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34

Vertigo

There had once been a time when a minor, and often major, chore of every civilized man had been the regular updating of his address book. The universal code had made that unnecessary, since once a person’s lifetime identity number was known, he could be located within seconds. And even if his number was not known, the standard search program could usually find it fairly quickly, given the approximate date of birth, his profession, and a few other details. (There were, however, problems if the name was Smith, or Singh, or Mohammed.)

The development of global information systems had also rendered obsolete another annoying task. It was necessary only to make a special notation against the names of those friends one wished to greet on their birthdays or other anniversaries, and the household computer would do the rest. On the appropriate day (unless, as was frequently the case, there had been some stupid mistake in programming) the right message would be automatically flashed to its destination. And even though the recipient might shrewdly suspect that the warm words on his screen were entirely due to electronics—the nominal sender not having thought of him for years—the gesture was nevertheless welcome.

But the same technology that had eliminated one set of tasks had created even more demanding successors. Of these, perhaps the most important was the design of the Personal Interest Profile.

Most men updated their PIP on New Year’s Day or their birthday. Morgan’s list contained fifty items; he had heard of people with hundreds. They must spend all their waking hours battling with the flood of information, unless they were like those notorious pranksters who enjoyed setting up news alerts on their consoles for such classic improbabilities as:

Eggs, Dinosaur, hatching of

Circle, squaring of

Atlantis, re-emergence of

Christ, Second Coming of

Loch Ness monster, capture of

or, finally

World, end of.

Usually, of course, egotism and professional requirements insured that the subscriber’s own name was the first item on every list. Morgan was no exception, but the entries that followed were slightly unusual:

Tower, orbital

Tower, space

Tower, (geo)synchronous

Elevator, space

Elevator, orbital

Elevator, (geo)synchronous

These words covered most of the variations used by the media, and ensured that he saw at least ninety percent of the news items concerning the project. The vast majority were trivial, and sometimes he wondered if it was worth searching for them. The ones that really mattered would reach him quickly enough.

Morgan was still rubbing his eyes, and the bed had scarcely retracted itself into the wall of his modest apartment, when he noticed that the ALERT was flashing on his console. Punching the COFFEE and READOUT buttons simultaneously, he awaited the latest overnight sensation.

ORBITAL TOWER SHOT DOWN

said the headline.

“Follow up?” asked the console.

“You bet,” replied Morgan, now instantly awake. During the next few seconds, as he read the text display, his mood changed from incredulity to indignation, and then to concern. He switched the whole news package to Warren Kingsley with a “Please call me back as soon as possible” tag, and settled down to breakfast, fuming.

Less than five minutes later, Kingsley appeared on the screen.

“Well, Van,” he said with humorous resignation, “we should consider ourselves lucky. It’s taken him five years to get around to us.”

“It’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of! Should we ignore it? If we answer, that will only give him publicity. Which is just what he wants.”

Kingsley nodded.

“That would be the best policy—for the present. We shouldn’t overreact. At the same time, he may have a point.”

“What do you mean?”

Kingsley had become serious, and even looked a little uncomfortable.

“There are psychological problems as well as engineering ones,” he said. “Think it over. I’ll see you at the office.”

The image faded from the screen, leaving Morgan in a somewhat subdued frame of mind. He was used to criticism, and knew how to handle it;