Pillar to the Sky

by William R. Forstchen

  They nodded.

  “A tricky game when you think of ‘Gertie.’”

  “Sir, the computer technology to work in advance of that and fire at precisely the right intervals will handle it,” Eva replied. “If we can get some time on that Cray computer next year, we might be able to work out a variety of simulations.”

  “We have no other alternative,” Gary said.

  “No, obviously not. Just, at times it is healthy to think worse-case scenario. You are coming into your landing site, your computer is overloading, spitting out a 1201 alarm, where you were programmed to land on close inspection is a boulder field. You spot what might be a good landing spot a couple of miles away and Mission Control is telling you that you’ve only got a minute’s worth of fuel left.”

  Of course he was referring to the famed piloting of Armstrong and Aldrin with Apollo 11. If they had not abandoned the programmed landing site, they would have crashed. If they had panicked even for a second and been indecisive or decided it was time to argue about where they should land, they’d have crashed.

  “I only trust silicon so far when it comes to decisions. Suppose there is a full power failure along the entire system while the mother of all storms is blowing out a coronal mass ejection from the sun, and an ascent or descent car has jammed up on its track.”

  The two were silent.

  Erich shook his head but then smiled.

  “My job is to encourage, but then to poke holes in the dreams of interns and freshly minted Ph.D.’s. Neither of you have factored in two or more potentially disastrous events hitting at the same time. Thank God for Apollo 13 they still had the lunar lander attached when the command module had its blowout and power was lost. No one had ever thought up that one for the simulators, or using the lunar lander engine as a booster to get them home quicker before they ran out of power and breathable air.”

  The two were silent.

  He closed the report.

  “A good start, you two. Brilliant, actually. Just poking you a bit to start thinking about the next step, the numerous steps to come. I’ll send you my analysis and the holes I see after you get back to your universities. I can tell you right now that the weight to send what you call a ‘ribbon’ aloft would be staggering, so start smaller, lighter, then build from there as you suggest. It’s brilliant.

  “You are both invited back next summer to continue your research—together.”

  He gave them a conspiratorial smile. Eva did not react. Gary did blush a bit as he looked sidelong at Eva. After ten weeks he was absolutely smitten with her, but she had indicated no interest beyond an occasional sisterlike peck on the cheek when he had shown some courtesy. He knew that darn near every male intern and for that matter every single male staffer, some well into their forties, had tried hitting on her this summer, and the result was that she was referred to as the “ice princess,” along with a few other less than complimentary nicknames. The few times she had really opened up about her personal life, it was always about her parents, younger brother, and sisters, who she adored, reverence for her heroic grandfather, but never a word about at least a boyfriend back home. She was absolutely focused on one thing, her dream of this tower. And he had allowed her to pull him into that dream, not in order to try to win her favor, but because he found that he actually could believe.

  There was another change in Eva that had become apparent over the summer. She had even grudgingly admitted in roundabout ways that she tended to look upon the idea of a tower almost as a work of art, a spiritual act, and when she did “loosen up,” it was about the beauty of it, the societal impact, the dreams of humanity to reach for the stars and how, once that doorway was open, the world could be transformed. In contrast, he saw it from the more analytical perspective of a born engineer and at times sent her crashing back down to the hard earth of mathematical realities.

  “When’s your flight?” Erich asked, looking at Eva.

  “Leaves at 5:15, direct to Moscow.”

  “Who’d have thought it ten years ago. Direct flights daily, Dulles to Moscow, but God protect you if it’s Aeroflot,” Erich said softly. “Anyhow, that leaves you two enough time to get over there and say your good-byes.”

  He made a show of looking at his old-fashioned wristwatch, the same one he had worn in the war.

  “One final question. Your academic plans for the forthcoming year?”

  “Well, sir, I have my dissertation, of course. Professor Rakolvski has already approved the topic.”

  “Very good, I look forward to seeing the drafts next summer.”

  He had just put the pressure on her. When it came to dissertations in aerospace engineering, two to three years was the norm.

  “And you, Gary?”

  “I’ll submit my dissertation proposal next week, once I’m back at Purdue.”

  “Subject?”

  He took a deep gulp.

  “Space elevators,” he said, his voice a bit strangled.

  “What?”

  Eva turned in her chair, and if looks could kill …

  “We can both work on the same subject,” he said hurriedly. “No one else has taken it to a dissertation level yet.”

  “I had the idea first.”

  “It’s not copyrighted,” Gary said defensively.

  “So all summer long you were just acting polite so you could pump me for everything I know and run out and publish it first.”

  “Like hell,” Gary snapped, surprised that anger had taken hold of him. Beyond their work together, he had all oh-so-cautiously tried to truly earn her trust and maybe even some emotional response. Her malevolent gaze told him that had just been vaporized.

  “Eva. You hooked me on the idea. What else could I possibly do?” he offered hastily.

  Erich, sitting across from them, just relit his pipe and smiled good-naturedly without saying a word.

  “Don’t you dare publish first,” she said bitterly.

  “Both of you, wait a minute…” Erich began, but it was like trying to wade in between two wildcats that had finally cut loose. They ignored him; the building tension of the entire summer had been unleashed, with accusation and counter-accusation being shouted back and forth. That he was a thief plundering her ideas; that she was arrogant, stuck-up, and it was not her idea to start with, that Tsiolkovsky had thought it up first a hundred years ago and anyone could work on it from there.

  “Both of you, shut up!” Erich finally shouted, using his German-turned-British officer commando’s voice.

  The two fell silent.

  “There is room for a dozen dissertations—fifty dissertations—on this. You two are the start. Follow the ethics. No collaboration while drafting; pursue your own research. You’ll both be published 6,000 miles apart, and someday, someone doing your biographies will wonder about it all. Now get out of my office without another cross word between you two!”

  It was not a suggestion, it was a command, and they were indeed silent, gazing at him.

  “And, damn it, no arguing as you head to the airport. You can both contact me via this e-mail thing whenever you need information or advice. I’ll keep your files separate out of ethical consideration, since you are both working on the same topic, and will offer no advice without providing the same to the other. Fair enough?”

  Eva, breathing heavily, simply nodded while again glaring daggers at Gary.

  “I think a year from now, when both of you”—he place an emphasis on the word “both”—“have your drafts done, you’ll enrich the field by having different perspectives.”

  “But…” Eva started to retort, but an icy glance stilled her protest.

  “Save it for next year,” he said, and there was an ever-so-faint smile.

  “I think you two will have come to some understanding by then. OK, get going or you’ll miss your flights.”

  * * *

  Standing outside, Eva announced she’d prefer to take a taxi, which Gary ignored, muttering that it was absurd: it would
cost fifty bucks, which she didn’t have, and she’d miss her plane.

  The drive to Dulles, on the far side of the Beltway, was in total silence. He had thought that there would be time to pull into short-term parking, help her get her luggage in, even spend a few minutes together before she headed for her gate. Instead she just gestured to the ramp where passengers off-loaded and drivers went on their way.

  Opening the trunk, she pulled her own bags out before he could offer a hand, and then she slowed, stopped, and looked back at him, and he could see there were tears in her eyes.

  “I came to trust you,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “And you still can. Dr. Rothenberg was right. I would never use anything you created this summer, Eva. I swear to it. Most of our time was looking at what others wrote and trying to calculate if it was viable or not. You had the idea of the mesh and ribbon first; I’ll never mention it. I really swear to you I won’t.”

  She nodded, started to turn, and looked back at him.

  “I’ll try to believe you,” she said.

  “I’ll prove to you that you can trust me.”

  She finally let go of one of her bags and extended her hand.

  “Good-bye, Gary, I hope to see you next summer.”

  He took her hand and then ventured to do something he had thought about for weeks. He drew her in closer and kissed her gently on the lips … and she returned the kiss.

  “Eva. I love you.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  She leaned forward and kissed him again, then stepped back.

  “Then I publish first.”

  “How about on the same day?”

  “Moscow time is seven hours ahead of Washington time,” and now she stepped closer to him, smiling, offering another light kiss.

  “I’ll agree to seven hours, then,” she whispered.

  * * *

  The doctoral dissertations of Gary Morgan, Ph.D., and Eva Petrenko Morgan, Ph.D., were published two years later, on the first anniversary of their wedding, which took place at the end of their second summer interning together at Goddard. Erich Rothenberg stood in as “father” to give the bride away. Three days after their marriage, Eva returned to Moscow to finish her dissertation and defend it. Upon receiving her degree, she flew back to the States to be with Gary permanently. Victoria was born a year and a half later, her parents working side by side at Goddard for the next sixteen years.

  Eva did beat Gary to publication by seven hours, and never let him forget it. She had never bothered to point out that seven hours could also mean a one-day difference as well. Therefore, in all academic and scientific journals henceforth, she would be listed first when it came to credit, as her work had been published seven hours plus one day ahead of Gary’s. It was a technicality that never bothered him, since she had given him Victoria and a spiritual vision of the tower that she had eased into the soul of an engineer.

  6

  Aranuka Island, Republic of Kiribati

  The helicopter touched down gently, and Gary smiled sympathetically at Victoria, who looked decidedly green. The poor kid’s enthusiasm had dampened significantly in the last hour and a half. On the flight from D.C. to Seattle she had stayed up the entire way, glued to the jump seat in the cockpit, then sleeping most of the day while her parents toured what was basically an ordinary-looking office building before taking off that evening on the next leg of their journey out to Honolulu. Victoria was again glued to the jump seat up front, chatting with the pilot and Franklin while Gary and Eva luxuriated in actual real pull-down beds aft.

  Erich had been left behind in Seattle; though offered a seat, the elderly gentleman begged off, and Gary felt it a wise move. Jumping halfway around the world, even for someone half his age, would take its toll; and after the fiasco of the hearing with Proxley, he was asked to come back to pour oil on the troubled waters, since the senator was now making noises about entirely wiping out NASA’s advanced research division.

  After refueling in Honolulu, it was on to one of the most remote island nations in the world, Kiribati, once known as the Gilberts, approximately halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand, its more than seventy tiny coral atolls neatly bisected by the equator.

  When they came in to touch down at the main airport for the Republic of Kiribati, Gary fell silent as the plane turned for the final run in to the airport, which ran the length of the island of Tarawa. Tarawa was a name branded in his family’s memory. His grandfather’s kid brother had died there in 1943, his remains never recovered. He recalled the day he asked his grandmother about “Uncle Gary,” whom he was named after; she had produced an old yellowed album, pages brittle, with photographs of the family in the 1920s and ’30s. Among them was a photo of his namesake, looking so young and proud, a marine corporal at eighteen. And then the faded telegram: “missing in action and presumed dead.” There were two certificates on the next page, for the Purple Heart and Navy Cross, and a final photograph taken years later of his name on the memorial to the missing at the national cemetery on Oahu. Gary would never forget the aged, wrinkled hands of his grandmother brushing across the telegram and how she began to cry on recalling how, when the Western Union boy arrived, at first she did not know if it was news of her young husband flying missions over Germany or her brother-in-law, and the guilt she felt because she was relieved that at least her husband was still alive.

  As they touched down on the short runway, plumes of coral dust kicking up, he wondered if the dust of his namesake swirled about them.

  “This is where your Uncle Gary died?” Eva whispered, squeezing his hand in understanding. He could only nod.

  “Who was Uncle Gary?” Victoria asked, looking over at her father, concerned that he was visibly upset. He realized he had never spoken of him to his daughter.

  “He was your father’s great-uncle,” Eva said softly, “There was a battle fought here during the war and he died here. Your father is named after him.”

  Victoria was silent. Her mother had often told her about her own grandfather, a hero of Stalingrad, but she had never heard her father speak of his family’s loss.

  Franklin overheard the conversation, and as they disembarked the plane, he put a hand on Gary’s shoulder.

  “Our dropping in here is somewhat unannounced,” he said softly. “I want you to see some things first. On the way back, after we’ve had a chance to rest and wash up, we’ll have to go through the diplomatic niceties of meeting with the president of Kiribati, do some politics. After that, I am sure, if you wish, he will be more than glad to provide a guide to explore the battlefield here, perhaps even lend assistance to try to find where your great-uncle died, if that would be of comfort. The citizens here know more than most how much they owe to the United States Marines.”

  A helicopter was already waiting and Franklin hurried them to it.

  “Word will get out fast that I am here,” he said, his tone serious, “and these folks take hospitality seriously. I did call the president to let him know we’re coming—it would be rude of me not to—and besides, he is one person I must keep very happy. But I wanted you to see something first before all the ritual greetings and such take up the rest of the day.”

  Once hustled aboard the helicopter, burdened down only with overnight bags, they lifted off.

  The day was scorching hot and humid, and within a minute after liftoff the turbulence began to hit.

  Franklin reached into his pocket and pulled out a small medicine bottle.

  “Forgive me, I should have thought of these before. Ginger root. Forget all that medicine that knocks you out. Saw it on that show about busting myths, and it really does work. Even some of the astronauts swear by it.”

  He popped two into his mouth, passed the bottle around, but ten minutes into the flight it was too late for Victoria as the helicopter bumped and swayed through the turbulent air.

  She was utterly embarrassed and in
tears of shame, the pilot then going for higher altitude to reach smoother air, where it was at least cooler.

  “It’s only forty miles to where we are going; we’ll be there in another fifteen minutes, young missie,” he said.

  “Not soon enough,” Victoria gasped in despair.

  The helicopter, up at over 5,000 feet, dipped over slightly and raced toward its destination. Franklin, unable to contain himself, pointed to an atoll straight ahead.

  “There it is!” he cried, voice filled with excitement. “Aranuka.”

  To a tourist, it most likely would have looked like paradise: a low palm-studded island, sand that was blindingly white under the morning sun, an outer reef, the water between the reef and island a brilliant turquoise, the ocean beyond a near indigo blue. As they drew closer it actually looked like three islands linked together by sandbars.

  But at this moment, after two straight days of travel, Gary was exhausted, something that he noticed was hitting him more of late if he did not get regular sleep; and in spite of the ventilation, the scent in the cabin was less than pleasant, a mixture of K1 turbo fuel and Victoria’s unpleasant misery. He just gazed at the island without comment, though Franklin was grinning as they were coming in to land.

  As they drew closer, details became clear after passing through a low-hanging tropical cloud that caused the chopper to bounce and Victoria to moan in distress. There was a small landing strip at the north end of the island that looked to be at most 3,000 feet long. But on a long northwest-to-southeast axis, heavy construction equipment was at work, the outline of a runway extending most of the length of the island being laid out, some of it disappearing into water, where it looked as if a couple of dredging ships were dumping fill. Half a dozen ships were anchored in the lagoon, one of them a rather large vessel several hundred feet in length that reminded him of ships used for exploratory drilling. From the air he could see a large hole had been cut through the coral atoll, with breakwaters built to either side. He wondered if this country had an Environmental Protection Agency: the thought of blowing holes through coral reefs was anathema now back in the States and most islands of the Caribbean, not to mention filling in a fair part of the lagoon for what looked like a runway nearly two miles long. Dozens of Quonset huts arrayed in neat rows filled the south end of the island, and on the northwest-to-southwest axis of the island.