Its a bucket chain, love. The pods will be lifted to the top of the tower, and thrown off.
Thrown where?
The Moon, initially. Later Venus.
Edna stared at the elevator stack. So wheres the power coming from? I don't see any laser mounts on that rig.
There arent any. There is no power sourcenothing but the Earths rotation. Edna, this isnt really an elevator. Its a siphon.
Ednas eyes lit up with wonder.
The orbital siphon was an extension of the space-elevator concept that derived from the elevators peculiar mechanics. Beyond the point of geosynchronous orbit, centripetal forces tended to throw masses away from the Earth. The trick with the siphon was to harness this tendency, to allow payloads to escape but in the process to draw more masses up from Earths surface. Essentially, the energy of Earths
rotation was being transferred to an escaping stream of payload pellets.
So you dont need any external energy input at all, Edna said. I studied this concept at USNGS. The big problem was always thought to be keeping the damn thing fedyoud need a fleet of trucks working day and night to maintain the payload flow. But if all youre throwing up there is seawater
We call it Bimini, Bella said. Its appropriate enough. The native Americans told Ponce de Leon about a fountain of youth on an island called Bimini. He never found it, but he stumbled on Florida...
A fountain of youth?
A fountain of Earths water to make worlds young again. The Moon first, then Venus. Look, Edna, I wanted this as a demonstration to the Spacers that were serious. It will still take centuries, but with resource outputs like this, terraforming becomes a practical possibility for the first time. And if Earth lowers its oceans just a fraction and slows its rotation an invisible amount to turn the other worlds blue again, I think thats a sacrifice worth making, dont you?
I think youre crazy, Mum. But its magnificent. Edna grabbed her and kissed her.
Thales spoke. This is a secure channel. Bella, Ednathe Q-bombs closest approach is a minute away.
Secure line or not, the news soon seemed to ripple out. Silence spread through the rooftop marquees, and the massed crowds around Canaveral. Suddenly the mood was soured, fretful. Edna took Thea from John Metternes and clutched her close. Bella grabbed her daughters free hand and gripped it hard.
They looked up into the brilliant sky.
PART 5 LAST CONTACTS 55: Q-BOMB
The choice had been made. The bomb was already looking ahead, to the terminus of its new trajectory.
The blue, teeming world and all its peoples receded behind it.
Like any sufficiently advanced machine the Q-bomb was sentient to some degree. And its frozen soul was touched by regret when, six months after passing Earth, it slammed into the sands of Mars, and thought ended forever.
PART 5 LAST CONTACTS 56: MARS 2
November 2071
The dust was extraordinary here in Hellespontus, even for Mars, dust museum of the solar system.
Myra sat in her blister cockpit with Ellie von Devender as the rover plunged over the banks and low dunes. This was the southern hemisphere of Mars, and they were driving through the Hellespontus mountains, a range of low hills not far from the western rI'm of the Hellas basin. But the rovers wheels threw up immense rooster-tails, and the stuff just flew up at the windscreens, wiping out any kind of visibility. The infrared scanners, even the radar, were useless in these conditions.
Myra had been around space technology long enough to know that she had to put her faith in the machinery that protected her. The rover knew where it was going, in theory, and was finding its way by sheer dead reckoning. But it violated all her instincts to go charging blindly ahead like this.
But we cant slow down, Ellie said absently. We dont have time. She was paging her way through astronomical datanot even looking out the window, as Myra was. But then her primary task was much more significant, the ongoing effort to understand what precisely the Q-bomb had done to Mars since its impact five months ago, an impact that had done little harm in itself, but which had planted a seed of quintessence that would soon shatter Mars altogether.
Its just all this dust, Myra said. I didnt expect these kind of conditions, even on Mars.
Ellie raised her eyebrows. Myra, this area is notorious. This is where a lot of the big global dust storms seem to be born. You didnt know that? Welcome to Dust Central. Anyhow you know were