As he stared at the diamond necklace stretched across the sky, Morgan’s sleepy mind slowly transformed it into something far more impressive. With only a slight effort of the imagination, those man-made stars became the lights of a titanic bridge.
He drifted into still wilder fantasies. What was the name of the bridge into Valhalla, across which the heroes of the Norse legends passed from this world to the next? He could not remember, but it was a glorious dream. And had other creatures, long before Man, tried in vain to span the skies of their own worlds? He thought of the splendid rings encircling Saturn, the ghostly arches of Uranus and Neptune. Although he knew perfectly well that none of these worlds had ever felt the touch of life, it amused him to think that here were the shattered fragments of bridges that had failed.
He wanted to sleep but, against his will, imagination had seized upon the idea. Like a dog that had just discovered a new bone, it would not let go. The concept was not absurd; it was not even original. Many of the synchronous stations were already kilometres in extent, or linked by cables which stretched along appreciable fractions of their orbit. To join them together, thus forming a ring completely around the world, would be an engineering task much simpler than the building of the Tower, and involving much less material.
No – not a ring – a wheel. This Tower was only the first spoke. There would be others (four? six? a score?) spaced along the equator. When they were all connected rigidly up there in orbit, the problems of stability that plagued a single tower would vanish. Africa – South America, the Gilbert Islands, Indonesia – they could all provide locations for earth terminals, if desired. For some day, as materials improved and knowledge advanced, the Towers could be made invulnerable even to the worst hurricanes, and mountain sites would no longer be necessary. If he had waited another hundred years, perhaps he need not have disturbed the Maha Thero.
While he was dreaming the thin crescent of the waning moon had lifted unobtrusively above the eastern horizon, already aglow with the first hint of dawn. Earthshine lit the entire lunar disc so brilliantly that Morgan could see much of the nightland detail; he strained his eyes in the hope of glimpsing that loveliest of sights, never seen by earlier ages – a star within the arms of the crescent moon. But none of the cities of man’s second home was visible tonight.
Only two hundred kilometers – less than an hour to go. There was no point in trying to keep awake; Spider had automatic terminal programming and would touch gently down without disturbing his sleep.
The pain woke him first; CORA was a fraction of a second later. “Don’t try to move,” she said soothingly. “I’ve radioed for help. The ambulance is on the way.”
That was funny. But don’t laugh, Morgan ordered himself, she’s only doing her best. He felt no fear; though the pain beneath his breastbone was intense, it was not incapacitating. He tried to focus his mind upon it, and the very act of concentration relieved the symptoms. Long ago he had discovered that the best way of handling pain was to study it objectively.
Warren was calling him, but the words were far away and had little meaning. He could recognise the anxiety in his friend’s voice, and wished that he could do something to alleviate it; but he had no strength left to deal with this problem – or with any other. Now he could not even hear the words; a faint but steady roar had obliterated all other sounds. Though he knew that it existed only in his mind – or the labyrinthine channels of his ears – it seemed completely real; he could believe that he was standing at the foot of some great waterfall. ..
It was growing fainter, softer – more musical. And suddenly he recognised it. How pleasant to hear once more, on the silent frontier of space, the sound he remembered from his very first visit to Yakkagala!
Gravity was drawing him home again, as through the centuries its invisible hand had shaped the trajectory of the Fountains of Paradise. But he had created something that gravity could never recapture, as long as men possessed the wisdom and the will to preserve it.
How cold his legs were! What had happened to Spider’s life-support system? But soon it would be dawn; then there would be warmth enough.
The stars were fading, far more swiftly than they had any right to do. That was strange; though the day was almost here, everything around him was growing dark. And the fountains were sinking back into the earth, their voices becoming fainter fainter… fainter.
And now there was another voice, but Vannevar Morgan did not hear it. Between brief, piercing bleeps CORA cried to the approaching dawn:
HELP! WILL ANYONE WHO HEARS ME PLEASE COME AT ONCE!
THIS IS A CORA EMERGENCY!
HELP! WILL ANYONE WHO HEARS ME PLEASE COME AT ONCE!
She was still calling when the sun came up, and its first rays caressed the summit of mountain that had once been sacred. Far below the shadow of Sri Kanda leaped forth upon the clouds, its perfect cone still unblemished, despite all that man had done.
There were no pilgrims now, to watch that symbol of eternity lie across the face of the awakening land. But millions would see it, in the centuries ahead, as they rode in comfort and safety to the stars.
58. Epilogue: Kalidasa’s Triumph
In the last days of that last brief summer, before the jaws of ice clenched shut around the equator, one of the Starholme envoys came to Yakkagala.
A Master of the Swarms, It had recently conjugated Itself into human form. Apart from one minor detail, the likeness was excellent; but the dozen children who had accompanied the Holmer in the autocopter were in a constant state of mild hysteria – the younger ones frequently dissolving into giggles.
“What’s so funny?” It had asked in Its perfect Solar. “Or is this a private joke?”
But they would not explain to the Starholmer, whose normal colour vision lay entirely in the infrared, that the human skin was not a random mosaic of greens and reds and blues. Even when It had threatened to turn into a Tyrannosaurus Rex and eat them all up, they still refused to satisfy Its curiosity. Indeed, they quickly pointed out – to an entity that had crossed scores of light-years and collected knowledge for thirty centuries – that a mass of only a hundred kilogrammes would scarcely make an impressive dinosaur.
The Holmer did not mind; It was patient, and the children of Earth were endlessly fascinating, in both their biology and their psychology. So were the young of all creatures – all, of course, that did have young. Having studied nine such species, the Holmer could now almost imagine what it must be like to grow up, mature, and die… almost, but not quite.
Spread out before the dozen humans and one non-human lay the empty land, its once luxuriant fields and forests blasted by the cold breaths from north and south. The graceful coconut palms had long since vanished, and even the gloomy pines that had succeeded them were naked skeletons, their roots destroyed by the spreading permafrost. No life was left upon the surface of the Earth; only in the oceanic abyss, where the planet’s internal heat kept the ice at bay, did a few blind, starveling creatures crawl and swim and devour each other.
Yet to a being whose home had circled a faint red star, the sun that blazed down from the cloudless sky still seemed intolerably bright. Though all its warmth had gone, drained away by the sickness that had attacked its core a thousand years ago, its fierce, cold light revealed every detail of the stricken land, and flashed in splendour from the approaching glaciers.
For the children, still revelling in the powers of their awakening minds, the sub-zero temperatures were an exciting challenge. As they danced naked through the snowdrifts, bare feet kicking up clouds of powder-dry, shining crystals, their symbiotes often had to warn them: “Don’t override your frost-bite signals!” For they were not yet old enough to replicate new limbs without the help of their elders.
The oldest of the boys was showing off; he had launched a deliberate assault on the cold, announcing proudly that he was a fire-elemental. (The Starholmer noted the term for future research, which would later cause It much perplexity.) All that could be seen of the small exhibitionist was a column of flame and steam, dancing to and fro along the ancient brickwork; the other children pointedly ignored this rather crude display.
To the Starholmer, however, it presented an interesting paradox. Just why had these people retreated to the inner planets, when they could have fought back the cold with the powers that they now possessed – as, indeed, their cousins were doing on Mars? That was a question to which It had still not received a satisfactory answer. It considered again the enigmatic reply It had been given by ARISTOTLE, the entity with which It most easily communicated.