The Fountains of Paradise

"Well, I'm favourably impressed, though I still have a great many reservations. The financing, for example –"

"That's my job, Dr. Morgan. I'm the banker. You're the engineer."

"Correct, but you seem to know a good deal about engineering, and I've had to learn a lot of economics – often the hard way. Before I'd even consider getting involved in such a project, I should want a detailed budget breakdown –"

"Which can be provided –"

"- and that would just be the start. You may not realise that there's still a vast amount of research involved in half-a-dozen fields – mass production of the hyperfilament material, stability and control problems – I could go on all night."

"That won't be necessary; our engineers have read all your reports. What they are proposing is a small-scale experiment that will settle many of the technical problems, and prove that the principle is sound –"

"There's no doubt about that."

"I agree, but it's amazing what a difference a little practical demonstration can make. So this is what we would like you to do. Design the minimum possible system – just a wire with a payload of a few kilogrammes. Lower it from synchronous orbit to Earth – yes, Earth. If it works here, it will be easy on Mars. Then run some thing up it just to show that rockets are obsolete. The experiment will be relatively cheap, it will provide essential information and basic training – and, from our point of view, it will save years of argument. We can go to the Government of Earth, the Solar Fund, the other interplanetary banks – and just point to the demonstration."

"You really have worked all this out. When would you like my answer?"

"To be honest, in about five seconds. But obviously, there's nothing urgent about the matter. Take as long as seems reasonable."

"Very well. Give me your design studies, cost analyses, and all the other material you have. Once I've been through them, I'll let you have my decision in – oh, a week at the most."

"Thank you. Here's my number. You can get me at any time."

Morgan slipped the banker's ident card into the memory slot of his communicator and checked the ENTRY CONFIRMED on the visual display. Before he had returned the card, he had already made up his mind. Unless there was a fundamental flaw in the Martian analysis – and he would bet a large sum that it was sound – his retirement was over. He had often noted, with some amusement, that whereas he frequently thought long and hard over relatively trivial decisions, he had never hesitated for a moment at the major turning-points of his career. He had always known what to do, and had seldom been wrong.

And yet, at this stage in the game, it was better not to invest too much intellectual or emotional capital into a project that might still come to nothing. After the banker had rolled out on the first stage of his journey back to Port Tranquillity, via Oslo and Gagarin, Morgan found it impossible to settle down to any of the activities he had planned for the long northern evening; his mind was in a turmoil, scanning the whole spectrum of suddenly changed futures.

After a few minutes of restless pacing, he sat down at his desk and began to list priorities in a kind of reverse order, starting with the commitments he could most easily shed. Before long, however, he found it impossible to concentrate on such routine matters. Far down in the depths of his mind something was nagging at him, trying to attract his attention. When he tried to focus upon it, it promptly eluded him, like a familiar but momentarily forgotten word.

With a sigh of frustration Morgan pushed himself away from the desk, and walked out on to the verandah running along the western face of the hotel. Though it was very cold, the air was quite still and the sub-zero temperature was more of a stimulus than a discomfort. The sky was a blaze of stars, and a yellow crescent moon was sinking down towards its reflection in the fjord, whose surface was so dark and motionless that it might have been a sheet of polished ebony.

Thirty years ago he had stood at almost this same spot, with a girl whose very appearance he could no longer clearly recall. They had both been celebrating their first degrees, and that had been really all they had in common. It had not been a serious affair; they were young, and enjoyed each other's company – and that had been enough. Yet somehow that fading memory had brought him back to Trollshavn Fjord at this crucial moment of his life. What would the young student of twenty-two have thought, could he have known how his footsteps would lead him back to this place of remembered pleasures, three decades in his future?