The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,38

the terran economy, and the cost of space transportation is now one of the factors limiting its growth. If you’ve looked at those estimates for the 50’s and 60’s…”

“I have—I have. Very interesting. But though we’re not exactly poor, we couldn’t raise a fraction of the funds needed. Why, it would absorb the entire gross world product for a couple of years!”

“And pay it back every fifteen, forever afterward.”

“If your projections are correct.”

“They were for the Bridge. But you’re right, of course, and I don’t expect ANAR to do more than start the ball rolling. Once you’ve shown your interest, it will be that much easier to get other support.”

“Such as?”

“The World Bank. The planetary banks. The federal government.”

“And your own employers, the Terran Construction Corporation? What are you really up to, Van?”

Here it comes, thought Morgan, almost with a sigh of relief. Now at last he could talk frankly with someone he could trust, someone who was too big to be involved in petty bureaucratic intrigues, but who could thoroughly appreciate their finer points.

“I’ve been doing most of this work in my own time—I’m on vacation right now. And incidentally, that’s just how the Bridge started! I don’t know if I ever told you that I was once officially ordered to forget it…. I’ve learned a few lessons in the past fifteen years.”

“This report must have taken a good deal of computer time. Who paid for that?”

“Oh, I have considerable discretionary funds. And my staff is always doing studies that nobody else can understand. To tell the truth, I’ve had quite a little team playing with the idea for several months. They’re so enthusiastic that they spend most of their free time on it as well. But now we have to commit ourselves—or abandon the project.”

“Does your esteemed chairman know about this?”

Morgan smiled, without much humor.

“Of course not, and I don’t want to tell him until I’ve worked out all the details.”

“I can appreciate some of the complications,” said the President shrewdly. “One of them, I imagine, is insuring that Senator Collins doesn’t invent it first.”

“He can’t do that—the idea is about two hundred years old. But he, and a lot of other people, could slow it down. I want to see it happen in my lifetime.”

“And of course you intend to be in charge…. Well, what exactly would you like us to do?”

“This is merely one suggestion, Mr. President—you may have a better idea. Form a consortium—perhaps including the Gibraltar Bridge Authority, the Suez and Panama corporations, the English Channel Company, the Bering Dam Corporation…. Then, when it’s all wrapped up, approach TCC with a request for a feasibility study. At this stage, the investment will be negligible.”

“Meaning?”

“Less than a million. Especially since I’ve already done ninety percent of the work.”

“And then?”

“Thereafter, with your backing, Mr. President, I can play it by ear. I might stay with TCC. Or I might resign and join the consortium—call it Astroengineering. It would all depend on circumstances. I would do whatever seemed best for the project.”

“That seems a reasonable approach. I think we can work something out.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Morgan answered with heart-felt sincerity. “But there’s one annoying roadblock we have to tackle at once—perhaps even before we set up the consortium. We have to go to the World Court and establish jurisdiction over the most valuable piece of real estate on earth.”

20. The Bridge that Danced

Even in this age of instantaneous communication and swift global transport, it was convenient to have a place that one could call one’s office. Not everything could be stored in patterns of electronic charges; there were still such items as good old-fashioned books, professional certificates, awards and honors, engineering models, samples of material, artists’ renderings of projects (not as accurate as a computer’s, but very ornamental), and, of course, the wall-to-wall carpet that every senior bureaucrat needed to soften the impact of external reality.

Morgan’s office, which he saw, on the average, ten days per month, was on the sixth or LAND floor of the sprawling Terran Construction Corporation headquarters in Nairobi. The floor below was SEA; that above it, ADMINISTRATION—meaning Chairman Collins and his empire. The architect, in a fit of naive symbolism, had devoted the top floor to SPACE. There was even a small observatory on the roof, with a thirty-centimeter telescope, which was always out of order because it was used only during office parties, and frequently for very nonastronomical purposes. The upper rooms of the Triplanetary Hotel, only a kilometer away,