Everything had been loaded aboard Spider, which had been jacked up so that the extra battery could be hung beneath it. Mechanics were still making hasty last-minute adjustments and disconnecting power leads; the tangle of cabling underfoot was a mild hazard to a man unused to walking in a spacesuit.
Morgan’s Flexisuit had arrived from Gagarin only thirty minutes ago, and for a while he had seriously considered leaving without one. Spider Mark II was a far more sophisticated vehicle than the simple prototype that Maxine Duval had once ridden; indeed, it was a tiny spaceship with its own life-support system. If all went well, Morgan should be able to mate it with the airlock on the bottom of the Tower, designed years ago for this very purpose. But a suit would provide not only insurance in case of docking problems; it would give him enormously greater freedom of action. Almost form-fitting, the Flexisuit bore very little resemblance to the clumsy armour of the early astronauts, and, even when pressurised, would scarcely restrict his movements. He had once seen a demonstration by its manufacturers of some spacesuited acrobatics, culminating in a sword-fight and a ballet. The last was hilarious – but it had proved the designer’s claims.
Morgan climbed the short flight of steps, stood for a moment on the capsule’s tiny metal porch, then cautiously backed inside. As he settled down and fastened the safety belt, he was agreeably surprised at the amount of room. Although the Mark II was certainly a one-man vehicle, it was not as claustrophobic as he had feared – even with the extra equipment that had been packed into it.
The two oxygen cylinders had been stowed under the seat, and the CO2 masks were in a small box behind the ladder that led up to the overhead airlock. It seemed astonishing that such a small amount of equipment could mean the difference between life and death for so many people.
Morgan had taken one personal item – a memento of that first day long ago at Yakkagala, where in a sense all this had started. The spinnerette took up little room, and weighed only a kilo. Over the years it had become something of a talisman; it was still one of the most effective ways of demonstrating the properties of hyperfilament, and whenever he left it behind he almost invariably found that he needed it. On this, of all trips, it might well prove useful.
He plugged in the quick-release umbilical of his spacesuit, and tested the air-flow both on the internal and external supply. Outside, the power cables were disconnected; Spider was on its own.
Brilliant speeches were seldom forthcoming at such moments – and this, after all, was going to be a perfectly straightforward operation. Morgan grinned rather stiffly at Kingsley and said: “Mind the store, Warren, until I get back.” Then he noticed the small, lonely figure in the crowd around the capsule. My God, he thought to himself – I’d almost forgotten the poor kid… “Dev,” he called. “Sorry I haven’t been able to look after you. I’ll make up for it when I get back.”
And I will, he told himself. When the Tower was finished there would be time for everything – even the human relations he had so badly neglected. Dev would be worth watching; a boy who knew when to keep out of the way showed unusual promise.
The curving door of the capsule – the upper half of it transparent plastic – thudded softly shut against its gaskets. Morgan pressed the CHECK-OUT button, and Spider’s vital statistics appeared on the screen one by one. All were green; there was no need to note the actual figures. If any of the values had been outside nominal, they would have flashed red twice a second. Nevertheless, with his usual engineer’s caution, Morgan observed that oxygen stood at 102 percent, main battery power at 101 percent, booster battery at 105 percent. ..
The quiet, calm voice of the controller – the same unflappable expert who had watched over all operations since that first abortive lowering years ago – sounded in his ear. “All systems nominal. You have control.”
“I have control. I’ll wait until the next minute comes up.”
It was hard to think of a greater contrast to an old-time rocket launch, with its elaborate countdown, its split-second timing, its sound and fury. Morgan merely waited until the last two digits on the clock became zeroes, then switched on power at the lowest setting.
Smoothly – si1ently — the flood-lit mountain top fell away beneath him. Not even a balloon ascent could have been quieter. If he listened carefully he could just hear the whirring of the twin motors as they drove the big friction drive-wheels that gripped the tape, both above and below the capsule.
Rate of ascent, five metres a second, said the velocity indicator; in slow, regular steps Morgan increased the power until it read fifty – just under two hundred kilometres an hour. That gave maximum efficiency at Spider’s present loading; when the auxiliary battery was dropped off speed could be increased by twenty-five percent to almost 250 klicks.
“Say something, Van!” said Warren Kingsley’s amused voice from the world below.
“Leave me alone,” Morgan replied equably. “I intend to relax and enjoy the view for the next couple of hours. If you wanted a running commentary, you should have sent Maxine Duval.”
“She’s been calling you for the last hour.”
“Give her my love, and say I’m busy. Maybe when I reach the Tower… . What’s the latest from there?”
“Temperature’s stabilised at twenty – Monsoon Control zaps them with a modest megawattage every ten minutes. But Professor Sessui is furious – complains that it upsets his instruments.”
“What about the air?”
“Not so good. The pressure has definitely dropped, and of course the CO2’s building up. But they should be O.K. if you arrive on schedule. They’re avoiding all unnecessary movement, to conserve oxygen.”
All except Professor Sessui, I’ll bet, thought Morgan. It would be interesting to meet the man whose life he was trying to save. He had read several of the scientist’s widely-praised popular books, and considered them florid and overblown. Morgan suspected that the man matched the style.
“And the status at 10K?”
“Another two hours before the transporter can leave; they’re installing some special circuits to make quite sure that nothing catches fire on this trip.”
“A very good idea – Bartok’s, I suppose.”
“Probably. And they’re coming down the north track, just in case the south one was damaged by the explosion. If all goes well, they’ll arrive in – oh – twenty-one hours. Plenty of time, even if we don’t send Spider up again with a second load.”
Despite his only half-jesting remark to Kingsley, Morgan knew that it was far too early to start relaxing. Yet all did seem to be going as well as could be expected; and there was certainly nothing else that he could do for the next three hours except admire the ever-expanding view.
He was already thirty kilometres up in the sky, rising swiftly and silently through the tropical night. There was no moon, but the land beneath was revealed by the twinkling constellations of its towns and villages. When he looked at the stars above and the stars below, Morgan found it easy to imagine that he was far from any world, lost in the depths of space. Soon he could see the whole island of Taprobane, faintly outlined by the lights of the coastal settlements. Far to the north a dull glowing patch was creeping up over the horizon like the herald of some displaced dawn. It puzzled him for a moment, until he realised that he was looking at one of the great cities of Southern Hindustan.
He was higher now than any aircraft could climb, and what he had already done was unique in the history of transportation. Although Spider and its precursors had made innumerable trips up to twenty kilometres, no one had been allowed to go higher because of the impossibility of rescue. It had not been planned to commence serious operations until the base of the Tower was much closer, and Spider had at least two companions who could spin themselves up and down the other tapes of the system. Morgan pushed aside the thought of what could happen if the drive mechanism jammed; that would doom the refugees in the Basement, as well as himself.
Fifty kilometres; he had reached what would, in normal times, have been the lowest level of the ionosphere. He did not, of course, expect to see anything; but he was wrong.
The first intimation was a faint crackling from the capsule speaker; then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of light. It was immediately below him, glimpsed in the downward-viewing mirror just outside Spider’s little bay-window. He twisted the mirror around as far as it would adjust, until it was aimed at a point a couple of metres below the capsule. For a moment, he stared with astonishment, and more than a twinge of fear; then he called the Mountain.