five hundred kilometres. We'll have to increase the damping – drastically.”

“I was afraid of that. How much do we need?”

“Another ten megatons.”

Morgan could take some gloomy satisfaction from the figure. That was very close to the guess he had made, using his engineer's intuition and the mysterious resources of his subconscious. Now the computer had confirmed it; they would have to increase the “anchor” mass in orbit by ten million tons.

Even by terrestrial earth-moving standards, such a mass was hardly trivial; it was equivalent to a sphere of rock about two hundred metres across. Morgan had a sudden image of Yakkagala, as he had last seen it, looming against the Taprobanean sky. Imagine lifting that forty thousand kilometres into space! Fortunately, it might not be necessary; there were at least two alternatives.

Morgan always let his subordinates do their thinking for themselves; it was the only way to establish responsibility, it took much of the load off him – and, on many occasions, his staff had arrived at solutions he might have overlooked.

“What do you suggest, Warren?” he asked quietly.

“We could use one of the lunar freight launchers, and shoot up ten megatons of moon-rock. It would be a long and expensive job, and we'd still need a large space-based operation to catch the material and steer it into final orbit. There would also be a psychological problem -”

“Yes, I can appreciate that; we don't want another San Luiz Domingo -”

San Luiz had been the – fortunately small – South American village that had received a stray cargo of processed lunar metal intended for a low-orbit space station. The terminal guidance had failed, resulting in the first man-made meteor crater – and two hundred and fifty deaths. Ever since that, the population of planet Earth had been very sensitive on the subject of celestial target practice.

“A much better answer is to catch an asteroid; we're running a search for those with suitable orbits, and have found three promising candidates. What we really want is a carbonaceous one – then we can use it for raw material when we set up the processing plant. Killing two birds with one stone.”

“A rather large stone, but that's probably the best idea. Forget the lunar launcher – a million 10-ton shots would tie it up for years, and some of them would be bound to go astray. If you can't find a large enough asteroid, we can still send the extra mass up by the elevator itself – though I hate wasting all that energy if it can be avoided.”

“It may be the cheapest way. With the efficiency of the latest fusion plants, it will take only twenty dollars' worth of electricity to lift a ton up to orbit.”

“Are you sure of that figure?”

“It's a firm quotation from Central Power.”

Morgan was silent for a few minutes. Then he said: “The aerospace engineers really are going to hate me.” Almost as much, he added to himself, as the Venerable Parakarma.

No – that was not fair. Hate was an emotion no longer possible to a true follower of the Doctrine. What he had seen in the eyes of ex-Doctor Choam Goldberg was merely implacable opposition; but that could be equally dangerous.

21. Judgement

One of Paul Sarath's more annoying specialities was the sudden call, gleeful or gloomy as the case might be, which invariably opened with the words: “Have you heard the news?” Though Rajasinghe had often been tempted to give the general-purpose answer: “Yes – I'm not at all surprised,” he had never had the heart to rob Paul of his simple pleasure.

“What is it this time?” he answered, without much enthusiasm.

“Maxine's on Global Two, talking to Senator Collins. I think our friend Morgan is in trouble. Call you back.”

Paul's excited image faded from the Screen, to be replaced a few seconds later by Maxine Duval's, as Rajasinghe switched to the main news channel. She was sitting in her familiar studio, talking to the Chairman of the Terran Construction Corporation, who seemed to be in a mood of barely suppressed indignation – probably synthetic.

“– Senator Collins, now that the World Court ruling has been given -”

Rajasinghe shunted the entire programme to RECORD, with a muttered: “I thought that wasn't until Friday.” As he turned off the sound and activated his private link with ARISTOTLE, he exclaimed, “My God, it is Friday!”

As always, Ari was on line at once.

“Good morning, Raja. What can I do for you?”

That beautiful, dispassionate voice, untouched by human glottis, had never changed in the forty years that he had known it. Decades – perhaps centuries – after he was dead, it would be talking to other men just as it had spoken to him. (For that matter, how many conversations was it having at this very moment?) Once, this knowledge had depressed Rajasinghe; now it no longer mattered. He did not envy ARISTOTLE'S immortality.

“Good morning, Ari, I'd like today's World Court ruling on the case Astroengineering Corporation versus the Sri Kanda Vihara. The summary will do – let me have the full printout later.”

“Decision 1. Lease of temple site confirmed in perpetuity under Taprobanean and World Law, as codified 2085. Unanimous filing.”

“Decision 2. The construction of the proposed Orbital Tower with its attendant noise, vibration and impact upon a site of great historic and cultural importance would constitute a private nuisance, meriting an injunction under the Law of Torts. At this stage, public interest not of sufficient merit to affect the issue. Ruling 4 to 2, one abstention.”

“Thank you, Ari – cancel printout – I won't need it. Goodbye.” Well, that was that, just as he had expected. Yet he did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Rooted as he was in the past, he was glad that the old traditions were cherished and protected. If one thing had been learned from the bloody history of mankind, it was that only individual human beings mattered: however eccentric their beliefs might be, they must be safeguarded, so long as they did not conflict with wider but equally legitimate interests. What was it that the old poet had said? “There is no such thing as the State.” Perhaps that was going a little too far; but it was better than the other extreme.

At the same time, Rajasinghe felt a mild sense of regret. He had half convinced himself (was this merely co-operating with the inevitable?) that Morgan's fantastic enterprise might be just what was needed to prevent Taprobane (and perhaps the whole world, though that was no longer his responsibility) from sinking into a comfortable, self-satisfied decline. Now the Court had closed that particular avenue, at least for many years.

He wondered what Maxine would have to say on the subject, and switched over to delayed playback. On Global Two, the News Analysis channel (sometimes referred to as the Land of Talking Heads), Senator Collins was still gathering momentum.

“– undoubtedly exceeding his authority and using the resources of his division on projects which did not concern it.”

“But surely, Senator, aren't you being somewhat legalistic? As I understand it, hyperfilament was developed for construction purposes, especially bridges. And isn't this a kind of bridge? I've heard Dr. Morgan use that analogy, though he also calls it a tower.”

“You're being legalistic now, Maxine. I prefer the name 'space elevator'. And you're quite wrong about hyperfilament. It's the result of two hundred years of aerospace research. The fact that the final breakthrough came in the Land Division of my – ah – organisation is irrelevant, though naturally I'm proud that my scientists were involved.”

“You consider that the whole project should be handed over to the Space Division?”

“What project? This is merely a design study one of hundreds that are always going on in TCC. I never hear about a fraction of them, and I don't want to – until they reach the stage when some major decision has to be made.”

“Which is not the case here?”

“Definitely not. My space transportation experts say that they can handle all projected traffic increases – at least for the foreseeable future.”

“Meaning precisely?”

“Another twenty years.”

“And what happens then? The Tower will take that long to build, according to Dr. Morgan. Suppose it isn't ready in time?”

“Then we'll have something else. My staff is looking into all the possibilities, and it's by no means certain that the space elevator is the right answer.”

“The idea, though, is fundamentally sound?”

“It appears to be, though further studies are required.”

“Then surely you should be grateful to Dr. Morgan for his initial work.”

“I have the utmost respect for Dr. Morgan. He is one of the most brilliant engineers in my organization – if not in the world.”

“I don't think, Senator, that quite answers my question.”

“Very well; I am grateful to Dr. Morgan for bringing this matter to our notice. But I do not approve of the way in which he did it. If I may be blunt, he tried to force my hand.”

“How?”

“By going outside my organization – his organization – and thus showing a lack of loyalty. As a result of his manoeuvrings, there has been an adverse World Court decision, which inevitably has provoked much unfavourable comment. In the circumstances, I have had no choice but to request – with the utmost regret – that he tender his resignation.”

“Thank you, Senator Collins. As always, it's been a pleasure talking to you.”

“You sweet liar,” said Rajasinghe, as he switched off and took the call that had been flashing for the last minute.

“Did you get it all?” asked Professor Sarath. “So that's the end of Dr. Vannevar Morgan.”

Rajasinghe looked thoughtfully at his old friend for a few seconds.

“You were always fond of jumping to conclusions, Paul. How much would you care to bet?”