Couplings were sheared away; tubes and power cables tying the tower to the ground broke free; the covered walkways and arcades of shops and boutiques, all empty, were annihilated in a storm of flame; the rail lines and magnetic loading tracks leading in to the tower toppled hugely, twisting in midair as they fell, tons of bent metal rails spinning, clearly visible against the glare of the explosions.
The deep anchor points had been cut away some time ago, secretly; and the stone and glass facades of the deserted buildings along the lower surface of the tower had no power to hold it.
The tower was falling.
With the slow, huge grandeur of a natural disaster, the ragged bottom of the tower base, bleeding fluid and dripping twisted wreckage, lifted up above the level of the surrounding structures, and moved upward, skyward, slowly and inevitably.
The tower was falling up, of course.
The angular momentum of the mass of Quito Alto, “High Quito,” the orbital asteroid-base, now that it was no longer anchored to the ground, was carrying the whole gigantic length up away from Earth, pulled by the centrifugal force of the orbit, the way a stone spun on the end of a string would yank the string out from an unwary hand. The full weight of the Tower had never been supported by its Earthly foundations; the spaceport was lower than a geosynchronous orbit would have allowed, rotating once a day, and, at a speed higher than that altitude would normally allow. In orbital mechanics, closer in means faster; and farther out, slower. Tied to the Earth, space city had always been trying to move into a higher orbit; and that tension had acted as a suspension pressure on the tower, keeping it stable and upright.
Now the anchor was removed, and Quito Alto was moving away.
The tower was not traveling straight up, no. The tower was already visibly moving westward as it rose, faster and ever faster, freed, except for wind resistance, from the rotational force of the Earth.
A slight bend in the tower structure was visible now along the whole tremendous length, as if it were a god-sized longbow. Dots of blue fire appeared along the upper reaches as it rose up; altitude jets, trying to correct for angular forces, tidal and atmospheric, that might bend that bow too far and snap it.
But the magnificent piece of engineering held, as it was drawn up into the wide night sky. It was still night on Earth, but Montrose saw the red light of sunrise sweeping quickly down the tower’s length as it rose, chased by undimmed gold.
There was a contrail of condescension, like a scratch made by a diamond across a dark blue pane of glass, following. Then a crack of noise from the dwindling tower as it surpassed the speed of sound. The tower shrank in view, twinkled, and was gone.
The pinpoint of light hanging low in the east, in a distant quarter of the night sky now doubled and redoubled in brightness. It was like a silent explosion, like a flare of magnesium. The Hermetic, perhaps disobedient to the Princess, had activated her antimatter drive, and tiny particles entering the very thinnest reaches of the upper atmosphere were being annihilated in a total conversion to energy. Montrose did not for an instant think it was coincidence: the tower would fall into a higher orbit, one the Hermetic could reach in a few hours after a correction burn. No surface-to-orbit vehicle could reach and overtake the rising tower.
6. Debris
A missile, perhaps, could shoot and destroy the fleeing tower, if there were any surface-to-orbit multistage rockets prepared—but Del Azarchel had no reason to kill her, even if he had every reason to prevent her flight: and Exarchel wanted her to escape, out of spite, if for no better reason.
It was utterly silent to Montrose, whose ears were filled with a noise like churchbells, endlessly ringing.
Montrose was still supine, and cocooned in pain, grinning in victory.
The last sight he saw was a little glint in the deep blue. He could see one of the spider cars, its lights still lit, that had been carrying the soldiers up toward his wife. The bubble-shaped car seemed to hang in the air, its many broken legs no longer touching the cable. At this distance, no motion was visible: it did not seem to be falling, but looked weightless and serene. There was another car behind it, smaller and higher, and another, a parabola of pearls from a broken necklace. He could not see the doomed men trapped inside, or hear their last screams. It looked so peaceful.
Del Azarchel at long last raised his pistol, even though the barrel shook from the weakness of his grip. Before he could maneuver the awkward barrel up to Montrose’s helmet, a scattering of pebbles like hail began to patter around them, and then falling stones, then rocks, then shards of metal, and all the debris launched upward by the ascension of the tower, and now shaken free of the ragged stump of buildings pulled aloft, and landing on the street. There was a rush of rocks, a cloud of dust.
One of the falling objects struck Del Azarchel, whose armor rang like a gong, and his body cushioned the blow for Montrose as the two men were buried alive. Pebbles and dust swirled over Montrose’s goggles, and the noise of his breathing and heartbeat was suddenly loud and close as all outside sound was buried. He heard the air filters snap shut, and the whine of oxynitrogen bottles cracking open. Whether Del Azarchel was still near him, or had been swept away, alive or dead, he could not tell.
Hell, he was not all that sure if he were still alive himself.
Montrose laughed. Then, with a slow, sickening, floating, flowing, spinning motion, he entered a darkness blacker and wider than outer space. It seemed to him as if ancient titans, indescribable, bent with shining eyes over the dark well in which the whole sidereal universe was caught, a knot of night punctuated by tiny stars, and wondered at the fate of the small living things trapped within.
TOR BOOKS BY JOHN C. WRIGHT
The Golden Age
The Phoenix Exultant
The Golden Transcendence
The Last Guardian of Everness
Mists of Everness
Orphans of Chaos
Fugitives of Chaos
Titans of Chaos
Null-A Continuum
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
COUNT TO A TRILLION
Copyright © 2011 by John C. Wright
All rights reserved.
A Tor® eBook
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wright, John C. (John Charles), 1961–
Count to a trillion / John C. Wright.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 978-0-7653-2927-1 (hardback)
I. Title.
PS3623.R54C68 2011
813'.6—dc22
2011024212
First Edition: December 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-8637-3