He stared up at the monastery, from which the voice of the great bell still challenged the gale. The orange robes had all vanished from the parapets; there was not a monk in sight.
Something brushed delicately against Morgan's cheek, and he automatically flicked it aside. It was hard even to think while that dolorous throbbing filled the air and hammered at his brain. He supposed he had better walk up to the temple, and politely ask the Maha Thero what had happened.
Once more that soft, silken contact against his face, and this time he caught a glimpse of yellow out of the corner of his eye. His reactions had always been swift; he grabbed, and did not miss.
The insect lay crumpled in the palm of his hand, yielding up the last seconds of its ephemeral life even as Morgan watched – and the universe he had always known seemed to tremble and dissolve around him. His miraculous defeat had been converted into an even more inexplicable victory, yet he felt no sense of triumph – only confusion and astonishment.
For he remembered, now, the legend of the golden butterflies. Driven by the gale, in their hundreds and thousands, they were being swept up the face of the mountain, to die upon its summit. Kalidasa's legions had at last achieved their goal – and their revenge.
31. Exodus
“What happened?” said Sheik Abdullah.
That's a question I'll never be able to answer, Morgan told himself. But he replied: "The Mountain is ours, Mr. President; the monks have already started to leave. It's incredible – how could a two-thousand-year-old legend…? " He shook his head in baffled wonder.
“If enough men believe in a legend, it becomes true.”
“I suppose so. But there's much more to it than that – the whole chain of events still seems impossible.”
“That's always a risky word to use. Let me tell you a little story. A dear friend, a great scientist, now dead, used to tease me by saying that because politics is the art of the possible, it appeals only to second-rate minds. For the first-raters, he claimed, are only interested in the impossible. And do you know what I answered?”
“No,” said Morgan, politely and predictably.
“It's lucky there are so many of us – because someone has to run the world… Anyway, if the impossible has happened, you should accept it thankfully.”
I accept it, thought Morgan – reluctantly. There is something very strange about a universe where a few dead butterflies can balance a billion-ton tower.
And there was the ironic role of the Venerable Parakarma, who must surely now feel that he was the pawn of some malicious gods. The Monsoon Control Administrator had been most contrite, and Morgan had accepted his apologies with unusual graciousness. He could well believe that the brilliant Dr. Choam Goldberg had revolutionised micrometeorology, that no-one had really understood all that he was doing, and that he had finally had some kind of a nervous breakdown while conducting his experiments. It would never happen again. Morgan had expressed his – quite sincere – hopes for the scientist's recovery, and had retained enough of his bureaucrat's instincts to hint that, in due course, he might expect future considerations from Monsoon Control. The Administrator had signed off with grateful thanks, doubtless wondering at Morgan's surprising magnanimity.
“As a matter of interest,” asked the Sheik, “where are the monks going? I might offer them hospitality here. Our culture has always welcomed other faiths.”
“I don't know; nor does Ambassador Rajasinghe. But when I asked him he said: They'll be all right. An order that's lived frugally for three thousand years is not exactly destitute.”
“Hmm. Perhaps we could use some of their wealth. This little project of yours gets more expensive each time you see me.”
“Not really, Mr. President. That last estimate includes a purely book-keeping figure for deep-space operations, which Narodny Mars has now agreed to finance. They will locate a carbonaceous asteroid and navigate it to earth orbit – they've much more experience at this sort of work, and it solves one of our main problems.”
“What about the carbon for their own tower?”
“They have unlimited amounts on Deimos – exactly where they need it. Narodny has already started a survey for suitable mining sites, though the actual processing will have to be off-moon.”
“Dare I ask why?”
“Because of gravity. Even Deimos has a few centimetres per second squared. Hyperifilament can only be manufactured in completely zero gee conditions. There's no other way of guaranteeing a perfect crystalline structure with sufficient long-range organisation.”
“Thank you, Van. Is it safe for me to ask why you've changed the basic design? I liked that original bundle of four tubes, two up and two down. A straightforward subway system was something I could understand-even if it was up-ended ninety degrees.”
Not for the first time, and doubtless not for the last, Morgan was amazed by the old man's memory and his grasp of details. It was never safe to take anything for granted with him; though his questions were sometimes inspired by pure curiosity – often the mischievous curiosity of a man so secure that he had no need to uphold his dignity – he never overlooked anything of the slightest importance.
“I'm afraid our first thoughts were too earth-orientated. We were rather like the early motor-car designers, who kept producing horseless carriages. So now our design is a hollow square tower with a track up each face. Think of it as four vertical railroads. Where it starts from orbit, it's forty metres on a side, and it tapers down to twenty when it reaches Earth.”
“Like a stalag – stalac -”
“Stalactite. Yes, I had to look it up! From the engineering point of view, a good analogy now would be the old Eiffel Tower – turned upside down and stretched out a hundred thousand times.”
“As much as that?”
“Just about.”
“Well, I suppose there's no law that says a tower can't hang downwards.”
“We have one going upwards as well, remember – from the synchronous orbit out of the mass anchor that keeps the whole structure under tension.”
“And Midway Station? I hope you haven't changed that.”
“Yes, it's still at the same place – twenty-five thousand kilometres.”
"Good. I know I'll never get there, but I like to think about it… " He muttered something in Arabic. "There's another legend, you know – Mahomet's coffin, suspended between heaven and earth. Just like Midway."
“We'll arrange a banquet for you there, Mr. President, when we inaugurate the service.”
“Even if you keep to your schedule – and I admit you only slipped a year on the Bridge – I'll be ninety-eight then. No, I doubt if I'll make it.”
But I shall, said Vannevar Morgan to himself. For now I know that the gods are on my side; whatever gods may be.
IV – THE TOWER
32. Space Express
“Now don't you say,” begged Warren Kingsley, “it'll never get off the ground.”
“I was tempted,” chuckled Morgan, as he examined the full-scale mock-up. “It does look rather like an upended railroad coach.”