The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,36

handful of isolated stragglers.

“Did they tell you about the legend?” he asked, glancing back at his passenger.

“No,” said Morgan curtly. He was not at all interested, being anxious to resume his interrupted nap.

“The Golden Butterflies—they’re the souls of Kalidasa’s warriors, the army he lost at Yakkagala.”

Morgan gave an unenthusiastic grunt, hoping that the driver would get the message; but he continued remorselessly.

“Every year, around this time, they head for the mountain, and they all die on its lower slopes. Sometimes you’ll meet them halfway up the cable ride, but that’s the highest they get. Which is lucky for the vihara.”

“The vihara?” asked Morgan sleepily.

“The temple. If they ever reach it, Kalidasa will have conquered, and the bhikkus—the monks—will have to leave. That’s the prophecy—it’s carved on a stone slab in the Ranapura Museum. I can show it to you.”

“Some other time,” said Morgan hastily as he settled back into the padded seat. But it was many kilometers before he could doze off again, because there was something haunting about the image that the driver had conjured up.

He would remember it often in the months ahead—when waking, and in moments of stress or crisis. Once again he would be immersed in that golden snowstorm, as the doomed millions spent their energies in a vain assault upon the mountain and all that it symbolized.

Even now, at the very beginning of his campaign, the image was too close for comfort.

19. By the Shores of Lake Saladin

“Almost all the Alternative History computer simulations suggested that the Battle of Tours (A.D. 732) was one of the crucial disasters of mankind. Had Charles Martel been defeated, Islam might have resolved the internal differences that were tearing it apart and gone on to conquer Europe. Thus centuries of Christian barbarism would have been avoided, the Industrial Revolution would have started almost a thousand years earlier, and by now we would have reached the nearer stars instead of merely the farther planets…. “But fate ruled otherwise, and the armies of the Prophet turned back into Africa. Islam lingered on, a fascinating fossil, until the end of the twentieth century. Then, abruptly, it was dissolved in oil…”

Chairman’s Address

Toynbee Bicentennial Symposium

London, 2089

“Did you know,” said Sheik Farouk Abdullah, “that I have now appointed myself Grand Admiral of the Sahara Fleet?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me, Mr. President,” Morgan answered as he gazed out across the sparkling blue expanse of Lake Saladin. “If it’s not a naval secret, how many ships do you have?”

“Ten at the moment. The largest is a thirty-meter hydro-skimmer run by the Red Crescent. It spends every weekend rescuing incompetent sailors. My people still aren’t much good on the water—look at that idiot trying to tack! After all, two hundred years really isn’t long enough to switch from camels to boats.”

“You had Cadillacs and Rolls-Royces in between. Surely that should have eased the transition.”

“And we still have them. My great-great-great-grandfather’s Silver Ghost is just as good as new. But I must be fair—it’s the visitors who get into trouble, trying to cope with our local winds. We stick to powerboats. And next year I’m getting a submarine guaranteed to reach the lake’s maximum depth of seventy-eight meters.”

“Whatever for?”

“Now they tell us that the Erg was full of archaeological treasures. Of course, no one bothered about them before it was flooded.”

It was no use trying to hurry the President of ANAR—the Autonomous North African Republic—and Morgan knew better than to attempt it. Whatever the constitution might say, Sheik Abdullah controlled more power and wealth than almost any single individual on earth. More to the point, he understood the uses of both.

He came of a family that was not afraid to take risks, and seldom had cause to regret them. Its first and most famous gamble—which had incurred the hatred of the whole Arab world for almost half a century—was the investment of its abundant petro-dollars in the science and technology of Israel. That farsighted act had led directly to the mining of the Red Sea, the defeat of the deserts, and, very much later, to the Gibraltar Bridge….

“I don’t have to tell you, Van,” said the Sheik at last, “how much your new project fascinates me. And after all that we went through together while the Bridge was being built, I know that you could do it—given the resources.”

“Thank you.”

“But I have a few questions. I’m not clear why there’s Midway Station—and why it’s at a height of twenty-five thousand kilometers.”

“Several reasons. We need a major power plant at about