The Foundations of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke [63]
“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