The whole mountain was now visible, though from directly above it was impossible to appreciate its true height. The two ancient stairways winding up its face might have been oddly twisting level roads; along their entire length, as far as Maxine could observe, there was no sign of life. Indeed, one section had been blocked by a fallen tree – as if Nature had given advance notice, after three thousand years, that she was about to reclaim her own.
Leaving Camera One pointed downwards, Maxine started to pan with Number Two. Fields and forests drifted across the monitor screen, then the distant white domes of Ranapura – then the dark waters of the inland sea. And, presently, there was Yakkagala.
She zoomed on to the Rock, and could just make out the faint pattern of the ruins covering the entire upper surface. The Mirror Wall was still in shadow, as was the Gallery of the Princesses – not that there was any hope of making them out from such a distance. But the layout of the Pleasure Gardens, with their ponds and walkways and massive surrounding moat, was clearly visible.
The line of tiny white plumes puzzled her for a moment, until she realised that she was looking down upon another symbol of Kalidasa's challenge to the Gods – his so-called Fountains of Paradise. She wondered what the king would have thought, could he have seen her rising so effortlessly towards the heaven of his envious dreams.
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 travelled 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 kilometres, Maxine. Is your oxygen mask on tight?”
“Confirmed. I hope it's not muffling my voice.”
“Don't worry – you're still unmistakeable. Three kilometres to go.”
“How much gas is still 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 observing 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 Maxine Duval answered quietly: “Not as lonely as Yuri Gagarin must have been, a hundred kilometres 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 still 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 kilometre 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-kilometre-long sling that now turned with the planet once every twenty-four hours.
Fifty kilometres eastwards of Ashoka Station floated the huge industrial complex which processed the weightless – but not mass-less – 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 Jeweller's Association of Amsterdam had sourly pointed out that (a) hyperfilament wasn't diamond at all (b) if it was, then the Tower weighed five times ten to the fifteen 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 standardised units, manufactured by the million – would be gathered in huge floating stock-piles, 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 stress, down to Earth; it would also taper off towards the anchoring counter-weight.
When its task was complete, the entire construction complex would be launched into a transfer orbit to Mars. This was a part of the contract which had caused some heartburning among terrestrial politicians and financiers now that, belatedly, the space elevator's potential was being realised.
The Martians had driven a hard bargain. Though they would wait another five years before they had any return on their investment, they would then have a virtual construction monopoly for perhaps another decade. Morgan had a shrewd suspicion that the Pavonis tower would merely be the first of several; Mars might have been designed as a location for space elevator systems, and its energetic occupants were not likely to miss such an opportunity. If they made their world the centre of interplanetary commerce in the years ahead, good luck to them; Morgan had other problems to worry about, and some of them were still unsolved.
The Tower, for all its overwhelming size, was merely the support for something much more complex. Along each of its four sides must run thirty-six thousand kilometres of track, capable of operation at speeds never before attempted. This had to be powered for its entire length by super-conducting cables, linked to massive fusion generators, the whole system being controlled by an incredibly elaborate, fail-safe computer network.
The Upper Terminal, where passengers and freight would transfer between the Tower and the spacecraft docked to it, was a major project in itself. So was Midway Station. So was Earth Terminal, now being lasered into the heart of the sacred mountain. And in addition to all this, there was Operation Cleanup…
For two hundred years, satellites of all shapes and sizes, from loose nuts and bolts to entire space villages, had been accumulating in Earth orbit. All that came below the extreme elevation of the Tower, at any time, now had to be accounted for, since they created a possible hazard. Three-quarters of this material was abandoned junk, much of it long forgotten. Now it had to be located, and somehow disposed of.