“At whose request? Not, I take it, Senator Collins’?”
“No,” said Morgan, with a grim smile. “I thought it would be – useful. And it helps to relieve my feelings.”
“I’m sure of it. But all these activities aren’t really creative. Sooner or later they’ll pall – like this beautiful Norwegian scenery. You’ll grow tired of looking at lakes and fir trees, just as you’ll grow tired of writing and talking. You are the sort of man who will never be really happy, Dr. Morgan, unless you are shaping your universe.”
Morgan did not reply. The prognosis was much too accurate for comfort.
“I suspect that you agree with me. What would you say if I told you that my Bank was seriously interested in the space elevator project?”
“I’d be sceptical. When I approached them, they said it was a fine idea, but they couldn’t put any money into it at this stage. All available funds were needed for the development of Mars. It’s the old story – we’ll be glad to help you, when you don’t need any help.”
“That was a year ago; now there have been some second thoughts. We’d like you to build the space elevator – but not on Earth. On Mars. Are you interested?”
“I might be. Go on.”
“Look at the advantages. Only a third of the gravity, so the forces involved are correspondingly smaller. The synchronous orbit is also closer – less than half the altitude here. So at the very start, the engineering problems are enormously reduced. Our people estimate that the Mars system would cost less than a tenth of the Terran one.”
“That’s quite possible, though I’d have to check it.”
“And that’s just the beginning. We have some fierce gales on Mars, despite our thin atmosphere – but mountains that get completely above them. Your Sri Kanda is only five kilometres high. We have Mons Pavonis – twenty-one kilometres, and exactly on the equator! Better still, there are no Martian monks with long-term leases sitting on the summit… And there’s one other reason why Mars might have been designed for a space elevator. Deimos is only three thousand kilometres above the stationary orbit. So we already have a couple of million megatons sitting in exactly the right place for the anchor.”
“That will present some interesting problems in synchronisation, but I see what you mean. I’d like to meet the people who worked all this out.”
“You can’t, in real time. They’re all on Mars. You’ll have to go there.”
“I’m tempted, but I still have a few other questions.”
“Go ahead.”
“Earth must have the elevator, for all the reasons you doubtless know. But it seems to me that Mars could manage without it. You have only a fraction of our space traffic, and a much smaller projected growth rate. Frankly, it doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me.”
“I was wondering when you’d ask.”
“Well, I’m asking.”
“Have you heard of Project Eos?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Eos – Greek for Dawn – the plan to rejuvenate Mars.”
“Oh, of course I know about that. It involves melting the polar caps, doesn’t it?”
“Exactly. If we could thaw out all that water and CO2 ice, several things would happen. The atmospheric density would increase until men could work in the open without spacesuits; at a later stage, the air might even be made breathable. There would be running water, small seas – and, above all, vegetation – the beginnings of a carefully planned biota. In a couple of centuries, Mars could be another Garden of Eden. It’s the only planet in the solar system we can transform with known technology: Venus may always be too hot.”
“And where does the elevator come into this?”
“We have to lift several million tons of equipment into orbit. The only practical way to heat up Mars is by solar mirrors, hundreds of kilometres across. And we’ll need them permanently – first to melt the ice-caps, and later to maintain a comfortable temperature.”
“Couldn’t you get all this material from your asteroid mines?”
“Some of it, of course. But the best mirrors for the job are made of sodium, and that’s rare in space. We’ll have to get it from the Tharsis salt-beds – right by the foothills of Pavonis, luckily enough.”
“And how long will all this take?”
“If there are no problems, the first stage could be complete in fifty years. Maybe by your hundredth birthday, which the actuaries say you have a thirty-nine percent chance of seeing.”
Morgan laughed.
“I admire people who do a thorough job of research.”
“We wouldn’t survive on Mars unless we paid attention to detail.”
“Well, I’m favourably impressed, though I still have a great many reservations. The financing, for example -”
“That’s my job, Dr. Morgan. I’m the banker. You’re the engineer.”
“Correct, but you seem to know a good deal about engineering, and I’ve had to learn a lot of economics – often the hard way. Before I’d even consider getting involved in such a project, I should want a detailed budget breakdown -”
“Which can be provided -”
“- and that would just be the start. You may not realise that there’s still a vast amount of research involved in half-a-dozen fields – mass production of the hyperfilament material, stability and control problems – I could go on all night.”
“That won’t be necessary; our engineers have read all your reports. What they are proposing is a small-scale experiment that will settle many of the technical problems, and prove that the principle is sound -”
“There’s no doubt about that.”
“I agree, but it’s amazing what a difference a little practical demonstration can make. So this is what we would like you to do. Design the minimum possible system – just a wire with a payload of a few kilogrammes. Lower it from synchronous orbit to Earth – yes, Earth. If it works here, it will be easy on Mars. Then run some thing up it just to show that rockets are obsolete. The experiment will be relatively cheap, it will provide essential information and basic training – and, from our point of view, it will save years of argument. We can go to the Government of Earth, the Solar Fund, the other interplanetary banks – and just point to the demonstration.”
“You really have worked all this out. When would you like my answer?”
“To be honest, in about five seconds. But obviously, there’s nothing urgent about the matter. Take as long as seems reasonable.”
“Very well. Give me your design studies, cost analyses, and all the other material you have. Once I’ve been through them, I’ll let you have my decision in – oh, a week at the most.”
“Thank you. Here’s my number. You can get me at any time.”
Morgan slipped the banker’s ident card into the memory slot of his communicator and checked the ENTRY CONFIRMED on the visual display. Before he had returned the card, he had already made up his mind. Unless there was a fundamental flaw in the Martian analysis – and he would bet a large sum that it was sound – his retirement was over. He had often noted, with some amusement, that whereas he frequently thought long and hard over relatively trivial decisions, he had never hesitated for a moment at the major turning-points of his career. He had always known what to do, and had seldom been wrong.
And yet, at this stage in the game, it was better not to invest too much intellectual or emotional capital into a project that might still come to nothing. After the banker had rolled out on the first stage of his journey back to Port Tranquillity, via Oslo and Gagarin, Morgan found it impossible to settle down to any of the activities he had planned for the long northern evening; his mind was in a turmoil, scanning the whole spectrum of suddenly changed futures.
After a few minutes of restless pacing, he sat down at his desk and began to list priorities in a kind of reverse order, starting with the commitments he could most easily shed. Before long, however, he found it impossible to concentrate on such routine matters. Far down in the depths of his mind something was nagging at him, trying to attract his attention. When he tried to focus upon it, it promptly eluded him, like a familiar but momentarily forgotten word.
With a sigh of frustration Morgan pushed himself away from the desk, and walked out on to the verandah running along the western face of the hotel. Though it was very cold, the air was quite still and the sub-zero temperature was more of a stimulus than a discomfort. The sky was a blaze of stars, and a yellow crescent moon was sinking down towards its reflection in the fjord, whose surface was so dark and motionless that it might have been a sheet of polished ebony.