The Fountains of Paradise

It was all a matter of Relativity. He could not reach the Tower; but the Tower would reach him – at its inexorable two kilometres a day.

55. Hard Dock

The record for one day's construction had been thirty kilometres, when the slimmest and lightest section of the Tower was being assembled. Now that the most massive portion – the very root of the structure – was nearing completion in orbit, the rate was down to two kilometres. That was quite fast enough; it would give Morgan time to check the adaptor line-up, and to mentally rehearse the rather tricky few seconds between confirming hard-dock and releasing Spider's brakes. If he left them on for too long there would be a very unequal trial of strength between the capsule and the moving megatons of the Tower.

It was a long but relaxed fifteen minutes – time enough, Morgan hoped, to pacify CORA. Towards the end everything seemed to happen very quickly, and at the last moment he felt like an ant about to be crushed in a stamping press, as the solid roof of the sky descended upon him. One second the base of the Tower was still metres away; an instant later he felt and heard the impact of the docking mechanism.

Many lives depended now upon the skill and care with which the engineers and mechanics, years ago, had done their work. If the couplings did not line up within the allowed tolerances; if the latching mechanism did not operate correctly; if the seal was not airtight… Morgan tried to interpret the medley of sounds reaching his ears, but he was not skilled enough to read their messages.

Then, like a signal of victory, the DOCKING COMPLETED sign flashed on the indicator board. There would be ten seconds while the telescopic elements could still absorb the movement of the advancing Tower; Morgan used half of them before he cautiously released the brakes. He was prepared to jam them on again instantly if Spider started to drop – but the sensors were telling the truth. Tower and capsule were now firmly mated together. Morgan had only to climb a few rungs of ladder, and he would have reached his goal.

After he had reported to the jubilant listeners on Earth and Midway, he sat for a moment recovering his breath. Strange to think that this was his second visit, but he could remember little of that first one, twelve years ago and thirty-six thousand kilometres away. During what had, for want of a better term, been called the foundation laying, there had been a small party in the Basement, and numerous zero-gee toasts had been squirted. For this was not only the very first section of the Tower to be built; it would also be the first to make contact with Earth, at the end of its long descent from orbit. Some kind of ceremony therefore seemed in order, and Morgan now recalled that even his old enemy, Senator Collins, had been gracious enough to attend and to wish him luck with a barbed but good-humoured speech. There was even better cause for celebration now.

Already Morgan could hear a faint tattoo of welcoming raps from the far side of the airlock. He undid his safety belt, climbed awkwardly on to the seat, and started to ascend the ladder. The overhead hatch gave a token resistance, as if the powers marshalled against him were making one last feeble gesture, and air hissed briefly while pressure was equalised. Then the circular plate swung open and downwards, and eager hands helped him up into the Tower. As Morgan took his first breath of the fetid air he wondered how anyone could have survived here; if his mission had been aborted, he felt quite certain that a second attempt would have been too late.

The bare, bleak cell was lit only by the solar-fluorescent panels which had been patiently trapping and releasing sunlight for more than a decade, against the emergency that had arrived at last. Their illumination revealed a scene that might have come from some old war; here were homeless and dishevelled refugees from a devastated city, huddling in a bomb shelter with the few possessions they had been able to save. Not many such refugees, however, would have carried bags labelled PROJECTION, LUNAR HOTEL CORPORATION, PROPERTY OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF MARS, or the ubiquitous MAY/NOT/BE STOWED IN VACUUM. Nor would they have been so cheerful; even those who were lying down to conserve oxygen managed a smile and a languid wave. Morgan had just returned the salute when his legs buckled beneath him, and everything blacked out. Never before in his life had he fainted, and when the blast of cold oxygen revived him his first emotion was one of acute embarrassment. His eyes came slowly into focus, and be saw masked shapes hovering over him. For a moment he wondered if he was in hospital; then brain and vision returned to normal. While he was still unconscious, his precious cargo must have been unloaded.