Pillar to the Sky (58 page)

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. Released 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.”

“He is proud of all of us.”

She reached into her flight coveralls and drew out the two small boxes her mother had given her at Goddard and opened them up. In one was Erich’s Victoria Cross, in the other her own great-grandfather’s Order of Lenin. Franklin just gazed at them in silence, her mother coming over to her side, smiling.

“After we stop at the Five Hundred Mile Station,” she whispered, voice choked, “I will continue on up as planned. I’ll make sure these are placed where they belong … up there at the top of our dreams.”

The three were silent as she tucked the medals away.

“Pillar Ascent Pod, this is
Morgan Station
.”

Victoria looked over to the monitor screen, Singh and Kevin by her side, smiling.

“Good to see you, my friends.”

“Welcome home, Victoria,” both of them said.

She smiled and her eyes clouded over.

They were right. She was indeed coming home. This was indeed where she belonged now.

“Your father was right,” Franklin whispered, looking straight up. “My God. What a heavenly view.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It has become almost pro forma that when I think of who to acknowledge when a book is done, the thought always forms that for any author, we build our dream castles on the works of those who have gone before us, and those who help and shape what I work on now as a writer.

Up front is the team at Tor/Forge. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a new author with my first paperback book, the new kid on the block invited to a publishers party at a legendary Boscon. (For those not sure what that was, Boscon was a sci-fi convention in Boston.) It was there that I first met Tom Doherty and left that party with a desire if ever there was a publisher I hoped to some day work with it was Tom and his team. My expectations were one day fulfilled and far exceeded. Tom has shaped this business for over fifty years, and I am honored to say I am a member of “his house.” Part of that Doherty team are editors like Bob Gleason, with special thanks to the patience of Whitney Ross, Linda Quinton, and so many others. The mechanics of creating a book far exceed what you, good reader, find on the shelf; it is a team effort and without such people like Tom and those with him, you would not be reading this. (But I must add, you are certainly dedicated if you are reading this acknowledgments rather than just digging straight into the book.) If the book works for you, know that the Tor/Forge folks made it happen, and I will take the heat if it does not work!

When Bob Gleason called me with what I thought was an off-the-wall idea, “Would you be interested in working in cooperation with NASA,” I actually thought he was joking. NASA? My heroes want me to work with them? It was like asking a kid if he wanted a free pass to Disney World, and the results have been such a wonderful adventure. So thanks, Bob, for that call.

And then to my agent, Eleanor Wood. We’ve been together for over twenty-five years. I am blessed that Eleanor is not just an agent but a friend I can always count on for guidance. Thanks as well to Josh Morris of Content House and to Joanne McLaughlin, for all the times when people have overlooked the good you have done, where credit never came, know you have made a difference.

The fear with writing acknowledgments is missing someone important, while at the same time worrying about dragging it out into a half dozen pages like the ramblings of some Hollywood type on Academy Awards night. Bill Butterworth, who some know as W. E. B. Griffin IV, was my editor long ago when I was writing short stories for
Boys’ Life,
that realm where heroes such as Heinlein, Bradbury, and others first ignited my dreams of space exploration. A tough editor and always a darn good guide and to this day always a good friend. I must mention as well other guides such as Professors Gordon Mork and Dave Flory of Purdue, Tom Seay of Kutztown University, and my ever-patient administrators at Montreat College, where I have been blessed to teach in what is now my twentieth year. My comrades in flying, Don Barber, Danny McMullen, and Brandon NeSmith, who taught me how to handle my beloved Aeronca L3, should be mentioned as well. I think in reading the book you’ll see that flying is definitely in my blood. And, of course, Jeff Ethell. If St. Pete hands out P-51 Mustangs when you cross through the pearly gates rather than wings, I am certain you received one, Jeff. Our last flight together still haunts my dreams. A warm mention as well of heartfelt gratitude to Robin Shoemaker, who already offers so much inspiration and hope.

This book was the fruition of an idea first hatched by Tom Doherty and some NASA personnel long years ago to again merge those of us in science fiction with the team that does the real stuff and to try to tell their story. The days spent at Goddard when first kicking around the idea for this book were a whirlwind of conversations, “what ifs,” a coming together of dreamers such as me in the realm of both novels and also my background as an historian, teaming up with the men and women who actually crunch the numbers and by the thousands worked in the background to put us on the moon and most recently a high-tech rover on Mars. Others might sail the ships of the future, but without the team at Goddard and our other NASA facilities, we never would have gotten off the ground. I believe our future renewal as a vibrant force for good and the protecting of our environment for future generations really does rest in their hands, hearts, and brilliant minds.

Regarding what some will see as a leap of faith, that a space elevator is already within the realm of hard science, I hope this book just might serve as a booster to their hard efforts. Granted it is fiction, but it is fiction based on reality. This historian, who specialized in the history of technology, learned that so many of the dreamers of the past such as Hypatia of Alexandria, Galileo, and Newton, engineers like Brunel and the Roeblings faced mocking criticism only to be hailed later as the guides to the future. The legendary Arthur C. Clarke, mentor for a whole generation of young emerging authors, in his seminal work
The Fountains of Paradise
first presented to me the idea of a “space tower,” a “Pillar to the Sky.” Even that visionary believed in the 1970s that the technology to build one was two hundred years away. Sir Arthur, you were right in so many other dreams, but technological innovation has compressed that timeline from two hundred years to just thirty years since you finished your work. Though I’ve written a novel, I drew my research on the here and now and fervently pray that some, after reading this book, will say, “We can do this now!” And in so doing truly open up space while also addressing so many problems confronting us here on Earth. A space elevator might very well be The answer to the problems confronting us in this second decade of the twenty-first century. What a dream for this author if
Pillar to the Sky
helps to ignite interest in the subject and inspire brave new innovators who will see it happen not a hundred years hence but within the next decade or two.