The Foundations of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke [73]
It was almost a year since she had spoken to Ambassador Rajasinghe. On a sudden impulse, she called the villa.
“Hello, Johan,” she greeted him. “How do you like this view of Yakkagala?”
“So you’ve talked Morgan into it. How does it feel?”
“Exhilarating—that’s the only word for it. And unique. I’ve flown and traveled in everything you can mention, but this feels quite different. . . .”
“‘To ride secure the cruel sky . . .’”
“What was that?”
“An English poet, early twentieth century: ‘I care not if you bridge the seas, / Or ride secure the cruel sky. . . .’”
“Well I care, and I’m feeling secure. Now I can see the whole island—even the Hindustan coast. How high am I, Van?”
“Coming up to twelve kilometers, Maxine. Is your oxygen mask on tight?”
“Confirmed. I hope it’s not muffling my voice.”
“Don’t worry—you’re still unmistakable. Three kilometers to go.”
“How much gas is left in the tank?”
“Sufficient. And if you try to go above fifteen, I’ll use the override to bring you home.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. And congratulations, by the way. This is an excellent observation platform. You may have customers standing in line.”
“We’ve thought of that. The comsat and metsat people are already making bids. We can give them relays and sensors at any height they like. It will all help to pay the rent.”
“I can see you!” exclaimed Rajasinghe suddenly. “Just caught your reflection in the scope. . . . Now you’re waving your arm. . . . Aren’t you lonely up there?”
For a moment, there was an uncharacteristic silence. Then Duval answered quietly: “Not as lonely as Yuri Gagarin must have been, a hundred kilometers higher still. Van, you have brought something new into the world.
“The sky may still be cruel—but you have tamed it. There may be some people who could never face this ride: I feel very sorry for them.”
37
The Billion-Ton
Diamond
In the last seven years, much had been done, yet there was so much to do. Mountains—or at least asteroids—had been moved. Earth now possessed a second natural moon, circling just above synchronous altitude. It was less than a kilometer across, and was rapidly becoming smaller as it was rifled of its carbon and other light elements. Whatever was left—the core of iron, tailings, and industrial slag—would form the counterweight that would keep the Tower in tension. It would be the stone in the forty-thousand-kilometer-long sling that now turned with the planet once every twenty-four hours.
Fifty kilometers eastward of Ashoka Station floated the huge industrial complex that processed the weightless, but not massless, megatons of raw material and converted them into hyperfilament. Because the final product was more than ninety percent carbon, with its atoms arranged in a precise crystalline lattice, the Tower had acquired the popular nickname “the Billion-Ton Diamond.” The Jewelers’ Association of Amsterdam had sourly pointed out that (a) hyperfilament wasn’t diamond at all, and (b) if it was, then the Tower weighed five times ten to the fifteenth carats.
Carats or tons, such enormous quantities of material had taxed to the utmost the resources of the space colonies and the skills of the orbital technicians. Into the automatic mines, production plants, and zero-gravity assembly systems had gone much of the engineering genius of the human race, painfully acquired during two hundred years of spacefaring. Soon all the components of the Tower—a few standardized units, manufactured by the million—would be gathered in huge floating stockpiles, waiting for the robot handlers.
Then the Tower would grow in two opposite directions—down to earth and simultaneously up to the orbital mass anchor, the whole process being adjusted so that it would always be in balance. Its cross section would decrease steadily from orbit, where it would be under the maximum