“As a matter of interest,” asked the Sheik, “where are the monks going? I might offer them hospitality here. Our culture has always welcomed other faiths.”
“I don’t know; nor does Ambassador Rajasinghe. But when I asked him he said: They’ll be all right. An order that’s lived frugally for three thousand years is not exactly destitute.”
“Hmm. Perhaps we could use some of their wealth. This little project of yours gets more expensive each time you see me.”
“Not really, Mr. President. That last estimate includes a purely book-keeping figure for deep-space operations, which Narodny Mars has now agreed to finance. They will locate a carbonaceous asteroid and navigate it to earth orbit – they’ve much more experience at this sort of work, and it solves one of our main problems.”
“What about the carbon for their own tower?”
“They have unlimited amounts on Deimos – exactly where they need it. Narodny has already started a survey for suitable mining sites, though the actual processing will have to be off-moon.”
“Dare I ask why?”
“Because of gravity. Even Deimos has a few centimetres per second squared. Hyperifilament can only be manufactured in completely zero gee conditions. There’s no other way of guaranteeing a perfect crystalline structure with sufficient long-range organisation.”
“Thank you, Van. Is it safe for me to ask why you’ve changed the basic design? I liked that original bundle of four tubes, two up and two down. A straightforward subway system was something I could understand-even if it was upended ninety degrees.”
Not for the first time, and doubtless not for the last, Morgan was amazed by the old man’s memory and his grasp of details. It was never safe to take anything for granted with him; though his questions were sometimes inspired by pure curiosity – often the mischievous curiosity of a man so secure that he had no need to uphold his dignity – he never overlooked anything of the slightest importance.
“I’m afraid our first thoughts were too earth-orientated. We were rather like the early motor-car designers, who kept producing horseless carriages. So now our design is a hollow square tower with a track up each face. Think of it as four vertical railroads. Where it starts from orbit, it’s forty metres on a side, and it tapers down to twenty when it reaches Earth.”
“Like a stalag – stalac -”
“Stalactite. Yes, I had to look it up! From the engineering point of view, a good analogy now would be the old Eiffel Tower – turned upside down and stretched out a hundred thousand times.”
“As much as that?”
“Just about.”
“Well, I suppose there’s no law that says a tower can’t hang downwards.”
“We have one going upwards as well, remember – from the synchronous orbit out of the mass anchor that keeps the whole structure under tension.”
“And Midway Station? I hope you haven’t changed that.”
“Yes, it’s still at the same place – twenty-five thousand kilometres.”
“Good. I know I’ll never get there, but I like to think about it… ” He muttered something in Arabic. “There’s another legend, you know – Mahomet’s coffin, suspended between heaven and earth. Just like Midway.”
“We’ll arrange a banquet for you there, Mr. President, when we inaugurate the service.”
“Even if you keep to your schedule – and I admit you only slipped a year on the Bridge – I’ll be ninety-eight then. No, I doubt if I’ll make it.”
But I shall, said Vannevar Morgan to himself. For now I know that the gods are on my side; whatever gods may be.
IV – THE TOWER
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 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.