The Foundations of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke [55]
Though Rajasinghe had seen much of the world, he knew no other spot so full of peace. Sometimes he felt that he could sit here forever, beneath the blazing moon, wholly unconcerned with the cares and turmoil of life. He had never tried to probe too deeply into the magic of the shrine, for fear that he would destroy it, but some of its elements were obvious enough. The very posture of the Enlightened One, resting at last with closed eyes after a long and noble life, radiated serenity. The sweeping lines of the robe were extraordinarily soothing and restful to contemplate; they appeared to flow from the rock, to form waves of frozen stone. And, like the waves of the sea, the natural rhythm of their curves appealed to instincts of which the rational mind knew nothing.
In timeless moments such as this, alone with the Buddha and the almost full moon, Rajasinghe felt that he could understand at last the meaning of nirvana—that state which can be defined only by negatives. Such emotions as anger, desire, greed no longer possessed any power; indeed, they were barely conceivable. Even the sense of personal identity seemed about to fade away, like a mist before the morning sun.
It could not last, of course. Presently he became aware of the buzzing of insects, the distant barking of dogs, the cold hardness of the stone upon which he was sitting. Tranquillity was not a state of mind that could be sustained for long. With a sigh, Rajasinghe got to his feet and began to walk back to his car, parked a hundred meters outside the temple grounds.
He was just entering the vehicle when he noticed the small white patch, so clearly defined that it might have been painted on the sky, rising over the trees to the west. It was the most peculiar cloud that Rajasinghe had ever seen—a perfectly symmetrical ellipsoid, so sharp-edged that it appeared almost solid. He wondered if someone was flying an airship through the skies of Taprobane; but he could see no fins, and there was no sound of engines.
Then, for a fleeting moment, he had a far wilder fancy. The Starholmers had arrived at last. . . .
But that, of course, was absurd. Even if they had managed to outrun their own radio signals, they could hardly have traversed the whole solar system—and descended into the skies of Earth!—without triggering all the traffic radars in existence. The news would have broken hours ago.
Rather to his surprise, Rajasinghe felt a mild sense of disappointment. And now, as the apparition came closer, he could see that it undoubtedly was a cloud, because it was getting slightly frayed around the edges. Its speed was impressive; it seemed to be driven by a private gale, of which there was no trace here at ground level.
So the scientists of Monsoon Control were at it again, testing their mastery of the winds. What, Rajasinghe wondered, would they think of next?
27
Ashoka Station
How tiny the island looked from this altitude! Thirty-six thousand kilometers below, straddling the equator, Taprobane appeared not much bigger than the moon. The entire country seemed too small a target to hit; yet he was aiming for an area at its center about the size of a tennis court.
Even now, Morgan was not completely certain of his motives. For the purpose of this demonstration, he could just as easily have operated from Kinte Station and targeted Kilimanjaro or Mount Kenya. The fact that Kinte was at one of the most unstable points along the entire stationary orbit, and was always jockeying to remain over Central Africa, would not have mattered for the few days the experiment would last.
For a while, he had been tempted to aim at Chimborazo; the Americans had even offered to move Columbus Station, at considerable expense, to its precise