The Fountains of Paradise

"Of course – of course. I was only joking." (And, to tell the truth, he had not really forgotten the construction set; it had merely slipped his mind for the moment.) "You're not cold up here?" Unlike the well-protected adults, the boy had disdained the usual light thermocoat.

"No – I'm fine. What kind of jet is that? When are you going to open up the shaft? Can I touch the tapes?"

"See what I mean?" chuckled Kingsley.

"One: that's Sheik Abdullah's Special – his son Feisal is visiting. Two: we'll keep this lid on until the Tower reaches the mountain and enters the shaft – we need it as a working platform, and it keeps out the rain. Three: you can touch the tapes if you want to – don't run – it's bad for you at this altitude!"

"If you're twelve, I doubt it," said Kingsley towards Dev's rapidly receding back. Taking their time, they caught up with him at the East Face anchor.

The boy was staring, as so many thousands of others had already done, at the narrow band of dull grey that rose straight out of the ground and soared vertically into the sky. Dev's gaze followed it up – up – up – until his head was tilted as far back as it would go. Morgan and Kingsley did not follow suit, though the temptation, after all these years, was still strong. Nor did they warn him that some visitors got so giddy that they collapsed and were unable to walk away without assistance.

The boy was tough: he gazed intently at the zenith for almost a minute, as if hoping to see the thousands of men and millions of tons of material poised there beyond the deep blue of the sky. Then he closed his eyes with a grimace, shook his head, and looked down at his feet for an instant, as if to reassure himself that he was still on the solid, dependable earth.

He reached out a cautious hand, and stroked the narrow ribbon linking the planet with its new moon.

"What would happen," he asked, "if it broke?"

That was an old question; most people were surprised at the answer.

"Very little. At this point, it's under practically no tension. If you cut the tape it would just hang there, waving in the breeze."

Kingsley made an expression of distaste; both knew, of course, that this was a considerable over-simplification. At the moment, each of the four tapes was stressed at about a hundred tons – but that was negligible compared to the design loads they would be handling when the system was in operation and they had been integrated into the structure of the Tower. There was no point, however, in confusing the boy with such details.

Dev thought this over; then he gave the tape an experimental flick, as if he hoped to extract a musical note from it. But the only response was an unimpressive "click" that instantly died away.

"If you hit it with a sledge-hammer," said Morgan, "and came back about ten hours later, you'd be just in time for the echo from Midway."

"Not any longer," said Kingsley. "Too much damping in the system."

"Don't be a spoil-sport, Warren. Now come and see something really interesting."

They walked to the centre of the circular metal disc that now capped the mountain and sealed the shaft like a giant saucepan lid. Here, equidistant from the four tapes down which the Tower was being guided earthwards, was a small geodesic hut, looking even more temporary than the surface on which it had been erected. It housed an oddly-designed telescope, pointing straight upwards and apparently incapable of being aimed in any other direction.

"This is the best time for viewing, just before sunset; then the base of the Tower is nicely lit up."

"Talking of the sun," said Kingsley, "just look at it now. It's even clearer than yesterday." There was something approaching awe in his voice, as he pointed at the brilliant flattened ellipse sinking down into the western haze. The horizon mists had dimmed its glare so much that one could stare at it in comfort.

Not for more than a century had such a group of Spots appeared; they stretched across almost half the golden disc, making it seem as if the sun had been stricken by some malignant disease, or pierced by falling worlds. Yet not even mighty Jupiter could have created such a wound in the solar atmosphere; the largest spot was a quarter of a million kilometres across, and could have swallowed a hundred Earths.

"There's another big auroral display predicted for tonight – Professor Sessui and his merry men certainly timed it well."

"Let's see how they're getting on," said Morgan, as he made some adjustments to the eye-piece. "Have a look, Dev."

The boy peered intently for a moment, then answered: "I can see the four tapes, going inwards – I mean upwards – until they disappear."

"Nothing in the middle?"

Another pause. "No – not a sign of the Tower."

"Correct – it's still six hundred kilometres up, and we're on the lowest power of the telescope. Now I'm going to zoom. Fasten your seatbelt."