“Sorry I bothered you,” apologized Morgan, and switched back to Duval.
“Sometimes the expert does know his job,” he told her with rueful pride. “Our man knows his. He called Monsoon Control ten minutes ago. They’re computing the beam power now. They don’t want to overdo it, of course, and burn everybody up.”
“So I was right,” said Duval sweetly. “You should have thought of that, Van. What else have you forgotten?”
No answer was possible, nor did Morgan attempt one. He could see Duval’s computer mind racing ahead, and guessed what her next question would be. He was right.
“Can’t you use the spiders?”
“Even the final models are altitude-limited. Their batteries can only take them up to three hundred kilometers. They were designed to inspect the Tower when it had already entered the atmosphere.”
“Well, put in bigger batteries.”
“In a couple of hours? But that’s not the problem. The only unit under test at the moment can’t carry passengers.”
“You could send it up empty.”
“Sorry—we’ve thought of that. There must be an operator aboard to manage the docking when the spider comes up to the Basement. And it would take days to get out seven people, one at a time. . . .”
“Surely you have some plan!”
“Several, but they’re all crazy. If any make sense, I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, there’s something you can do for us.”
“What’s that?” Duval asked suspiciously.
“Explain to your audience just why spacecraft can dock with each other six hundred kilometers up, but not with the Tower. By the time you’ve done that, we may have some news for you.”
As Duval’s slightly indignant image faded from the screen, and Morgan turned back once more to the well-orchestrated chaos of the operations room, he tried to let his mind roam as freely as possible over every aspect of the problem. Despite the polite rebuff of the Safety Officer, efficiently doing his duty up on Midway, he might be able to come up with some useful ideas. Although he did not imagine that there would be any magical solution, he understood the Tower better than any living man, with the possible exception of Warren Kingsley. Kingsley probably knew more of the fine details; but Morgan had the clearer overall picture.
Seven men and women were stranded in the sky, in a situation that was unique in the whole history of space technology.
There must be a way of getting them to safety before they were poisoned by CO2, or the pressure dropped so low that the chamber became, in literal truth, a tomb like Mahomet’s, suspended between heaven and earth.
45
The Man for the Job
“We can do it,” said Kingsley with a broad smile. “Spider can reach the Basement.”
“You’ve been able to add enough extra battery power?”
“Yes, but it’s a very close thing. It will have to be a two-stage affair, like the early rockets. As soon as the battery is exhausted, it must be jettisoned to get rid of the dead weight. That will be around four hundred kilometers. Spider’s internal battery will take it the rest of the way.”
“And how much payload will that give?”
Kingsley’s smile faded.
“Marginal. About fifty kilos, with the best batteries we have.”
“Only fifty! What use will that be?”
“It should be enough. A couple of those new thousand-atmosphere tanks, each holding five kilos of oxygen. Molecular filter masks to keep out the CO2. A little water and compressed food. Some medical supplies. We can bring it all in under forty-five kilos.”
“Phew! And you’re sure that’s sufficient?”
“Yes—it will tide them over until the transporter arrives from 10K Station. And if necessary, Spider can make a second trip.”
“What does Bartok think?”
“He approves. After all, no one has any better ideas.”
Morgan felt that a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Plenty of things could still go wrong but at last there was a ray of hope; the feeling of utter helplessness had been dispelled.
“When will all this be ready?” he asked.
“If there are no holdups, within two hours. Three at the most. It’s all standard equipment, luckily. Spider’s being checked out right now. There’s only one matter to be decided. . . .”
Vannevar Morgan shook his head.
“No, Warren,” he answered slowly, in a calm, implacably determined voice that his friend had never heard before. “There’s nothing more to decide.”
* * *
“I’m not trying to pull rank on you, Bartok,” said Morgan. “It’s a simple matter of logic. True, anyone can drive Spider—but only half a dozen men know all the technical details involved. There may be some operational problems when we reach the Tower, and I’m in the best position to solve them.”
“May I remind you, Dr. Morgan,” said the Safety Officer, “that you are sixty-five. It would be wiser to send a younger man.”
“I’m not sixty-five; I’m sixty-six. And age has absolutely nothing to do with it. There’s no danger, and certainly no requirement for physical strength.”
And, he might have added, the psychological factors were far more important than the physical ones. Almost anybody could ride passively up and down in a capsule, as Maxine Duval had done and millions of others would be doing in the years ahead. It would be quite another matter to face some of the situations that could easily arise six hundred kilometers up in the empty sky.
“I still think,” said Bartok, with gentle persistence, “that it would be best to send a younger man. Dr. Kingsley, for example.”
Behind him, Morgan heard (or had he imagined?) his colleague’s suddenly indrawn breath. For years they had joked over the fact that Kingsley had such an aversion to heights that he never inspected the structures he designed. His fear fell short of genuine acrophobia, and he could overcome it when absolutely necessary. He had, after all, joined Morgan in stepping from Africa to Europe. But that was the only time that anyone had ever seen him drunk in public, and he was not seen at all for twenty-four hours afterward.
Kingsley was out of the question, even though Morgan knew that he would be prepared to go. There were times when technical ability and sheer courage were not enough. No man could fight against fears that had been implanted in him at his birth, or during his earliest childhood.
Fortunately, there was no need to explain this to the Safety Officer. There was a simpler and equally valid reason why Kingsley should not go. Only a few times in his life had Morgan been glad of his small size; this was one of them.
“I’m fifteen kilos lighter than Kingsley,” he told Bartok. “In a marginal operation like this, that should settle the matter. So let’s not waste any more precious time in argument.”
He felt a slight twinge of conscience, knowing that this was unfair. Bartok was only doing his job, very efficiently, and it would be another hour before the capsule was ready. No one was wasting any time.
For long seconds, the two men stared into each other’s eyes, as if the twenty-five thousand kilometers between them did not exist. If there was a direct trial of strength, the situation could be messy. Bartok was nominally in charge of all safety operations, and could theoretically overrule even the Chief Engineer and Project Manager. But he might find it difficult to enforce his authority. Both Morgan and Spider were far below him, on Sri Kanda, and possession was nine points of the law.
Bartok shrugged his shoulders, and Morgan relaxed.
“You have a point. I’m still not too happy, but I’ll go along with you. Good luck.”
“Thank you,” Morgan answered quietly as the image faded from the screen. Turning to the silent Kingsley, he said: “Let’s go.”
Only as they were leaving the operations room, on the way back to the summit, did Morgan automatically feel for the little pendant concealed beneath his shirt. CORA had not bothered him for months, and not even Kingsley knew of her existence. W
as he gambling with other lives as well as his own just to satisfy his selfish pride? If Safety Officer Bartok had known about this . . .
It was too late now. Whatever his motives, he was committed.
46
Spider
How the mountain had changed, thought Morgan, since he had first seen it! The summit had been entirely sheared away, leaving a perfectly level plateau. At its center was the giant “saucepan lid,” sealing the shaft that would soon carry the traffic of many worlds. Strange to think that the greatest spaceport in the solar system would be deep inside the heart of a mountain . . .
No one could have guessed that an ancient monastery had once stood here, focusing the hopes and fears of billions for at least three thousand years. The only token that remained was the ambiguous bequest of the Mahanayake Thero, now crated and waiting to be moved. But so far, neither the authorities at Yakkagala nor the director of the Ranapura Museum had shown much enthusiasm for Kalidasa’s ill-omened bell.
The last time it had tolled, the peak had been swept by that brief but eventful gale—a wind of change indeed. Now the air was almost motionless, as Morgan and his aides walked slowly to the waiting capsule, glittering beneath the inspection lights. Someone had stenciled the name SPIDER MARK II on the lower part of the housing; and beneath that had been scrawled the promise: WE DELIVER THE GOODS. I hope so, thought Morgan.
Every time he came here, he found it more difficult to breathe, and he looked forward to the flood of oxygen that would soon gush into his starved lungs. But CORA, to his surprised relief, had never issued even a preliminary admonition when he visited the summit. The regime that Dr. Sen had prescribed seemed to be working admirably.
Everything had been loaded aboard Spider, which had been jacked up so that the extra battery could be hung beneath it. Mechanics were making hasty last-minute adjustments and disconnecting power leads, since 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 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 air lock on the bottom of the Tower, designed years ago for this very purpose. But a suit would provide more than insurance in case of docking problems; it would give him enormously greater freedom of action.
Almost form-fitting, the Flexisuit bore little resemblance to the clumsy armor of the early astronauts, and, even when pressurized, 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 and stood for a moment on the capsule’s tiny metal porch before backing cautiously 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 to the overhead air lock. 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 like a talisman. It was, moreover, 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. And 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 on both the internal and the 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, 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 curved 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 one hundred two percent, main battery power at one hundred one percent, booster battery at one hundred five 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, silently, the floodlit mountaintop 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 above and below the capsule.
Rate of ascent, five meters a second, said the velocity indicator. In slow, regular steps Morgan increased the power until it read fifty—just under two hundred kilometers 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 two-fifty klicks.
“Say something, Van!” called 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.”
“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 stabilized 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 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. He 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 good idea—Bartok’s, I suppose.”
“Probably. And they’re coming down the no
rth 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 to admire the ever-expanding view.
He was already thirty kilometers 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 realized 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 kilometers, no one had been allowed to go higher because of the impossibility of rescue. It had not been planned to begin serious operations until the base of the Tower was much closer, and until 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 kilometers. 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. Next, 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.