The Foundations of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke [70]
“That’s ridiculous. You’ve got your first cable in position. . . .”
“Not cable—tape.”
“Don’t quibble. What load can it carry?”
“Oh—at the Earth end, a mere five hundred tons.”
“There you are. Offer Donald Duck a ride.”
“I wouldn’t guarantee his safety.”
“Would you guarantee mine?”
“You’re not serious!”
“I’m always serious, at this hour of the morning. It’s time I did another story on the Tower, anyway. That capsule mock-up is very pretty, but it doesn’t do anything. My viewers like action, and so do I. The last time we met, you showed me drawings of those little cars the engineers will use to run up and down the cables—I mean tapes. What did you call them?”
“Spiders.”
“Ugh—that’s right. I was fascinated by the idea. Here’s something that has never been possible before, by any technology. For the first time you could sit still in the sky, even above the atmosphere, and watch the Earth beneath. Something that no spacecraft can ever do. I’d like to be the first to describe the sensation. And clip Donald Duck’s wings at the same time.”
Morgan waited for a full five seconds, staring Duval straight in the eyes, before he decided that she was perfectly serious.
“I can understand,” he said rather wearily, “just how a poor struggling young media girl, trying desperately to make a name for herself, would jump at such an opportunity. I don’t want to blight a promising career, but the answer is definitely no.”
The doyen of media people emitted several unladylike, and even ungentlemanly, words, not commonly transmitted over public circuits.
“Before I strangle you in your own hyperfilament, Van,” she said, “why not?”
“Well, if anything went wrong, I’d never forgive myself.”
“Spare the crocodile tears. Of course my untimely demise would be a major tragedy—for your project. But I wouldn’t dream of going until you’d made all the tests necessary and were sure it was one hundred percent safe.”
“It would look too much like a stunt.”
“As the Victorians—or was it the Elizabethans?—used to say, so what?”
“Look, Maxine, there’s a flash that New Zealand has just sunk; they’ll need you in the studio. But thanks for the generous offer.”
“Dr. Vannevar Morgan, I know exactly why you’re turning me down. You want to be the first.”
“As the Victorians used to say, so what?”
“Touché. But I’m warning you, Van—just as soon as you have one of those spiders working, you’ll be hearing from me again.”
Morgan shook his head.
“Sorry, Maxine,” he answered. “Not a chance.”
35
Starglider
Plus Eighty
Extract from God and Starholme, Mandala Press, Moscow, 2149
“Exactly eighty years ago, the robot interstellar probe now known as Starglider entered the solar system, and conducted its brief but historic dialogue with the human race. For the first time, we knew what we had always suspected: that ours was not the only intelligence in the universe, and that out among the stars were far older, and perhaps far wiser, civilizations.
“After that encounter, nothing would ever be the same again. And yet, paradoxically, in many ways little has changed. Mankind still goes about its business much as it has always done. How often do we stop to think that the Starholmers, back on their own planet, have already known of our existence for twenty-eight years, or that, almost certainly, we will be receiving their first direct messages only twenty-four years from now; and what if, as some have suggested, they themselves are already on the way?
“Men have an extraordinary, and perhaps fortunate, ability to tune out of their consciousness the most awesome future possibilities. The Roman farmer, plowing the slopes of Vesuvius, gave no thought to the mountains smoking overhead. Half the twentieth century lived with the hydrogen bomb; half the twenty-first, with the Golgotha virus. We have learned to live with the threat, or the promise, of Starholme. . . .
“Starglider showed us many strange worlds and races, but it revealed almost no advanced technology, and so had minimal impact upon the technically orientated aspects of our culture. Was