Abruptly, the climb was over. Morgan found himself standing on a small island floating two hundred meters above a landscape of trees and fields that was flat in all directions except southward, where the central mountains broke up the horizon. He was completely isolated from the rest of the world, yet felt master of all he surveyed. Not since he had stood among the clouds on the bridge straddling Europe and Africa had he known such a moment of aerial ecstasy. This was indeed the residence of a god-king, and the ruins of his palace were all around.
A baffling maze of broken walls—none more than waist-high—piles of weathered brick, and granite-paved pathways covered the entire surface of the plateau, right to the precipitous edge. Morgan could also see a large cistern cut deeply into the solid rock, presumably a water-storage tank. As long as supplies were available, a handful of determined men could have held this place forever; but if Yakkagala had been intended as a fortress, its defenses had never been put to the test. Kalidasa’s fateful last meeting with his brother had taken place far beyond the outer ramparts.
Almost forgetting time, Morgan roamed among the foundations of the palace that had once crowned the Rock. He tried to enter the mind of the architect, from what he could see of his surviving handiwork. Why was there a pathway here? Did this truncated flight of steps lead to an upper floor? If this coffin-shaped recess in the stone was a bath, how was the water supplied and how did it drain away? His research was so fascinating that he was quite oblivious of the increasing heat of the sun, striking down from a cloudless sky.
Far below, the emerald-green landscape was waking into life. Like brightly colored beetles, a swarm of robot tractors was heading toward the rice fields. Improbable though it seemed, a helpful elephant was pushing an overturned bus back onto the road, which it had obviously left while taking a bend at too high a speed. Morgan could even hear the shrill voice of the rider, perched just behind the enormous ears. And a stream of tourists was pouring like army ants through the pleasure gardens from the general direction of the Hotel Yakkagala. He would not enjoy his solitude much longer.
However, he had virtually completed his exploration of the ruins—though one could, of course, spend a lifetime investigating them in detail. He was happy to rest for a while, on a beautifully carved granite bench at the very edge of the two-hundred-meter drop, overlooking the entire southern sky.
Morgan let his eyes scan the distant line of mountains, partly concealed by a blue haze which the morning sun had not yet dispersed. As he examined it idly, he realized that what he had assumed to be a part of the cloudscape was nothing of the sort. That misty cone was no ephemeral construct of wind and vapor. There was no mistaking its perfect symmetry, as it towered above its lesser brethen.
For a moment, the shock of recognition emptied his mind of everything except wonder, and an almost superstitious awe. He had not known that one could see the Sacred Mountain so clearly from Yakkagala. But there it was, slowly emerging from the shadow of night, preparing to face a new day; and, if he succeeded, a new future.
He knew all its dimensions, all its geology. He had mapped it through stereophotographs and had scanned it from satellites. But to see it for the first time with his own eyes made it real; until now, everything had been theory. And sometimes not even that. More than once, in the small gray hours before dawn, Morgan had awakened from nightmares in which his whole project had appeared as some preposterous fantasy, which, far from bringing him fame, would make him the laughing stock of the world. Morgan’s Folly, some of his peers had once dubbed the bridge. What would they call his latest dream?
But man-made obstacles had never stopped him before. Nature was his real antagonist—the friendly enemy who never cheated, always played fair, but never failed to take advantage of the tiniest oversight or omission. And all the forces of Nature were epitomized for him now in that distant blue cone, which he knew so well but had yet to feel beneath his feet.
As Kalidasa had done so often from this very spot, Morgan stared across the fertile green plain, measuring the challenge and considering his strategy. To Kalidasa, Sri Kanda represented both the power of the priesthood and the power of the gods, conspiring together against him. Now the gods were gone; but the priests remained. They represented something that Morgan did not understand, and would therefore treat with wary respect.
It was time to descend. He must not be late again, especially through his own miscalculation. As he rose from the stone slab on which he had been sitting, a thought that had been worrying him for several minutes finally rose to consciousness. It was strange to have placed so ornate a seat, with its beautifully carved supporting elephants, at the very edge of a precipice. . . .
Morgan could never resist such an intellectual challenge. Leaning out over the abyss, he once again tried to attune his engineer’s mind to that of a colleague two thousand years dead.
8
Malgara
Not even his closest comrades could read the expression on Prince Malgara’s face when, for the last time, he gazed upon the brother who had shared his boyhood. The battlefield was quiet; even the cries of the injured had been silenced by healing herb or yet more potent sword.
After a long while, the Prince turned to the yellow-robed figure standing by his side.
“You crowned him, Venerable Bodhidharma. Now you can do him one more service. See that he receives the honors of a king.”
For a moment, the High Priest did not reply. Then he answered softly:
“He destroyed our temples and scattered the priests. If he worshipped any god, it was Siva.”
Malgara bared his teeth in the fierce smile that the Mahanayake Thero was to know all too well in the years that were left to him.
“Revered sire,” said the Prince, in a voice that dripped venom, “he was the first-born of Paravana the Great, he sat on the throne of Taprobane, and the evil that he did dies with him. When the body is burned, you will see that the relics are properly entombed before you dare set foot upon Sri Kanda again.”
The Mahanayake Thero bowed, ever so slightly.
“It shall be done—according to your wishes.”
“And there is another thing,” said Malgara, speaking now to his aides. “The fame of Kalidasa’s fountains reached us even in Hindustan. We would see them once, before we march on Ranapura. . . .”
* * *
From the heart of the pleasure gardens, which had given him such delight, the smoke of Kalidasa’s funeral pyre rose into the cloudless sky, disturbing the birds of prey that had gathered from far and wide. Grimly content, though sometimes haunted by sudden memories, Malgara watched the symbol of his triumph spiraling upward, announcing to all the land that the new reign had begun.
As if in continuation of their ancient rivalry, the water of the fountains challenged the fire, leaping skyward before it fell back to shatter the surface of the reflecting pool. But presently, long before the flames had finished their work, the reservoirs began to fail, and the jets collapsed in liquid ruin. Before they rose again in the gardens of Kalidasa, Imperial Rome would have passed away, the armies of Islam would have marched across Africa, Copernicus would have dethroned the earth from the center of the universe, the American Declaration of Independence would have been signed, and men would have walked upon the moon. . . .
Malgara waited until the pyre had disintegrated in a final brief flurry of sparks. As the last smoke drifted against the towering face of Yakkagala, he raised his eyes toward the palace on its summit, and stared for a long time in silent appraisal.
“No man should challenge the gods,” he said at last. “Let it be destroyed.”
9
Filament
“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” said Rajasinghe accusingly, as he poured the morning coffee. “At first, I thought you had some antigravity device—but even I know that’s impossible. How did you do it?”
“My apologies,” Morgan answered with a smile. “If I’d known you were watching, I’d have warned you—th
ough the whole exercise was entirely unplanned. I’d merely intended to take a scramble over the Rock, but then I got intrigued by that stone bench. I wondered why it was on the very edge of the cliff, and started to explore.”
“There’s no mystery about it. At one time, there was a floor, probably wood, extending outward, and a flight of steps leading down to the frescoes from the summit. You can still see the grooves where it was keyed into the rock face.”
“So I discovered,” said Morgan a little ruefully. “I might have guessed that someone would have found that out already.”
Two hundred and fifty years ago, thought Rajasinghe. That crazy and energetic Englishman Arnold Lethbridge, Taprobane’s first Director of Archaeology. He had himself lowered down the face of the Rock, exactly as you did. Well, not exactly . . .
Morgan had now produced the metal box that had allowed him to perform his miracle. Its only features were a few buttons, and a small read-out panel. It looked for all the world like some form of simple communications device.
“This is it,” he said proudly. “Since you saw me make a hundred-meter vertical walk, you must have a very good idea how it operates.”
“Common sense gave me one answer, but even my excellent telescope didn’t confirm it. I could have sworn there was absolutely nothing supporting you.”
“That wasn’t the demonstration I’d intended, but it must have been effective. Now for my standard sales pitch. Please hook your finger through this ring.”
Rajasinghe hesitated. Morgan was holding the small metal torus—about twice the size of an ordinary wedding ring—almost as if it were electrified.
“Will it give me a shock?” he asked.
“Not a shock—but perhaps a surprise. Try to pull it away from me.”
Rather gingerly, Rajasinghe took hold of the ring—then almost dropped it. It seemed alive; it was straining toward Morgan—or, rather, toward the box that the engineer was holding in his hand. Then the box gave a slight whirring noise, and Rajasinghe felt his finger being dragged forward by some mysterious force. Magnetism? he asked himself. Of course not; no magnets could behave in this fashion. His tentative but improbable theory was correct; indeed, there was really no alternative explanation. They were engaged in a perfectly straightforward tug-of-war—but with an invisible rope.
Though Rajasinghe strained his eyes, he could see no trace of any thread or wire connecting the ring through which his finger was hooked and the box that Morgan was operating much like a fisherman reeling in his catch. He reached out his free hand to explore the apparently empty space, but the engineer quickly knocked it away.
“Sorry!” he said. “Everyone tries that, when they realize what’s happening. You could cut yourself very badly.”
“So you do have an invisible wire. Clever—but what use is it, except for parlor tricks?”
Morgan gave a broad smile.
“I can’t blame you for jumping to that conclusion; it’s the usual reaction. But it’s quite wrong. The reason you can’t see this sample is that it’s only a few microns thick. Much thinner than a spider’s web.”
For once, thought Rajasinghe, an overworked adjective was fully justified.
“That’s—incredible. What is it?”
“The result of about two hundred years of solid-state physics. For whatever good that does, it’s a continuous pseudo-one-dimensional diamond crystal—though it’s not actually pure carbon. There are several trace elements in carefully controlled amounts. It can be mass-produced only in the orbiting factories, where there’s no gravity to interfere with the growth process.”
“Fascinating,” whispered Rajasinghe, almost to himself. He gave little tugs on the ring hooked around his finger, to test that the tension was still there and that he was not hallucinating. “I can appreciate that this may have all sorts of technical applications. It would make a splendid cheese cutter.”
Morgan laughed.
“One man can bring a tree down with it, in a couple of minutes. But it’s tricky to handle—even dangerous. We’ve had to design special dispensers to spool and unspool it. We call them ‘spinnerettes.’ This is a power-operated one, made for demonstration purposes. The motor can lift a couple of hundred kilos, and I’m always finding new uses for it. Today’s little exploit wasn’t the first, by any means.”
Almost reluctantly, Rajasinghe unhooked his finger from the ring. It started to fall, then swung back and forth like a pendulum without visible means of support until Morgan pressed a button and the spinnerette reeled it in with a gentle whirr.
“You haven’t come all this way, Dr. Morgan, just to impress me with this latest marvel of science—though I am impressed. I want to know what all this has to do with me.”
“A great deal, Mr. Ambassador,” answered the engineer, equally serious and formal. “You are quite correct in thinking that this material will have many applications, some of which we are only now beginning to foresee.
“And one of them, for better or for worse, is going to make your quiet little island the center of the world. No—not merely the world. The whole solar system.
“Thanks to this filament, Taprobane will be the steppingstone to all the planets. And one day, perhaps, the stars.”
10
The Ultimate
Bridge
Paul and Maxine were two of his best and oldest friends, yet until this moment they had never met, or, as far as Rajasinghe knew, even communicated. There was little reason why they should; no one outside Taprobane had ever heard of Professor Sarath, but the whole solar system would instantly recognize Maxine Duval, either by sight or by sound.
His two guests were reclining in the library’s comfortable lounge chairs, while Rajasinghe sat at the villa’s main console. They were all staring at the fourth figure, who was standing motionless.
Too motionless. A visitor from the past, knowing nothing of the everyday electronic miracles of this age, might have decided after a few seconds that he was looking at a superbly detailed wax dummy. However, more careful examination would have revealed two disconcerting facts. The “dummy” was transparent enough for highlights to be clearly visible through it; and its feet blurred out of focus a few centimeters above the carpet.
“Do you recognize this man?” Rajasinghe asked.
“I’ve never seen him in my life,” Sarath replied instantly. “He’d better be important, since you dragged me back from Maharamba. We were just about to open the relic chamber.”
“I had to leave my trimaran at the beginning of the Lake Saladin races,” said Duval, her famous contralto voice containing just enough annoyance to put anyone less thick-skinned than Professor Sarath neatly in his place. “And I know him, of course. Does he want to build a bridge from Taprobane to Hindustan?”
Rajasinghe laughed.
“No. We’ve had a perfectly serviceable causeway for two centuries. And I’m sorry to have dragged you both here—though you, Maxine, have been promising to come for twenty years.”
“True.” She sighed. “But I have to spend so much time in my studio that I sometimes forget there’s a real world out there, occupied by about five thousand dear friends and fifty million intimate acquaintances.”
“In which category would you put Dr. Morgan?”
“I’ve met him—oh, three or four times. We did a special interview when the Gibraltar Bridge was completed. He’s a very impressive character.”
Coming from Maxine Duval, thought Rajasinghe, that was a fine tribute. For more than thirty years, she had been perhaps the most respected member of her exacting profession, and had won every honor that it could offer. A Pulitzer Prize, the Global Times Trophy, the David Snow Award—these were merely the tip of the iceberg. And she had only recently returned to active work after two years as Walter Cronkite Professor of Electronic Journalism at Columbia University.
All this had mellowed her, though it had not slowed her down. She was no longer the sometimes fiery chauvinist who had once remarked: “Since w
omen are better at producing babies, presumably Nature has given men some talent to compensate. But for the moment I can’t think of it.” However, she had only recently embarrassed a hapless panel chairman with the loud aside: “I’m a newswoman, dammit—not a news person.”
Of her femininity, there had never been any doubt. She had been married four times, and her choice of Rems was famous. Whatever their sex, remotes were always young and athletic, so that they could move swiftly despite the encumbrance of up to twenty kilos of communications gear. Duval’s were invariably very male and very handsome; it was an old joke in the trade that all her Rems were also rams. The jest was completely without rancor, since even her fiercest professional rivals liked her almost as much as they envied her.
“I’m sorry about the race,” said Rajasinghe, “but I note that Marlin III won handily without you. I think you’ll admit that this is rather more important. . . . But let Morgan speak for himself. . . .”
He released the PAUSE button on the projector, and the frozen statue came instantly to life.
“My name is Vannevar Morgan. I am Chief Engineer of Terran Construction’s Land Division. My last project was the Gibraltar Bridge. Now I want to talk about something incomparably more ambitious.”
Rajasinghe glanced around the room. Morgan had hooked them, just as he had expected.
He leaned back in his chair and waited for the now familiar, yet still almost unbelievable, prospectus to unfold. Odd, he thought, how quickly one accepted the conventions of the display, and ignored quite large errors of the TILT and LEVEL controls. Even the fact that Morgan “moved” while staying in the same place, and the totally false perspective of exterior scenes, failed to destroy the sense of reality.
“The Space Age is almost two hundred years old. For more than half that time, our civilization has been utterly dependent upon the host of satellites that now orbit the earth.
The Fountains of Paradise Page 5
