tape’s natural frequency were far below the range of human hearing.
And some would go away shaking their heads, saying, “You’ll never get me to ride up that thing!” But they were the type who had made similar remarks about the fusion rocket, the space shuttle, the airplane, the automobile—even the steam locomotive.
To these skeptics, the usual answer was: “Don’t worry—this is merely part of the scaffolding, one of the four tapes that will guide the Tower down to Earth. Riding up the final structure will be exactly like taking an elevator in any high building. Except that the trip will be longer, and much more comfortable.”
Maxine Duval’s trip, on the other hand, would be very short, and not particularly comfortable. But once Morgan had capitulated, he had done his best to make sure that it would be uneventful.
The flimsy spider—a prototype test vehicle that looked like a motorized bo’sun’s chair—had already made a dozen ascents to twenty kilometers, with twice the load it would be carrying now. There had been the usual minor teething problems, but nothing serious; the last five runs had been completely trouble-free. And what could go wrong? If there were a power failure—almost unthinkable in such a simple battery-operated system—gravity would bring Duval safely home, the automatic brakes limiting the speed of descent. The only real risk was that the drive mechanism might jam, trapping the spider and its passenger in the upper atmosphere. And Morgan had an answer even for this.
“Only fifteen kilometers?” Duval had protested. “A glider can do better than that!”
“But you can’t, with nothing more than an oxygen mask. Of course, if you’d like to wait a year, until we have the operational unit with its life-support system….”
“What’s wrong with a spacesuit?”
Morgan had refused to budge, for his own good reasons. Though he hoped it would not be needed, a small jet crane was standing by at the foot of Sri Kanda. Its highly skilled operators were used to odd assignments; they would have no difficulty in rescuing a stranded Duval, even at an altitude of twenty kilometers.
But there was no vehicle in existence that could reach her at twice that height. Above forty kilometers was no man’s land—too low for rockets, too high for balloons.
In theory, a rocket could hover beside the tape, for a very few minutes, before it burned up all its propellant. But the problems of navigation and actual contact with the spider were so horrendous that Morgan had not even bothered to think about them. It could never happen in real life, and he hoped that no producer of video drama would decide that there was good material here for a cliff-hanger. That was the sort of publicity he could do without.
Duval looked rather like a typical Antarctic tourist as, glittering in her metal-foil thermosuit, she walked toward the waiting spider and the group of technicians around it. She had chosen the time carefully. The sun had risen only an hour ago, and its slanting rays would show the Taprobanean landscape to best advantage. Her remote, even younger and huskier than the one used on the last memorable occasion, recorded the sequence of events for her systemwide audience.
She had, as always, been thoroughly rehearsed. There was no fumbling or hesitation as she strapped herself in, pressed the BATTERY CHARGE button, took a deep draught of oxygen from her face mask, and checked the monitors on all her video and sound channels. Then, like a fighter pilot in some old historical movie, she signaled “thumbs up” and gently eased the speed control forward.
There was a small burst of ironic clapping from the assembled engineers, most of whom had already taken joy rides up to heights of a few kilometers. Someone shouted, “Ignition! We have lift-off!” Moving about as swiftly as a brass birdcage elevator in the reign of Victoria I, the spider began its stately ascent.
This must be like ballooning, Duval told herself. Smooth, effortless, silent. No—not completely silent. She could hear the gentle whirr of the motors powering the multiple drive wheels that gripped the flat face of the tape.
There was none of the sway or vibration that she had half expected. Despite its slimness, the incredible band she was climbing was as rigid as a bar of steel, and the vehicle’s gyros were holding it rock steady. If she closed her eyes, she could easily imagine that she was already ascending the final Tower.
But she would not close her eyes. There was so much to see