our top speed, well climb smoothly.
And whats the top speed?
Oh, two hundred klicks an hour. The ribbons actually rated for twice that. Ive disabled the speed inhibitor, if we need it.
Lets hope thats not necessary, Bisesa said dryly.
Myra reached over and slipped her hand into her mothers. Do you remember how we went to see the opening of the Aussievator? It was just after the sunstorm. I was eighteen, I think. That was where I got to know Eugene again. Now there are elevators all over the world.
It was quite a day. And so is this. Myra squeezed her hand. Glad I woke you up yet? Im reserving judgment. But her grin was fierce. Who could resist this? Alexei watched this interplay uncertainly.
They were rolling toward the ribbon. Over their heads, with a clumsy clunk, the pulley assembly unfolded itself. The ribbon really was narrow, no more than four or five centimeters across. It seemed impossible that it could support the weight of this car, let alone hundredsthousands?of others. But the spider trundled forward without hesitation.
The roller assembly tipped up, closed itself up around the ribbon, and, with a surge like a punch in the belly, the spider leapt skyward.
PART 2 JOURNEYS 11: RIBBON
In that first moment they left the spider farm behind, and were up and out in the bright sunlight. Glancing up, Bisesa saw the ribbon arrowing off into invisibility in a cloudless sky, with the bright pearls of other spiders going ahead of her, up into the unknown.
And when she looked down, peering around the obstruction of the solar panels, she saw the world falling away from her, and a tremendous view of the Cape opening up. She shielded her eyes from the sun. There were the gantries and blockhouses, and the straight-line roads traveled by generations of astronauts. A spaceplane of some kind rested on a runway, a black-and-white moth. And a bit further on a white needle stood tall beside a rusted gantry. It had to be a Saturn V, perhaps bearing a recreation of Apollo 10, the next precursor of the century-old Moon landings. But she had already risen higher than the Saturns needle nose, already higher than the astronauts climbing their gantries to their Moon ships.
The ascent was rapid, and just kept going. Soon she seemed able to see down the beach for kilometers. Canaveral looked more water than land, a skim of earth on the silver hide of the great ocean that opened up to the east. And she saw cars and trucks parked up on the roads and beside the beach, with tiny American flags fluttering from their aerials.
People still come to see, Alexei said, grinning. Quite a spectacle when the Saturns go up, Im told. But the Ladder is more impressive, in its way
There was a jolt.
Sorry about that, Alexei said. End of the acceleration. He tapped his softscreen, and a simple display lit up, showing altitude, speed, air pressure, time. Three hundred meters high, speed maxed out, and from now on its a smooth ride all the way up.
The ground fell away, the historic clutter of Canaveral already diminishing to a map.
A minute into the journey, four kilometers high, and the world was starting to curve, the eastern ocean horizon an immense arc. And with a snap the big solar-cell wings folded down flat.
I dont get it, Bisesa said. This is for power? The solar cells seem to be on the underside. Thats the idea, Alexei said. The spiders power comes from ground-based lasers. You saw them, Mum, Myra said. You leave your power supply on the ground. Okay. So how long is the ride?
To beyond geosynch? All the way out to our drop-off point? Around twelve days, Alexei said.
Twelve days in this box? And Bisesa didnt like the sound of that phrase, drop-off.
This is a big structure, Mum, Myra said, but she was evidently a novice herself and didnt sound convinced.
A few more minutes and they were eight kilometers high, already higher than most aircraft would fly, and there was a clunk, the mildest of shudders. Over their heads the pulley mechanism alarmingly reconfigured itself, bringing a different set of wheels and tracks into play.
And then, suddenly, the ribbon itself changed, from a narrow strip the width of Bisesas hand to a sheet as wide as an opened-out newspaper. It was sharply curved, she saw. Their spider now clung to one outer edge of the ribbon.
Alexei said, This is the standard width of the ribbon, most of the