The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,82

if he did, Professor Sessui and his colleagues would certainly be doomed.

Directly above his head, the silent drama was being played out at this very moment. Rajasinghe switched from text to video, but there was nothing new. The item now being screened in the news recap was Maxine Duval’s ascent, years ago, in Spider’s precursor.

“I can do better than that,” muttered Rajasinghe, and switched to his beloved telescope.

For the first months after he had become bedridden, he had been unable to use it. Then Morgan had paid one of his brief courtesy calls, analyzed the situation, and swiftly prescribed the remedy. A week later, to Rajasinghe’s surprise and pleasure, a small team of technicians had arrived at the Villa Yakkagala, and had modified the instrument for remote operation. Now he could lie comfortably in bed, and still explore the starry skies and the looming face of the Rock. He was deeply grateful to Morgan for the gesture, which had shown a side of the engineer’s personality he had not suspected.

He was not sure what he could see, in the darkness of the night, but he knew exactly where to look, since he had long been watching the slow descent of the Tower. When the sun was at the correct angle, he could even glimpse the four guiding tapes converging into the zenith, a quartet of shining hairlines scratched upon the sky.

He set the azimuth bearing on the telescope control and swung the instrument around until it pointed above Sri Kanda. As he began to track slowly upward, looking for any sign of the capsule, he wondered what Bodhidharma was thinking about this latest development.

Though Rajasinghe had not spoken to the Mahanayake, now well into his nineties, since the order had moved to Lhasa, he gathered that the Potala had not provided the hoped-for accommodation. The huge palace was slowly falling into decay while the Dalai Lama’s executors haggled with the Chinese federal government over the cost of maintenance. According to Rajasinghe’s latest information, the Mahanayake Thero was now negotiating with the Vatican—also in chronic financial difficulties, but at least still master of its own house.

All things were indeed impermanent, and it was not easy to discern any cyclic pattern. Perhaps the mathematical genius of Parakarma-Goldberg might be able to do so. The last time Rajasinghe had seen him, he was receiving a major scientific award for his contributions to meteorology. Rajasinghe would never have recognized him; he was clean-shaven and wearing a suit cut in the latest neo-Napoleonic fashion. But now, it seemed, he had switched religions again….

The stars slid slowly down the big monitor screen at the end of the bed as the telescope tilted up toward the Tower. But there was no sign of the capsule, though Rajasinghe was sure that it must now be in the field of view.

He was about to switch back to the regular news channel when, like an erupting nova, a star flashed out near the lower edge of the picture. Rajasinghe wondered if the capsule had exploded, but then he saw that it was shining with a perfectly steady light. He centered the image and zoomed to maximum power.

Long ago, he had seen a two-century-old video documentary of the first aerial wars, and he remembered a sequence showing a night attack upon London. An enemy bomber had been caught in a cone of searchlights, and had hung like an incandescent mote in the sky. He was seeing the same phenomenon now, on a hundredfold greater scale; but this time, all the resources on the ground were combined to help, not to destroy, the determined invader of the night.

49. A Bumpy Ride

Warren Kingsley’s voice had regained its control. Now it was merely dull and despairing.

“We’re trying to stop that mechanic from shooting himself,” he said. “But it’s hard to blame him. He was interrupted by another rush job on the capsule, and simply forgot to remove the safety strap.”

So, as usual, it was human error. While the explosive links were being attached, the battery had been held in place by two metal bands. And only one of them had been removed.

Such things happened with monotonous regularity. Sometimes they were merely annoying; sometimes they were disastrous, and the man responsible had to carry the guilt for the rest of his days. In any event, recrimination was pointless. The only thing that mattered now was what to do next.

Morgan adjusted the external viewing mirror to its maximum downward tilt, but it was impossible to see