The insect lay crumpled in the palm of his hand, yielding up the last seconds of its ephemeral life even as Morgan watched—and the universe he had always known seemed to tremble and dissolve around him. His miraculous defeat had been converted into an even more inexplicable victory. Yet he felt no sense of triumph—only confusion and astonishment.
For he remembered now the legend of the golden butterflies. Driven by the gale, in their hundreds and thousands, they were being swept up the face of the mountain, to die upon its summit. Kalidasa’s legions had at last achieved their goal—and their revenge.
31
Exodus
“What happened?” asked Sheik Abdullah.
That’s a question I’ll never be able to answer, Morgan said to himself. But he replied: “The mountain is ours, Mr. President. The monks have already started to leave. It’s incredible. How could a two-thousand-year-old legend. . .?” He shook his head in baffled wonder.
“If enough men believe in a legend, it becomes true.”
“I suppose so. But there’s much more to it than that. The whole chain of events seems impossible.”
“That’s always a risky word to use. Let me tell you a little story. A dear friend, a great scientist, now dead, used to tease me by saying that because politics is the art of the possible, it appeals only to second-rate minds. The first-raters, he claimed, were only interested in the impossible. And do you know what I answered?”
“No,” said Morgan, politely and predictably.
“It’s lucky there are so many of us—because someone has to run the world. . . . Anyway, if the impossible has happened, you should accept it thankfully.”
I accept it, thought Morgan—reluctantly. There is something very strange about a universe where a few dead butterflies can balance a billion-ton tower.
And there was the ironic role of the Venerable Parakarma, who must surely now feel that he was the pawn of some malicious gods. The Monsoon Control Administrator had been most contrite, and Morgan had accepted his apologies with unusual graciousness. He could well believe that the brilliant Dr. Choam Goldberg had revolutionized micrometeorology, that no one had really understood all that he was doing, and that he had finally had some kind of nervous breakdown while conducting his experiments. It would never happen again. . . . Morgan had expressed his, quite sincere, hopes for the scientist’s recovery, and had retained enough of his bureaucrat’s instincts to hint that, in due course, he might expect future considerations from Monsoon Control. The Administrator had signed off with grateful thanks, doubtless wondering at Morgan’s surprising magnanimity.
“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 bookkeeping 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 centimeters per second squared. Hyperfilament can only be manufactured in completely zero-gee conditions. There’s no other way of guaranteeing a perfect crystalline structure with sufficient long-range organization.”
“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-oriented. We were rather like the early motorcar 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 meters 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 downward.”
“We do have one going upward as well, remember—from the synchronous orbit out to the mass anchor that keeps the whole structure under tension.”
“And Midway Station? I hope you haven’t changed that.”
“No. It’s at the same place—twenty-five thousand kilometers.”
“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 will, said Vannevar Morgan to himself. Because 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.” Morgan chuckled 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 gaslighting.”
“If they want an antique flavor that’s a little more appropriate, I once saw an old space movie at the Sydney Art Museum that had a shuttle craft of some kind with 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 centimeters 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 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 kilometers from earth. And all for about one dollar’s worth of electricity per passenger. . . .
Even now, it was impossible to realize 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 curtains.”
They were now standing on the lowest floor of the capsule, a circular room eight meters in diameter, three meters high. All around were miscellaneous boxes, cylinders, and control panels bearing such labels as OXYGEN RESERVE, BATTERY, CO2 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 from 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: AIR LOCK 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, each of a different design. 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 bedsores. 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, 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 the coffee dispenser was actually working. Above it, in an elaborate 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 toward it was a bullet-shaped train towing four carriages. In the windows of the compartment labeled “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 said apologetically, hunting around behind the bar. “Ah, here it is. . . .”
He handed Morgan a piece of card, upon which was printed, in an old-fashioned type face:
* * *
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 It
By Jules Verne
* * *
“I’m sorry to say I’ve never read it,” Morgan commented 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 toward 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, “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 planned, but we haven’t decided where to put the life-support backup gear and the electronics for the track-centering controls.”
“Any problems there?”
“Not with the new magnets. Powered or coasting, we can guarantee safe clearance up to eight thousand kilometers 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 judgments, 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 kilometer a second—would result in disaster. And yet the four pairs of guidance slots running up the faces of the Tower had only centimeters of clearance around the magnets. They had to be designed so that enormous restoring forces came instantly into play to correct any movement of the capsule away from the center line.
As Morgan followed Kingsley down the spiral stairway that extended the full height of the mock-up, he was struck by a somber 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 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 disk concealed inside his shirt.
33
Cora
“Why did you leave it until now?” Dr. Sen had asked, in a tone appropriate for 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 a
nything 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 nitwits. 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.”
“Um—well, you’re not the worst of my patients,” said the slightly mollified doctor. He fumbled around in his desk, and produced a large holopad. “Take your choice—here are the standard models. Any color 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, 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.”