Pillar to the Sky

by William R. Forstchen

  Long-term passive sonar buoys, the first to be deployed in years, now ringed Kiribati a thousand miles out and only aircraft with special clearance after first landing at Fiji or Honolulu—both of which were transforming into major international hubs undreamed of only ten years ago—were allowed to proceed anywhere within five hundred miles of the Pillar. A fair number of people and nations around the world were starting to wake up to the fact that this was indeed their possession as well and a vision of the future.

  As for the investors of Pillar Inc., more than a few were less than happy when Victoria, with Franklin’s nod of approval, essentially gave it back to NASA to run in a cooperative venture. Arrangements were made that they would break even, but the Pillar no longer belonged to just Pillar Inc., which in the years to come would indeed run the actual day-to-day operation … Via NASA, it now belonged to America and Kiribati and, with those two nations working side by side, to the entire world.

  Franklin’s favorite quote, attributed to Carnegie, which first expressed joy at acquiring wealth, concluded with “A man who dies wealthy dies poor.”

  He had even sold off his collection of private jets, except for one long-range plane to get back and forth from Kiribati. And it was that plane in a service hangar that Victoria spotted as she disembarked in the stifling heat of Amelia Earhart International Airport in Tarawa.

  Nearly the entire island had, of course, been transformed. Its now 12,000-foot runway jutted far out to sea off both ends of the island. Much of what had been one of the most bitterly contested islands of the Second World War was paved over with runways, roads, high-rise apartments, recreation areas, and a bustling prosperity. She had heard there had been some signs of societal dislocation, with some of the inhabitants finally denouncing the destruction of their way of life and moving to the northern islands of the nation, hoping to continue a traditional way of life. To Franklin’s credit, with his dwindling resources he had tried to help with that, harkening back to his own childhood of being born into the segregated South and what life would have been like if someone had suddenly plopped down a space port in the fields his father and grandfather had worked as sharecroppers and his great-grandfathers as slaves.

  The anticipated maglev that would take travelers and cargo from the main airport at Tarawa the short journey south to Aranuka was only half built, and NASA’s budget was focused on the Pillar, not on any amenities on earth for future travelers. That would have to come from some other source; interestingly, a Japanese company was offering to finish that job—at a price and a cut of the transportation profits.

  So it was a “puddle jumper” helicopter flight for Victoria and her mother to Aranuka, her mother holding her hand tight, Victoria without doubt remembering how this journey had once made her terribly sick. By the time they landed, she feared for a moment that the midday turbulence would hit her mother instead.

  The chopper touched down on Aranuka, another island paved nearly end to end. The grandiose Gothic-cathedral-like terminal that Franklin dreamed of was not much more than a foundation, some walls reaching up a hundred feet or more over the main terminal hall, several complete with classic Gothic arches. It had an almost romantic look to it, more a ruined cathedral painted by an eighteenth-century artist rather than a structure that would still hopefully take shape. Work, though, was continuing, something that Franklin said, like the cathedrals of old, might take decades to truly complete, but once completed would stand for ages to come.

  The dozen launch tracks had actually been laid out, and crews were even at work on two of them, a track for ascent and one for receiving descent. The maglev tracks from the island to the platform nine hundred meters offshore had been laid out but were not yet functional. Again, work years ahead. For now, it was boarding a traditional boat at a pier, flooding them with diesel fumes—she hoped the scent of another century soon—as it turned about and took the distinguished passengers out to the platform where, a bit to her embarrassment but also delight, there was actually someone with a boatswain’s pipe who piped them aboard. She, of course, saluted the American flag, and then the flags flying next to it—those of Kiribati, NASA, and the Pillar, the bottom the curve of a blue-green earth, the center the blackness of space studded with stars and, bisecting it, the Pillar which looked as if it had been embroidered out of diamonds soaring straight up to the heavens, with the golden rim of the sun at the top.

  And there waiting for them was Franklin.

  “Request permission to come aboard,” Victoria said with a smile, and, grinning, he embraced her.

  “Permission granted.”

  A polite kiss and an embrace then between Franklin and Eva. Several dozen were gathered round. Protocol demanded that she first be introduced to the president of Kiribati, who embraced her warmly and actually draped over her a garland of flowers.

  “Blessings for you, miss,” he said, his voice husky, “and thank you on behalf of my nation. I believe that in the end you shall save my nation from disappearing. Thank you.”

  And there were genuine tears in his eyes.

  The husband of the president of the United States was there with their two daughters, as wide-eyed and excited as ever—so much so that they actually embraced Victoria and laughed while their father expressed regret that “The President truly wishes she could be here, but other duties call, though she does expect to see you soon enough.”

  “I will be honored, sir, when I do see her again,” and then with a smile added, “atop our Pillar.”

  Standing to one side was George, now chief of all ground engineering projects for his country and his even more rotund and always beloved doctor wife who had once taken care of an airsick sixteen-year-old girl. Victoria rushed over to them, hugging both, thanking them for taking the time to be with the group this day. Even as they spoke, the doctor ordered her to open her mouth and popped in two ginger root tablets “to make sure our favorite miss does not embarrass herself!”

  She gratefully kissed them both.

  The Brit and his American partner … they certainly had aged these last few years. They, too, had lost billions in the venture with the first tower, but were always easygoing about it all; it was, as the Brit said, worth every shilling if in the end someone did make it.

  Then the other protocols of various officials, NASA reps, even the actor who had portrayed a famous astronaut along with his friend the film director, who both insisted she hold to her promise that they would go all the way up within the week. If two giants of an industry could have been captured beaming like children, this would have been the moment, but for now the comm links had been shut down for the sake of privacy, and even for security reasons.

  She trusted these two, a rare thing when dealing with most of the Hollywood crowd, because their hearts, be it regarding films about space or the heroism of our military in a long-ago war, were good as their word, and she agreed to the project with one clear understanding. Any dime of profit—she was savvy enough to say—“gross profit”—would go to a scholarship foundation for the children of Kiribati and for high school students wishing to pursue studies in physics, chemistry, and aeronautics. It was a deal they happily agreed to, much to their credit, and in that agreement she had pushed along her endorsement that they deserved a trip up, which the director said he looked forward to filming as background material and even a documentary with the favorite actor providing narrative.

  “Shall we get started?” Franklin announced.

  She looked over at him and smiled.

  Now here was about to begin the real acid test of their Pillar. Over the last year dozens of ascent stages had gone up, all of them cargo-carrying. This would be the first ascent in what in NASAspeak was called PAP2, (Pillar Ascent Pod Two).

  She did not know it yet, but Franklin had stenciled across the bottom of it Gary Morgan Two.

  It was a far cry from the desperate measure of her father on the first Pillar and was in fact the prototype that Pillar Inc. had been working on prior to
the loss of the first tower. Two stories high, it was entirely enclosed. The upper level was fitted out with comfortable recliner-like chairs that could be extended into sleeping bunks, lifted almost exactly from upscale first-class on trans-Pacific flights. The lower deck had bathroom facilities and a small galley area. The traction unit was hooked to one edge of a ribbon, and would draw power from the megawatts of energy now coursing down the tower. No more jet packs and rocket thrusts to get started. For these test runs, it even had a very small third deck, just enough room for the occupants to cram in, break free of the ascent stage, and fall back to earth if there was an emergency.

  Once additional pods were in place, even that would be done away with; if a pod ever jammed, another one would rendezvous. Future designs even allowed for hard docking so that in a shirtsleeve environment the stranded travelers could transfer while techs would take over and solve the problem.

  Franklin, all grins, motioned for Eva to board through the hatchway, and she did so, smiling, followed by the Brit and his partner. Fuchida had even been offered this ride, but he flatly refused, declaring that even flying inside the atmosphere was unnerving for him.

  Franklin stood behind her. She was about to step up the rampway into the pod and hesitated. Turning to look back, she breathed in deeply. The air was rich with the scent of the sea. She thought of a favorite play, Our Town, and how at the end the character of Emily spoke of the simplest pleasures of life, the feel of flannel sheets on a cold winter day, the crystal purity of the air, the smell of breakfast cooking, the sound of her father’s voice.

  Her eyes clouded over as she stood silently, breathing in deeply, soaking in this memory of earth, which she indeed loved and was the reason she had devoted herself to what she now did. Ultimately, even as we leave the cradle, she thought, we shall always remember it.

  She wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “Are you OK, young lady?” Franklin asked.

  She nodded but said nothing, composing herself as she boarded then ascended the eight steps of the ladder to the second deck, where her mother was already strapped in.

  “I could see that,” her mother said reassuringly.

  “Strange, isn’t it?” Victoria sighed. “A time when it was wives and sweethearts standing on docks while their men went down to the sea, knowing they would barely look back when they felt the wind on their cheek and looked up to see canvas billowing out that would take them to distant isles. And now it is us.”

  Franklin settled down into a chair behind the two, and there was a mild shudder as the ground crew latched the seals on the pod. Comm links flickered to life. For commercial flights, at least for the start, there would be a “pilot” on board, even though that was rather redundant; but it was something that would reassure the nervous. But for this flight, Victoria, the Brit, and his partner sitting farther aft were more than qualified to handle anything.

  The screen on the panel in front of her flickered into sharp clarity with a smiling face. She almost wanted to groan; it was an actual recording of a smiling flight attendant running down the old-fashioned safety procedures routine, but this one took three times as long.

  “Who the hell made this one?” Victoria sighed.

  “NASA and FAA regulations as long as we are inside the atmosphere. Yeah, I know,” Franklin chuckled.

  Safety briefing done, they waited, the screen flickering for a moment and then a familiar face coming on, one of the Kiribati Tower Control personnel, a smile creasing her soft Asiatic features.

  “PAP2, you are first in line for ascent. Cleared for take off. Have a great flight!”

  They could feel a vibration as the pod was shifted around from its docking position and then a slight hissing of hydraulics as the ascent wheels locked onto either side of the ribbon, a gauge in a corner of the screen showing power up.

  “You are go for lift-off, full power for ascent at five, four…”

  There was no kick to it as expected. It was actually slow, stately, in the first seconds barely a few meters a second. She looked out to her left; it felt as if they were just gently floating up, like a bubble on an errant breeze.

  Gone indeed were the thunder of rockets, the kick in the stomach and butt; a moment’s nostalgia for that, until she looked at her mother, who was happily waving to those looking up and waving back. It was almost like a train of long ago, ever so majestically pulling out of the station, well-wishers waving a fare-thee-well … except this train was going straight up.

  No difference in g’s, and for a moment she felt the tug of the earth resisting their climb. She wondered if after being back down on earth she would miss it. Was she actually doomed between these two realities, never to know which was truly hers?

  They cleared a thousand feet, ever so smoothly accelerating, again like a streamlined train of long ago that would ease its passengers from a standstill to a near undreamed of 120 miles per hour on the run up the Hudson Valley.

  They passed a hundred miles an hour, barely a sensation of movement, but the already annoying computerized safety program stated they should remained buckled in until acceleration was complete.

  A few minutes later, through 10,000 feet, now climbing at over two hundred miles an hour, there was a slight ripple as they shot through a tropical cloud layer.

  Victoria just relaxed, taking it all in, looking straight up, knowing what would happen and eager for it.

  Three hundred and fifty miles an hour at 20,000 feet, faint wisps of cirrus ahead, passed through in a second.

  And as the atmosphere thinned, the acceleration picked up. There was no longer that heart-stopping moment of the call for “maximum dynamic pressure” and then “Go at throttle up.” Just a steady, smooth climb upward, the ribbon straight above them a blur. A brief glimpse of a round object on the other side of the pillar.

  “What was that, Victoria?” her mother asked.

  “Just a stitcher unit on its way down on the other side of the tower, Mom.”

  “Good design,” she replied after a moment. “Never could have gotten around that just using a strand.”

  Victoria laughed softly.

  Now 50,000 feet at six hundred miles an hour. In a minute they would be at 80,000 feet, another minute beyond the edge of any winged-jet-powered flight at 100 and 10,000 feet.

  “Mom, take a look to your left,” Victoria said. “Franklin, you try the right side.”

  “The curvature of the earth?” Franklin whispered.

  “Exactly.”

  He looked back at her and his grin was a delight.

  “Now, my beloved companions, just look straight up and hang on. Mom, you saw it before when you, Dad, and I went up, but Mr. Smith”—for one of the rare times in their long years of friendship she addressed him by his last name—“this is a moment you will never forget.”

  Franklin nodded, reclining farther back in his seat, no longer even sparing a glance at the monitor with all its technical readouts, and turned down the volume of the annoying recording of the attendant admonishing them again to stay in their seats.

  The sky above was shifting in hues. The eternal, wonderful pale blue of a summer afternoon, the darker crisp blue of fall and winter, now shifting through an ever-deepening violet, darker and yet darker … and then …

  “My God,” Franklin gasped. “Stars! I see stars!”

  Victoria said nothing, just stared straight up, reveling in the moment, a sense of their velocity steadying; it would then gradually ease off as they finally slowed to dock at the Five Hundred Mile Station.

  And then the timing of this liftoff truly took effect as the earth, in its magnificent and near eternal journey, rotated eastward at a thousand miles an hour, taking the Pillar with it, the centrifugal force imparted keeping it rigid as they rode upward. The horizon to the east, the demarcation line of sunlight, twilight, and night ever moving, as if coming toward them.

  Far beneath them the demarcation line of light and dark moved all so silently as they climbed. Rel
eased at last by the authoritative voice of the computerized flight attendant, they unbuckled, walked about with ease, both Franklin and Eva laughing that they were feeling “lighter,” and actually programmed in a Strauss waltz, to which they danced about for several minutes, laughing.

  And then the demarcation of day and night swept over Kiribati, now over a hundred miles below, and suddenly the cabin was plunged into darkness, the earth below them eclipsing the sun, which disappeared behind the western horizon.

  “My God,” Eva whispered, looking about in wonder as thousands of stars just seemed to magically appear. “Is this what your father saw?”

  Victoria smiled, no tears this time.

  “Yes, Mother, this is what he saw.”

  She looked back at Franklin and stepped over to him.

  She leaned upward and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Thank you, dear friend, for believing in my parents, in Erich, in me, and for making this dream real.”

  He smiled, looking down at her with that same gaze her father often had.

  “Everything we’ve been through was worth it for this moment. And especially now your thanks. I know your father is proud of you.”