The Fountains of Paradise

32. Space Express

“Now don't you say,” begged Warren Kingsley, “it'll never get off the ground.”

“I was tempted,” chuckled Morgan, as he examined the full-scale mock-up. “It does look rather like an upended railroad coach.”

“That's exactly the image we want to sell,” Kingsley answered. “You buy your ticket at the station, check in your baggage, settle down in your swivel seat, and admire the view. Or you can go up to the lounge-cum-bar and devote the next five hours to serious drinking, until they carry you off at Midway. Incidentally, what do you think of the Design Section's idea – nineteenth-century Pullman decor?”

“Not much. Pullman cars didn't have five circular floors, one on top of the other.”

“Better tell Design that – they've set their hearts on gas-lighting.”

“If they want an antique flavour that's a little more appropriate, I once saw an old space movie at the Sydney Art Museum. There was a shuttle craft of some kind that had a circular observation lounge – just what we need.”

“Do you remember its name?”

“Oh – let's think – something like Space Wars 2000. I'm sure you'll be able to trace it.”

“I'll tell Design to look it up. Now let's go inside – do you want a hard-hat?”

“No,” answered Morgan brusquely. That was one of the few advantages of being ten centimetres shorter than average height.

As they stepped into the mock-up, he felt an almost boyish thrill of anticipation. He had checked the designs, watched the computers playing with the graphics and layout – everything here would be perfectly familiar. But this was real – solid. True, it would never leave the ground, just as the old joke said. But one day its identical brethren would be hurtling up through the clouds and climbing, in only five hours, to Midway Station, twenty-five thousand kilometres from Earth. And all for about one dollar's worth of electricity per passenger.

THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE

Even now, it was impossible to realise the full meaning of the coming revolution. For the first time Space itself would become as accessible as any point on the surface of the familiar Earth. In a few more decades, if the average man wanted to spend a weekend on the moon, he could afford to do so. Even Mars would not be out of the question; there were no limitations to what might now be possible.

Morgan came back to earth with a bump, as he almost tripped over a piece of badly-laid carpet.

“Sorry,” said his guide, “another of Design's ideas – that green is supposed to remind people of Earth. The ceilings are going to be blue, getting deeper and deeper on the upper floors. And they want to use indirect lighting everywhere, so that the stars will be visible.”

Morgan shook his head. “That's a nice idea, but it won't work. If the lighting's good enough for comfortable reading, the glare will wipe out the stars. You'll need a section of the lounge that can be completely blacked-out.”

“That's already planned for part of the bar – you can order your drink, and retire behind the curtains.”

They were now standing in the lowest floor of the capsule, a circular room eight metres in diameter, three metres high. All around were miscellaneous boxes, cylinders and control panels bearing such labels as OXYGEN RESERVE, BATTERY, CO, CRACKER, MEDICAL, TEMPERATURE CONTROL. Everything was clearly of a provisional, temporary nature, liable to be rearranged at a moment's notice.

“Anyone would think we were building a spaceship,” Morgan commented. “Incidentally, what's the latest estimate of survival time?”

“As long as power's available, at least a week, even for a full load of fifty passengers. Which is really absurd, since a rescue team could always reach them in three hours, either from Earth or Midway.”

“Barring a major catastrophe, like damage to the tower or tracks.”

"If that ever happens, I don't think there will be anyone to rescue. But if a capsule gets stuck for some reason, and the passengers don't go mad and gobble up all our delicious emergency compressed food tablets at once, their biggest the old joke said. But one day its identical brethren would be hurtling up through the clouds and climbing, in only five hours, to Midway Station, twenty-five thousand kilometres from Earth. And all for about one dollar's worth of electricity per passenger.

THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE

Even now, it was impossible to realise the full meaning of the coming revolution. For the first time Space itself would become as accessible as any point on the surface of the familiar Earth. In a few more decades, if the average man wanted to spend a weekend on the moon, he could afford to do so. Even Mars would not be out of the question; there were no limitations to what might now be possible.

Morgan came back to earth with a bump, as he almost tripped over a piece of badly-laid carpet.

“Sorry,” said his guide, “another of Design's ideas – that green is supposed to remind people of Earth. The ceilings are going to be blue, getting deeper and deeper on the upper floors. And they want to use indirect lighting everywhere, so that the stars will be visible.”

Morgan shook his head. “That's a nice idea, but it won't work. If the lighting's good enough for comfortable reading, the glare will wipe out the stars. You'll need a section of the lounge that can be completely blacked-out.”

“That's already planned for part of the bar – you can order your drink, and retire behind the curtains.”

They were now standing in the lowest floor of the capsule, a circular room eight metres in diameter, three metres high. All around were miscellaneous boxes, cylinders and control panels bearing such labels as OXYGEN RESERVE, BATTERY, CO, CRACKER, MEDICAL, TEMPERATURE CONTROL. Everything was clearly of a provisional, temporary nature, liable to be rearranged at a moment's notice.

“Anyone would think we were building a spaceship,” Morgan commented. “Incidentally, what's the latest estimate of survival time?”

“As long as power's available, at least a week, even for a full load of fifty passengers. Which is really absurd, since a rescue team could always reach them in three hours, either from Earth or Midway.”

“Barring a major catastrophe, like damage to the tower or tracks.”

“If that ever happens, I don't think there will be anyone to rescue. But if a capsule gets stuck for some reason, and the passengers don't go mad and gobble up all our delicious emergency compressed food tablets at once, their biggest problem will be boredom.”

The second floor was completely empty, devoid even of temporary fittings. Someone had chalked a large rectangle on the curved plastic panel of the wall and printed inside it: AIRLOCK HERE?

“This will be the baggage room – though we're not sure if we'll need so much space. If not, it can be used for extra passengers. Now, this floor's much more interesting -”

The third level contained a dozen aircraft-type chairs, all of different designs; two of them were occupied by realistic dummies, male and female, who looked very bored with the whole proceedings.

“We've practically decided on this model,” said Kingsley, pointing to a luxurious tilting swivel-chair with attached small table, “but we'll run the usual survey first.”

Morgan punched his fist into the seat cushion.

“Has anyone actually sat in it for five hours?” he asked.

“Yes – a hundred-kilo volunteer. No bed-sores. If people complain, we'll remind them of the pioneering days of aviation, when it took five hours merely to cross the Pacific. And, of course, we're offering low-gee comfort almost all the way.”

The floor above was identical in concept, though empty of chairs. They passed through it quickly and reached the next level, to which the designers had obviously devoted most attention.

The bar looked almost functional, and indeed the coffee dispenser was actually working. Above it, in an elaborately gilded frame, was an old engraving of such uncanny relevance that it took Morgan's breath away. A huge full moon dominated the upper left quadrant, and racing towards it was – a bullet-shaped train towing four carriages. From the windows of the compartment labelled “First Class” top-hatted Victorian personages could be seen admiring the view.

“Where did you get hold of that?” Morgan asked in astonished admiration.

“Looks as if the caption's fallen off again,” Kingsley apologised, hunting round behind the bar. “Ah, here it is.”

He handed Morgan a piece of card upon which was printed, in old-fashioned typeface,

PROJECTILE TRAINS FOR THE MOON

Engraving from 1881 Edition of

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON

Direct

In 97 Hours and 20 Minutes

AND A TRIP AROUND FF

By Jules Verne

"I'm sorry to say I've never read it," said Morgan, when he had absorbed this information. "It might have saved me a lot of trouble. But I'd like to know how he managed without any rails…''

“We shouldn't give Jules too much credit – or blame. This picture was never meant to be taken seriously – it was a joke of the artist.”

“Well – give Design my compliments; it's one of their better ideas.”

Turning away from the dreams of the past, Morgan and Kingsley walked towards the reality of the future. Through the wide observation window a back-projection system gave a stunning view of Earth – and not just any view, Morgan was pleased to note, but the correct one. Taprobane itself was hidden, of course, being directly below; but there was the whole subcontinent of Hindustan, right out to the dazzling snows of the Himalayas.

“You know,” Morgan said suddenly, “it will be exactly like the Bridge, all over again. People will take the trip just for the view. Midway Station could be the biggest tourist attraction ever.” He glanced up at the azure-blue ceiling. “Anything worth looking at on the last floor?”

“Not really – the upper air-lock is finalised, but we haven't decided where to put the life-support backup gear and the electronics for the track-centring controls.”

“Any problems there?”

“Not with the new magnets. Powered or coasting, we can guarantee safe clearance up to eight thousand kilometres an hour – fifty percent above maximum design speed.”

Morgan permitted himself a mental sigh of relief. This was one area in which he was quite unable to make any judgements, and had to rely completely on the advice of others. From the beginning, it had been obvious that only some form of magnetic propulsion could operate at such speeds; the slightest physical contact – at more than a kilometre a second! – would result in disaster. And yet the four pairs of guidance slots running up the faces of the tower had only centimetres of clearance around the magnets; they had to be designed so that enormous restoring forces came instantly into play, correcting any movement of the capsule away from the centre line.

As Morgan followed Kingsley down the spiral stairway which extended the full height of the mockup, he was suddenly struck by a sombre thought. I'm getting old, he said to himself. Oh, I could have climbed to the sixth level without any trouble; but I'm glad we decided not to.

Yet I'm only fifty-nine – and it will be at least five years, even if all goes very well, before the first passenger car rides up to Midway Station. Then another three years of tests, calibration, system tune-ups. Make it ten years, to be on the safe side…

Though it was warm, he felt a sudden chill. For the first time, it occurred to Vannevar Morgan that the triumph upon which he had set his soul might come too late for him. And quite unconsciously he pressed his hand against the slim metal disc concealed inside his shirt.

33. CORA

“Why did you leave it until now?” Dr. Sen had asked, in a tone appropriate to a retarded child.

“The usual reason,” Morgan answered, as he ran his good thumb along the seal of his shirt. “I was too busy – and whenever I felt short of breath I blamed it on the height.”

“Altitude was partly to blame, of course. You'd better check all your people on the mountain. How could you have overlooked anything so obvious?”

How indeed? thought Morgan, with some embarrassment.

“All those monks – some of them were over eighty! They seemed so healthy that it never occurred to me…”

“The monks have lived up there for years – they're completely adapted. But you've been hopping up and down several times a day -”

“– twice, at the most -”

“– going from sea level to half an atmosphere in a few minutes. Well, there's no great harm done – if you follow instructions from now on. Mine, and CORA's.”

“CORA's?”

“Coronary alarm.”

“Oh – one of those things.”

“Yes – one of those things. They save about ten million lives a year. Mostly top civil servants, senior administrators, distinguished scientists, leading engineers and similar nit-wits. I often wonder if it's worth the trouble. Nature may be trying to tell us something, and we're not listening.”

“Remember your Hippocratic Oath, Bill,” retorted Morgan with a grin. “And you must admit that I've always done just what you told me. Why, my weight hasn't changed a kilo in the last ten years.”

“Urn… Well, you're not the worst of my patients,” said the slightly mollified doctor. He fumbled round in his desk and produced a large holopad. “Take your choice-here are the standard models. Any colour you like as long as it's Medic Red.”

Morgan triggered the images, and regarded them with distaste.

“Where do I have to carry the thing?” he asked. “Or do you want to implant it?”

“That isn't necessary, at least for the present. In five years' time, maybe, but perhaps not even then. I suggest you start with this model – it's worn just under the breastbone, so doesn't need remote sensors. After a while you won't notice it's there. And it won't bother you, unless it's needed.”

“And then?”

“Listen.”

The doctor threw one of the numerous switches on his desk console, and a sweet mezzo-soprano voice remarked in a conversational tone: “I think you should sit down and rest for about ten minutes.” After a brief pause it continued: “It would be a good idea to lie down for half an hour.” Another pause: “As soon as convenient, make an appointment with Dr. Sen.” Then:

“Please take one of the red pills immediately.”

“I have called the ambulance; just lie down and relax. Everything will be all right.”

Morgan almost clapped his hands over his ears to cut out the piercing whistle.

“THIS IS A CORA ALERT. WILL ANYONE WITHIN RANGE OF MY VOICE PLEASE COME IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS A CORA ALERT. WILL -”

“I think you get the general idea,” said the doctor, restoring silence to his office. “Of course, the programmes and responses are individually tailored to the subject. And there's a wide range of voices, including some famous ones.”

“That will do very nicely. When will my unit be ready?”

“I'll call you in about three days. Oh yes – there's an advantage to the chest-worn units I should mention.”

“What's that?”

“One of my patients is a keen tennis player. He tells me that when he opens his shirt the sight of that little red box has an absolutely devastating effect on his opponent's game…”

34. Vertigo

There had once been a time when a minor, and often major, chore of every civilised man had been the regular updating of his address book. The universal code had made that unnecessary, since once a person's lifetime identity number was known he could be located within seconds. And even if his number was not known, the standard search programme could usually find it fairly quickly, given the approximate date of birth, his profession, and a few other details. (There were, of course, problems if the name was Smith, or Singh, or Mohammed…)

The development of global information systems had also rendered obsolete another annoying task. It was only necessary to make a special notation against the names of those friends one wished to greet on their birthdays or other anniversaries, and the household computer would do the rest. On the appropriate day (unless, as was frequently the case, there had been some stupid mistake in programming) the right message would be automatically flashed to its destination. And even though the recipient might shrewdly suspect that the warm words on his screen were entirely due to electronics – the nominal sender not having thought of him for years – the gesture was nevertheless welcome.

But the same technology that had eliminated one set of tasks had created even more demanding successors. Of these, perhaps the most important was the design of the Personal Interest Profile.

Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day, or their birthday. Morgan's list contained fifty items; he had heard of people with hundreds. They must spend all their waking hours battling with the flood of information, unless they were like those notorious pranksters who enjoyed setting up News Alerts on their consoles for such classic improbabilities as:

Eggs, Dinosaur, hatching of

Circle, squaring of

Atlantis, re-emergence of

Christ, Second Coming of

Loch Ness Monster, capture of

or finally

World, end of

Usually, of course, egotism and professional requirements ensured that the subscriber's own name was the first item on every list. Morgan was no exception, but the entries that followed were slightly unusual:

Tower, orbital

Tower, space

Tower, (geo) synchronous

Elevator, space

Elevator, orbital

Elevator, (geo) synchronous

These names covered most of the variations used by the media, and ensured that he saw at least ninety percent of the news items concerning the project. The vast majority of these were trivial, and sometimes he wondered if it was worth searching for them – the ones that really mattered would reach him quickly enough.

He was still rubbing his eyes, and the bed had scarcely retracted itself into the wall of his modest apartment, when Morgan noticed that the Alert was flashing on his console. Punching the COFFEE and READOUT buttons simultaneously, he awaited the latest overnight sensation.

ORBITAL TOWER SHOT DOWN

said the headline.

“Follow up?” asked the console.

“You bet,” replied Morgan, now instantly awake.

During the next few seconds, as he read the text display, his mood changed from incredulity to indignation, and then to concern. He switched the whole news package to Warren Kingsley with a “Please call me back as soon as possible” tag, and settled down to breakfast, still fuming.

Less than five minutes later, Kingsley appeared on the screen.

"Well, Van," he said with humorous resignation, "we should consider ourselves lucky. It's taken him five years to get round to us.''

“It's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of! Should we ignore it? If we answer, that will only give him publicity. Which is just what he wants.”

Kingsley nodded. “That would be the best policy – for the present. We shouldn't over-react. At the same time, he may have a point.”

“What do you mean?”

Kingsley had become suddenly serious, and even looked a little uncomfortable.

“There are psychological problems as well as engineering ones,” he said. “Think it over. I'll see you at the office.”

The image faded from the screen, leaving Morgan in a somewhat subdued frame of mind. He was used to criticism, and knew how to handle it; indeed, he thoroughly enjoyed the give-and-take of technical arguments with his peers, and was seldom upset on those rare occasions when he lost. It was not so easy to cope with Donald Duck.

That, of course, was not his real name, but Dr. Donald Bickerstaff's peculiar brand of indignant negativism often recalled that mythological twentieth-century character. His degree (adequate, but not brilliant) was in pure mathematics; his assets were an impressive appearance, a mellifluous voice, and an unshakeable belief in his ability to deliver judgements on any scientific subject. In his own field, indeed, he was quite good; Morgan remembered with pleasure an old-style public lecture of the doctor's which he had once attended at the Royal Institution. For almost a week afterwards he had almost understood the peculiar properties of transfinite numbers.

Unfortunately, Bickerstaff did not know his limitations. Though he had a devoted coterie of fans who subscribed to his information service – in an earlier age, he would have been called a pop-scientist – he had an even larger circle of critics. The kinder ones considered that he had been educated beyond his intelligence. The others labelled him a self-employed idiot. It was a pity, thought Morgan, that Bickerstaff couldn't be locked in a room with Dr. Goldberg/Parakarma; they might annihilate each other like electron and positron – the genius of one cancelling out the fundamental stupidity of the other. That unshakeable stupidity against which, as Goethe lamented, the Gods themselves contend in vain. No gods being currently available, Morgan knew that he would have to undertake the task himself. Though he had much better things to do with his time, it might provide some comic relief; and he had an inspiring precedent.

There were few pictures in the hotel room that had been one of Morgan's four “temporary” homes for almost a decade. Most prominent of them was a photograph so well faked that some visitors could not believe that its components were all perfectly genuine. It was dominated by the graceful, beautifully restored steamship – ancestor of every vessel that could thereafter call itself modern. By her side, standing on the dock to which she had been miraculously returned a century and a quarter after her launch, was Dr. Vannevar Morgan. He was looking up at the scrollwork of the painted prow; and a few metres away, looking quizzically at him, was Isambard Kingdom Brunel – hands thrust in pockets, cigar clenched firmly in his mouth, and wearing a very rumpled, mud-spattered suit.

Everything in the photo was quite real; Morgan had indeed been standing beside the Great Britain, on a sunny day in Bristol the year after the Gibraltar Bridge was completed. But Brunel was back in 1857, still awaiting the launch of his later and more famous leviathan, whose misfortunes were to break his body and spirit.

The photograph had been presented to Morgan on his fiftieth birthday, and it was one of his most cherished possessions. His colleagues had intended it as a sympathetic joke, Morgan's admiration for the greatest engineer of the nineteenth century being well known. There were times, however, when he wondered if their choice was more appropriate than they realised. The Great Eastern had devoured her creator. The Tower might yet do the same to him.

Brunel, of course, had been surrounded by Donald Ducks. The most persistent was one Doctor Dionysius Lardner, who had proved beyond all doubt that no steamship could ever cross the Atlantic. An engineer could refute criticisms which were based on errors of fact or simple miscalculations. But the point that Donald Duck had raised was more subtle and not so easy to answer. Morgan suddenly recalled that his hero had to face something very similar, three centuries ago.

He reached for his small but priceless collection of genuine books, and pulled out the one he had read, perhaps, more often than any other – Rolt's classic biography Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Leafing through the well-thumbed pages, he quickly found the item that had stirred his memory.

Brunel had planned a railway tunnel almost three kilometres long – a “monstrous and extraordinary, most dangerous and impracticable” concept. It was inconceivable, said the critics, that human beings could tolerate the ordeal of hurtling through its Stygian depths. “No person would desire to be shut out from daylight with a consciousness that he had a superincumbent weight of earth sufficient to crush him in case of accident… the noise of two trains passing would shake the nerves… no passenger would be induced to go twice…”

It was all so familiar. The motto of the Lardners and the Bickerstaffs seemed to be: “Nothing shall be done for the first time.”

And yet – sometimes they were right, if only through the operation of the laws of chance. Donald Duck made it sound so reasonable. He had begun by saying, in a display of modesty as unusual as it was spurious, that he would not presume to criticise the engineering aspects of the space elevator. He only wanted to talk about the psychological problems it would pose. They could be summed up in one word: Vertigo. The normal human being, he had pointed out, had a well-justified fear of high places; only acrobats and tightrope artistes were immune to this natural reaction. The tallest structure on earth was less than five kilometres high – and there were not many people who would care to be hauled vertically up the piers of the Gibraltar Bridge.

Yet that was nothing compared to the appalling prospect of the orbital tower. "Who has not stood," Bickerstaff declaimed, "at the foot of some immense building, staring up at its sheer precipitous face, until it seemed about to topple and fall? Now imagine such a building soaring on and on through the clouds, up into the blackness of space, through the ionosphere, past the orbits of all the great space-stations – up and up until it reaches a large fraction of the way to the moon! An engineering triumph, no doubt – but a psychological nightmare. I suggest that some people will go mad at its mere contemplation. And how many could face the vertiginous ordeal of the ride – straight upwards, hanging over empty space, for twenty-five thousand kilometres to the first stop at the Midway Station?

"It is no answer to say that perfectly ordinary individuals can fly in spacecraft to the same altitude, and far beyond. The situation then is completely different – as indeed it is in ordinary atmospheric flight. The normal man does not feel vertigo even in the open gondola of a balloon, floating through the air a few kilometres above the ground. But put him on the edge of a cliff at the same altitude, and study his reactions then!

“The reason for this difference is quite simple. In an aircraft, there is no physical connexion linking the observer and the ground. Psychologically, therefore, he is completely detached from the hard, solid earth far below. Falling no longer has terrors for him; he can look down upon remote and tiny landscapes which he would never dare to contemplate from any high elevation. That saving physical detachment is precisely what the space elevator will lack. The hapless passenger, whisked up the sheer face of the gigantic tower, will be all too conscious of his link with earth. What guarantee can there possibly be that anyone not drugged or anaesthetised could survive such an experience? I challenge Dr. Morgan to answer.”

Dr. Morgan was still thinking of answers, few of them polite, when the screen lit up again with an incoming call. When he pressed the ACCEPT button, he was not in the least surprised to see Maxine Duval.

“Well, Van,” she said, without any preamble, “what are you going to do?”

“I'm sorely tempted, but I don't think I should argue with that idiot. Incidentally, do you suppose that some aerospace organisation has put him up to it?”

“My men are already digging; I'll let you know if they find anything. Personally, I feel it's all his own work – I recognise the hallmarks of the genuine article. But you haven't answered my question.”

“I haven't decided; I'm still trying to digest my breakfast. What do you think I should do?”

“Simple. Arrange a demonstration. When can you fix it?”

“In five years, if all goes well.”

“That's ridiculous. You've got your first cable in position…” “Not cable – tape.”

“Don't quibble. What load can it carry?”

“Oh – at the Earth end, a mere five hundred tons.”

“There you are. Offer Donald Duck a ride.”

“I wouldn't guarantee his safety.”

“Would you guarantee mine?”

“You're not serious !”

“I'm always serious, at this hour of the morning. It's time I did another story on the Tower anyway. That capsule mock-up is very pretty, but it doesn't do anything. My viewers like action, and so do I. The last time we met, you showed me drawings of those little cars the engineers will use to run up and down the cable – I mean tapes. What did you call them?”

“Spiders.”

“Ugh – that's right. I was fascinated by the idea. Here's something that has never been possible before, by any technology. For the first time you could sit still in the sky, even above the atmosphere, and watch the earth beneath – something that no spacecraft can ever do. I'd like to be the first to describe the sensation. And clip Donald Duck's wings at the same time.”

Morgan waited for a full five seconds, staring Maxine straight in the eyes, before he decided that she was perfectly serious.

“I can understand,” he said rather wearily, “just how a poor struggling young media-girl, trying desperately to make a name for herself, would jump at such an opportunity. I don't want to blight a promising career, but the answer is definitely no.”

The doyen of media-persons emitted several unladylike, and even ungentlemanly, words, not commonly transmitted over public circuits.

“Before I strangle you in your own hyperfilament, Van,” she continued, “why not?”

“Well, if anything went wrong, I'd never forgive myself.”

“Spare the crocodile tears. Of course, my untimely demise would be a major tragedy – for your project. But I wouldn't dream of going until you'd made all the tests necessary, and were sure it was one hundred percent safe.”

“It would look too much like a stunt.”

“As the Victorians (or was it the Elizabethans?) used to say – so what?”

“Look, Maxine – there's a flash that New Zealand has just sunk – they'll need you in the studio. But thanks for the generous offer.”

“Dr. Vannevar Morgan – I know exactly why you're turning me down. You want to be the first.”

“As the Victorians used to say – so what?”

«Touchй. But I'm warning you, Van – just as soon as you have one of those spiders working, you'll be hearing from me again.»

Morgan shook his head. “Sorry, Maxine,” he answered. “Not a chance -”

35. Starglider Plus Eighty

Extract from God and Starholme. (Mandala Press, Moscow, 2149)

Exactly eighty years ago, the robot interstellar probe now known as Starglider entered the Solar System, and conducted its brief but historic dialogue with the human race. For the first time, we knew what we had always suspected; that ours was not the only intelligence in the universe, and that out among the stars were far older, and perhaps far wiser, civilisations.

After that encounter, nothing would ever be the same again. And yet, paradoxically, in many ways very little has changed. Mankind still goes about its business, much as it has always done. How often do we stop to think that the Starholmers, back on their own planet, have already known of our existence for twenty-eight years – or that, almost certainly, we shall be receiving their first direct messages only twenty-four years from now? And what if, as some have suggested, they themselves are already on the way?

Men have an extraordinary, and perhaps fortunate, ability to tune out of their consciousness the most awesome future possibilities. The Roman farmer, ploughing the slopes of Vesuvius, gave no thought to the mountain smoking overhead. Half the twentieth century lived with the Hydrogen Bomb – half the twenty-first with the Golgotha virus. We have learned to live with the threat – or the promise – of Starholme.

Starglider showed us many strange worlds and races, but it revealed almost no advanced technology, and so had minimal impact upon the technically-orientated aspects of our culture. Was this accidental, or the result of some deliberate policy? There are many questions one would like to ask Starglider, now that it is too late – or too early.

On the other hand, it did discuss many matters of philosophy and religion, and in these fields its influence was profound. Although the phrase nowhere occurs in the transcripts, Starglider is generally credited with the famous aphorism “Belief in God is apparently a psychological artefact of mammalian reproduction”.

But what if this is true? It is totally irrelevant to the question of God's actual existence, as I shall now proceed to demonstrate…

Swami Krisnamurthi (Dr. Choam Goldberg)

36. The Cruel Sky

The eye could follow the tape much further by night than by day. At sunset, when the warning lights were switched on, it became a thin band of incandescence, slowly dwindling away until, at some indefinite point, it was lost against the background of stars.

Already, it was the greatest wonder of the world. Until Morgan put his foot down and restricted the site to essential engineering staff, there was a continual flood of visitors – “pigrims”, someone had ironically called them – paying homage to the sacred mountain's last miracle.

They would all behave in exactly the same way. First they would reach out and gently touch the five-centimetre-wide band, running their finger tips along it with something approaching reverence. Then they would listen, ears pressed against the smooth, cold material of the ribbon, as if they hoped to catch the music of the spheres. There were some, indeed, who claimed to have heard a deep, bass note at the uttermost threshold of audibility, but they were deluding themselves. Even the highest harmonics of the tape's natural frequency were far below the range of human hearing. And some would go away shaking their heads, saying:

“You'll never get me to ride up that thing!” But they were the ones who had made just the same remark about the fusion rocket, the space shuttle, the airplane, the automobile – even the steam locomotive…

To these sceptics, the usual answer was: “Don't worry – this is merely part of the scaffolding – one of the four tapes that will guide the Tower down to Earth. Riding up the final structure will be exactly like taking an elevator in any high building. Except that the trip will be longer – and much more comfortable.”

Maxine Duval's trip, on the other hand, would be very short, and not particularly comfortable. But once Morgan had capitulated, he had done his best to make sure that it would be uneventful.

The flimsy “Spider” – a prototype test vehicle looking like a motorised Bosun's Chair – had already made a dozen ascents to twenty kilometres, with twice the load it would be carrying now. There had been the usual minor teething problems, but nothing serious; the last five runs had been completely trouble-free. And what could go wrong? If there was a power failure – almost unthinkable, in such a simple battery-operated system – gravity would bring Maxine safely home, the automatic brakes limiting the speed of descent. The only real risk was that the drive mechanism might jam, trapping Spider and its passenger in the upper atmosphere. And Morgan had an answer even for this.

“Only fifteen kilometres?” Maxine had protested. “A glider can do better than that!”

“But you can't, with nothing more than an oxygen mask. Of course, if you like to wait a year until we have the operational unit with its life-support system…”

“What's wrong with a space-suit?”

Morgan had refused to budge, for his own good reasons. Though he hoped it would not be needed, a small jet-crane was standing by at the foot of Sri Kanda. Its highly skilled operators were used to odd assignments; they would have no difficulty in rescuing a stranded Maxine, even at twenty kilometres altitude.

But there was no vehicle in existence that could reach her at twice that height. Above forty kilometres was no-man's land – too low for rockets, too high for balloons.

In theory, of course, a rocket could hover beside the tape, for a very few minutes, before it burned up all its propellent. The problems of navigation and actual contact with the Spider were so horrendous that Morgan had not even bothered to think about them. It could never happen in real life, and he hoped that no producer of video-drama would decide that there was good material here for a cliff-hanger. That was the sort of publicity he could do without.

Maxine Duval looked rather like a typical Antarctic tourist as, glittering in her metal-foil thermosuit, she walked towards the waiting Spider and the group of technicians round it. She had chosen the time carefully; the sun had risen only an hour ago, and its slanting rays would show the Taprobanean landscape to best advantage. Her Remote, even younger and huskier than on the last memorable occasion, recorded the sequence of events for her System-wide audience.

She had, as always, been thoroughly rehearsed. There was no fumbling or hesitation as she strapped herself in, pressed the BATTERY CHARGE button, took a deep draught of oxygen from her facemask, and checked the monitors on all her video and sound channels. Then, like a fighter pilot in some old historical movie, she signalled “Thumbs Up”, and gently eased the speed control forward.

There was a small burst of ironic clapping from the assembled engineers, most of whom had already taken joy-rides up to heights of a few kilometres. Someone shouted: “Ignition! We have lift off!” and, moving about as swiftly as a brass bird-cage elevator in the reign of Victoria I, Spider began its stately ascent.

This must be like ballooning, Maxine told herself. Smooth, effortless, silent. No – not completely silent; she could hear the gentle whirr of the motors powering the multiple drive wheels that gripped the flat face of the tape. There was none of the sway or vibration that she had half expected; despite its slimness, the incredible band she was climbing was as rigid as a bar of steel, and the vehicle's gyros were holding it rock-steady. If she closed her eyes, she could easily imagine that she was already ascending the final tower. But, of course, she would not close her eyes; there was so much to see and absorb. There was even a good deal to hear; it was amazing how well sound carried, for the conversations below were still quite audible.

She waved to Vannevar Morgan, then looked for Warren Kingsley. To her surprise she was unable to find him; though he had helped her aboard Spider, he had now vanished. Then she remembered his frank admission – sometimes he made it sound almost like a wry boast – that the best structural engineer in the world couldn't stand heights… Everyone had some secret – or perhaps not-so-secret – fear. Maxine did not appreciate spiders, and wished that the vehicle she was riding had some other name; yet she could handle one if it was really necessary. The creature she could never bear to touch – though she had met it often enough on her diving expeditions – was the shy and harmless octopus.

The whole mountain was now visible, though from directly above it was impossible to appreciate its true height. The two ancient stairways winding up its face might have been oddly twisting level roads; along their entire length, as far as Maxine could observe, there was no sign of life. Indeed, one section had been blocked by a fallen tree – as if Nature had given advance notice, after three thousand years, that she was about to reclaim her own.

Leaving Camera One pointed downwards, Maxine started to pan with Number Two. Fields and forests drifted across the monitor screen, then the distant white domes of Ranapura – then the dark waters of the inland sea. And, presently, there was Yakkagala.

She zoomed on to the Rock, and could just make out the faint pattern of the ruins covering the entire upper surface. The Mirror Wall was still in shadow, as was the Gallery of the Princesses – not that there was any hope of making them out from such a distance. But the layout of the Pleasure Gardens, with their ponds and walkways and massive surrounding moat, was clearly visible.

The line of tiny white plumes puzzled her for a moment, until she realised that she was looking down upon another symbol of Kalidasa's challenge to the Gods – his so-called Fountains of Paradise. She wondered what the king would have thought, could he have seen her rising so effortlessly towards the heaven of his envious dreams.

It was almost a year since she had spoken to Ambassador Rajasinghe. On a sudden impulse she called the Villa.

“Hello, Johan,” she greeted him. “How do you like this view of Yakkagala?”

“So you've talked Morgan into it. How does it feel?”

“Exhilarating – that's the only word for it. And unique; I've flown and travelled in everything you can mention, but this feels quite different.”

“'To ride secure the cruel sky…'” “What was that?”

"An English poet, early twentieth century – I care not if you bridge the seas,

Or ride secure the cruel sky."

“Well, I care, and I'm feeling secure. Now I can see the whole island – even the Hindustan coast. How high am I, Van?”

“Coming up to twelve kilometres, Maxine. Is your oxygen mask on tight?”

“Confirmed. I hope it's not muffling my voice.”

“Don't worry – you're still unmistakeable. Three kilometres to go.”

“How much gas is still left in the tank?”

“Sufficient. And if you try to go above fifteen, I'll use the override to bring you home.”

“I wouldn't dream of it. And congratulations, by the way – this is an excellent observing platform. You may have customers standing in line.”

“We've thought of that – the comsat and metsat people are already making bids. We can give them relays and sensors at any height they like; it will all help to pay the rent.”

“I can see you!” exclaimed Rajasinghe suddenly. “Just caught your reflection in the 'scope. Now you're waving your arm… Aren't you lonely up there?”

For a moment there was an uncharacteristic silence. Then Maxine Duval answered quietly: “Not as lonely as Yuri Gagarin must have been, a hundred kilometres higher still. Van, you have brought something new into the world. The sky may still be cruel – but you have tamed it. There may be some people who could never face this ride: I feel very sorry for them.”

37 . The Billion-Ton Diamond

In the last seven years much had been done, yet there was still so much to do. Mountains – or at least asteroids – had been moved. Earth now possessed a second natural moon, circling just above synchronous altitude. It was less than a kilometre across, and was rapidly becoming smaller as it was rifled of its carbon and other light elements. Whatever was left – the core of iron, tailings and industrial slag – would form the counterweight that would keep the Tower in tension. It would be the stone in the forty-thousand-kilometre-long sling that now turned with the planet once every twenty-four hours.

Fifty kilometres eastwards of Ashoka Station floated the huge industrial complex which processed the weightless – but not mass-less – megatons of raw material and converted them into hyperfilament. Because the final product was more than ninety percent carbon, with its atoms arranged in a precise crystalline lattice, the Tower had acquired the popular nickname “The Billion Ton Diamond”. The Jeweller's Association of Amsterdam had sourly pointed out that (a) hyperfilament wasn't diamond at all (b) if it was, then the Tower weighed five times ten to the fifteen carats.

Carats or tons, such enormous quantities of material had taxed to the utmost the resources of the space colonies and the skills of the orbital technicians. Into the automatic mines, production plants and zero-gravity assembly systems had gone much of the engineering genius of the human race, painfully acquired during two hundred years of spacefaring. Soon all the components of the Tower – a few standardised units, manufactured by the million – would be gathered in huge floating stock-piles, waiting for the robot handlers.

Then the Tower would grow in two opposite directions – down to Earth, and simultaneously up to the orbital mass-anchor, the whole process being adjusted so that it would always be in balance. Its cross-section would decrease steadily from orbit, where it would be under the maximum stress, down to Earth; it would also taper off towards the anchoring counter-weight.

When its task was complete, the entire construction complex would be launched into a transfer orbit to Mars. This was a part of the contract which had caused some heartburning among terrestrial politicians and financiers now that, belatedly, the space elevator's potential was being realised.

The Martians had driven a hard bargain. Though they would wait another five years before they had any return on their investment, they would then have a virtual construction monopoly for perhaps another decade. Morgan had a shrewd suspicion that the Pavonis tower would merely be the first of several; Mars might have been designed as a location for space elevator systems, and its energetic occupants were not likely to miss such an opportunity. If they made their world the centre of interplanetary commerce in the years ahead, good luck to them; Morgan had other problems to worry about, and some of them were still unsolved.

The Tower, for all its overwhelming size, was merely the support for something much more complex. Along each of its four sides must run thirty-six thousand kilometres of track, capable of operation at speeds never before attempted. This had to be powered for its entire length by super-conducting cables, linked to massive fusion generators, the whole system being controlled by an incredibly elaborate, fail-safe computer network.

The Upper Terminal, where passengers and freight would transfer between the Tower and the spacecraft docked to it, was a major project in itself. So was Midway Station. So was Earth Terminal, now being lasered into the heart of the sacred mountain. And in addition to all this, there was Operation Cleanup…

For two hundred years, satellites of all shapes and sizes, from loose nuts and bolts to entire space villages, had been accumulating in Earth orbit. All that came below the extreme elevation of the Tower, at any time, now had to be accounted for, since they created a possible hazard. Three-quarters of this material was abandoned junk, much of it long forgotten. Now it had to be located, and somehow disposed of.

Fortunately, the old orbital forts were superbly equipped for this task. Their radars – designed to locate oncoming missiles at extreme ranges with no advance warning – could easily pin-point the debris of the early space age. Then their lasers vapourised the smaller satellites, while the larger ones were nudged into higher and harmless orbits. Some, of historic interest, were recovered and brought back to Earth. During this operation there were quite a few surprises – for example, three Chinese astronauts who had perished on some secret mission, and several reconnaissance satellites constructed from such an ingenious mix of components that it was quite impossible to discover what country had launched them. Not, of course, that it now mattered a great deal, since they were at least a hundred years old.

The multitude of active satellites and space stations – forced for operational reasons to remain close to Earth – all had to have their orbits carefully checked, and in some cases modified. But nothing, of course, could be done about the random and unpredictable visitors which might arrive at any minute from the outer reaches of the Solar System. Like all the creations of mankind, the Tower would be exposed to meteorites. Several times a day its network of seismometers would detect milligram impacts; and once or twice a year minor structural damage might be expected. And sooner or later, during the centuries to come, it might encounter a giant which could put one or more tracks out of action for a while. In the worst possible case, the Tower might even be severed somewhere along its length.

That was about as likely to happen as the impact of a large meteorite upon London or Tokyo – which presented roughly the same target area. The inhabitants of those cities did not lose much sleep worrying over this possibility. Nor did Vannevar Morgan. Whatever problems might still lie ahead, no one doubted now that the Orbital Tower was an idea whose time had come.