The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,10

vice,” Rajasinghe called it, with wry amusement but also with regret. It had been years since he had climbed to the summit of Yakkagala, and though he could fly there whenever he wished, that did not give the same feeling of achievement. To do it the easy way bypassed the most fascinating architectural details of the ascent. No one could hope to understand the mind of Kalidasa without following his footsteps all the way from pleasure gardens to aerial palace.

But there was a substitute, which could give an aging man considerable satisfaction. Years ago, he had acquired a compact and powerful twenty-centimeter telescope. Through it he could roam the entire western wall of the Rock, retracing the path he had followed to the summit so many times in the past. When he peered through the binocular eyepiece, he could easily imagine that he was hanging in mid-air, close enough to the sheer granite wall to reach out and touch it.

In the late afternoon, as the rays of the westering sun reached beneath the rock overhang that protected them, Rajasinghe would visit the frescoes, and pay tribute to the ladies of the court. Though he loved them all, he had his favorites. Sometimes he would talk silently to them, using the most archaic words and phrases he knew, well aware of the fact that his oldest Taprobani lay a thousand years in their future.

It also amused him to watch the living, and to study their reactions as they scrambled up the Rock, took photographs of each other on the summit, or admired the frescoes. They could have no idea that they were accompanied by an invisible—and envious—spectator, moving effortlessly beside them like a silent ghost, and so close that he could see every expression and every detail of their clothing. Such was the power of the telescope that if Rajasinghe had been able to lip-read, he could have eavesdropped on the tourists’ conversations.

If this was voyeurism, it was harmless enough, and his little “vice” was hardly a secret, since he was delighted to share it with visitors. The telescope provided one of the best introductions to Yakkagala, and it had often served other useful purposes. Rajasinghe had several times alerted the guards to attempted souvenir hunting, and more than one astonished tourist had been caught carving his initials on the face of the Rock.

Rajasinghe seldom used the telescope in the morning, because the sun was then on the far side of Yakkagala and little could be seen on the shadowed western face. And as far as he could recall, he had never used it so soon after dawn, while he was still enjoying the delightful local custom of “bed-tea,” introduced by the European planters three centuries ago.

Yet now, as he glanced out the wide picture window that gave him an almost complete view of Yakkagala, he was surprised to see a tiny figure moving along the crest of the Rock, partly silhouetted against the sky. Visitors never climbed to the top so soon after dawn; the guard wouldn’t even unlock the elevator to the frescoes for another hour. Idly, Rajasinghe wondered who the early bird could be.

He rolled out of bed, slipped into a bright batik sarong, and made his way out to the veranda and thence to the stout concrete pillar supporting the telescope. Making a mental note, for about the fiftieth time, that he really should get the instrument a new dust cover, he swung the stubby barrel toward the Rock.

I might have guessed it! he said to himself, with considerable pleasure, as he switched to high power. So last night’s show had impressed Morgan, as well it should have done. The engineer was seeing for himself, in the short time available, how Kalidasa’s architects had met the challenge imposed upon them.

Then Rajasinghe noticed something quite alarming. Morgan was walking briskly around at the very edge of the plateau, just centimeters away from the sheer drop that few tourists ever dared to approach. Not many had the courage even to sit in the Elephant Throne, with their feet dangling over the abyss; but now the engineer was actually kneeling beside it, holding on to the carved stonework with one casual arm, and leaning right out into nothingness as he surveyed the rock face below. Rajasinghe, who had never been happy with even such familiar heights as Yakkagala’s, could scarcely bear to watch.

After a few minutes of incredulous observation, he decided that Morgan must be one of those rare people