The Fountains of Paradise

He was higher now than any aircraft could climb, and what he had already done was unique in the history of transportation. Although Spider and its precursors had made innumerable trips up to twenty kilometres, no one had been allowed to go higher because of the impossibility of rescue. It had not been planned to commence serious operations until the base of the Tower was much closer, and Spider had at least two companions who could spin themselves up and down the other tapes of the system. Morgan pushed aside the thought of what could happen if the drive mechanism jammed; that would doom the refugees in the Basement, as well as himself.

Fifty kilometres; he had reached what would, in normal times, have been the lowest level of the ionosphere. He did not, of course, expect to see anything; but he was wrong.

The first intimation was a faint crackling from the capsule speaker; then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of light. It was immediately below him, glimpsed in the downward-viewing mirror just outside Spider's little bay-window. He twisted the mirror around as far as it would adjust, until it was aimed at a point a couple of metres below the capsule. For a moment, he stared with astonishment, and more than a twinge of fear; then he called the Mountain.

"I've got company." he said. "I think this is in Professor Sessui's department. There's a ball of light – oh, about twenty centimetres across – running along the tape just below me. It's keeping at a constant distance, and I hope it stays there. But I must say it's quite beautiful – a lovely bluish glow, flickering every few seconds. And I can hear it on the radio link."

It was a full minute before Kingsley answered in a reassuring tone of voice.

"Don't worry – it's only St. Elmo's Fire. We've had similar displays along the tape during thunderstorms; they can make your hair stand on end aboard the Mark I. But you won't feel anything – you're too well shielded."

"I'd no idea it could happen at this altitude."

"Neither did we. You'd better take it up with the Professor."

"Oh – it's fading out – getting bigger and fainter – now it's gone – I suppose the air's too thin for it – I'm sorry to see it go –"

"That's only a curtain raiser," said Kingsley. "Look what's happening directly above you."

A rectangular section of the star-field flashed by as Morgan tilted the mirror towards the zenith. At first he could see nothing unusual, so he switched off all the indicators on his control panel and waited in total darkness.

Slowly his eyes adapted, and in the depths of the mirror a faint red glow began to burn, and spread, and consume the stars. It grew brighter and brighter and flowed beyond the limits of the mirror; now he could see it directly, for it extended halfway down the sky. A cage of light, with flickering, moving bars, was descending upon the earth; and now Morgan could understand how a man like Professor Sessui could devote his life to unravelling its secrets.

On one of its rare visits to the equator, the aurora had come marching down from the Poles.

47. Beyond the Aurora

Morgan doubted if even Professor Sessui, five hundred kilometres above, had so spectacular a view. The storm was developing rapidly; short-wave radio – still used for many non-essential services – would by now have been disrupted all over the world. Morgan was not sure if he heard or felt a faint rustling, like the whisper of falling sand or the crackle of dry twigs. Unlike the static of the fireball, it certainly did not come from the speaker system, because it was still there when he switched off the circuit.

Curtains of pale green fire, edged with crimson, were being drawn across the sky, then shaken slowly back and forth as if by an invisible hand. They were trembling before the gusts of the solar wind, the million-kilometre-an-hour gale blowing from Sun to Earth – and far beyond. Even above Mars a feeble auroral ghost was flickering now; and sunward, the poisonous skies of Venus were ablaze. Above the pleated curtains long rays like the ribs of a half-opened fan were sweeping around the horizon; sometimes they shone straight into Morgan's eyes like the beams of a giant searchlight, leaving him dazzled for minutes. There was no need, any longer, to turn off the capsule illumination to prevent it from blinding him; the celestial fireworks outside were brilliant enough to read by.

Two hundred kilometres; Spider was still climbing silently, effortlessly. It was hard to believe that he had left earth exactly an hour ago. Hard, indeed, to believe that earth still existed; for he was now rising between the walls of a canyon of fire.