Pillar to the Sky (57 page)

With the high-energy drives, journeys to Mars, once projected as three years round trip, could now be done in less than four months, and there was now even serious talk about building a tower on Mars. The first expedition there had ended in tragic failure, a pathetic melodrama exploited by the media, but was not the first English attempt to settle North America on the coast of North Carolina a failure as well? With the building of the Pillar, transportation to and from Mars would be but a fraction of the cost envisioned but a decade earlier, and soon thousands could make the journey if they were willing to take the hard risks of the life that would face them there.

Even the moons of Jupiter were now within reach. But that excited her far less than the impacts right here.

The energy transmission from a solar panel the size of Manhattan, no longer as far-fetched as it once sounded, when hauled a ton at a time up the Pillar, could supply nearly all the energy needs of America. She already had some ideas for overcoming the final barriers to transmitting down such huge amounts of electricity.

The Pillar was just the start, not the end, and she envisioned hundreds of transmission lines from a score of towers. Jason, still in support, even had a popular publication pointing out how America, in little more than seventy years, had gone from but a few miles of rail track to over 200,000, and in little more than fifty years had gone from a flight of but a few hundred feet to jets crisscrossing the world, and so it would soon be with power transmissions from space.

On the day of the first test of the first electrical transmission from space, within hours the long-term futures market in oil out of the Middle East had dropped nearly ten dollars. It had been dropping ever since, even though for the moment demand was as high as ever and the race was truly on as well, with NASA studies in the forefront to come up with a comprehensive global plan to address CO
2
emissions … and the world was starting to see that there was only one logical answer, regardless of the arguments still put forth by some of the dislocation of “disruptive technologies.” An argument to which Franklin sharply replied, “Do we dislocate now, or do we doom our grandchildren to extinction?”

She finally finished up on her publicity tour, going down to New Mexico for a few days to visit “her” research lab, where she met a delighted Jenna and Bill Sanders, fully recovered and with a prosthetic hand, working on packaging up the next delivery of panels that would now ascend the Pillar in a cargo pod. Both were on the rotation list to go back up within the year.

She spent her last day “down” on earth in an electric-powered SUV, just wandering out into the desert to be alone, camping under the stars, barely able to sleep. Torn now as to where she actually belonged. That night in a half dream state, she did it again, but at least there was no fall as she tried to float out of her sleeping bag to fetch a sandwich and bottle of water from a cooler. The sandwich. Jenna had hooked her on the darn things and her friend at Phil’s Bar-B-Que Pit would ship her some from time to time, packed in dry ice. She warmed it in the microwave in the SUV, then just sat and stared at the heavens majestically wheeling overhead.

25

And so the day had come at last. It seemed almost everything needed a ceremony at this time. The NASA publicity team was delighted with the feeds that were being picked up. Unlike the days after
Apollo 11
, when the three old networks could barely give scant coverage, interest in the Pillar remained high, especially after the news of ten days past that an Australian frigate had picked up an unidentified sub moving toward Kiribati from out of the northwest, had aggressively tracked and hounded it, and, on orders of their prime minister, had sent a low frequency signal that the sub either turn about in five minutes or it would be destroyed. Fingers were on buttons in the event that the sub tried to launch torpedoes or anything else. It had turned tail and the Australian vessel, with American support, hounded it for three days as it tracked northwest toward North Korea before diving deep, then going silent. Declassified speculation was that an American attack sub was sitting within easy kill range if it should even twitch the wrong way.

Long-term passive sonar buoys, the first to be deployed in years, now ringed Kiribati a thousand miles out and only aircraft with special clearance after first landing at Fiji or Honolulu—both of which were transforming into major international hubs undreamed of only ten years ago—were allowed to proceed anywhere within five hundred miles of the Pillar. A fair number of people and nations around the world were starting to wake up to the fact that this was indeed their possession as well and a vision of the future.

As for the investors of Pillar Inc., more than a few were less than happy when Victoria, with Franklin’s nod of approval, essentially gave it back to NASA to run in a cooperative venture. Arrangements were made that they would break even, but the Pillar no longer belonged to just Pillar Inc., which in the years to come would indeed run the actual day-to-day operation … Via NASA, it now belonged to America and Kiribati and, with those two nations working side by side, to the entire world.

Franklin’s favorite quote, attributed to Carnegie, which first expressed joy at acquiring wealth, concluded with “A man who dies wealthy dies poor.”

He had even sold off his collection of private jets, except for one long-range plane to get back and forth from Kiribati. And it was that plane in a service hangar that Victoria spotted as she disembarked in the stifling heat of Amelia Earhart International Airport in Tarawa.

Nearly the entire island had, of course, been transformed. Its now 12,000-foot runway jutted far out to sea off both ends of the island. Much of what had been one of the most bitterly contested islands of the Second World War was paved over with runways, roads, high-rise apartments, recreation areas, and a bustling prosperity. She had heard there had been some signs of societal dislocation, with some of the inhabitants finally denouncing the destruction of their way of life and moving to the northern islands of the nation, hoping to continue a traditional way of life. To Franklin’s credit, with his dwindling resources he had tried to help with that, harkening back to his own childhood of being born into the segregated South and what life would have been like if someone had suddenly plopped down a space port in the fields his father and grandfather had worked as sharecroppers and his great-grandfathers as slaves.

The anticipated maglev that would take travelers and cargo from the main airport at Tarawa the short journey south to Aranuka was only half built, and NASA’s budget was focused on the Pillar, not on any amenities on earth for future travelers. That would have to come from some other source; interestingly, a Japanese company was offering to finish that job—at a price and a cut of the transportation profits.

So it was a “puddle jumper” helicopter flight for Victoria and her mother to Aranuka, her mother holding her hand tight, Victoria without doubt remembering how this journey had once made her terribly sick. By the time they landed, she feared for a moment that the midday turbulence would hit her mother instead.

The chopper touched down on Aranuka, another island paved nearly end to end. The grandiose Gothic-cathedral-like terminal that Franklin dreamed of was not much more than a foundation, some walls reaching up a hundred feet or more over the main terminal hall, several complete with classic Gothic arches. It had an almost romantic look to it, more a ruined cathedral painted by an eighteenth-century artist rather than a structure that would still hopefully take shape. Work, though, was continuing, something that Franklin said, like the cathedrals of old, might take decades to truly complete, but once completed would stand for ages to come.

The dozen launch tracks had actually been laid out, and crews were even at work on two of them, a track for ascent and one for receiving descent. The maglev tracks from the island to the platform nine hundred meters offshore had been laid out but were not yet functional. Again, work years ahead. For now, it was boarding a traditional boat at a pier, flooding them with diesel fumes—she hoped the scent of another century soon—as it turned about and took the distinguished passengers out to the platform where, a bit to her embarrassment but also delight, there was actually someone with a boatswain’s pipe who piped them aboard. She, of course, saluted the American flag, and then the flags flying next to it—those of Kiribati, NASA, and the Pillar, the bottom the curve of a blue-green earth, the center the blackness of space studded with stars and, bisecting it, the Pillar which looked as if it had been embroidered out of diamonds soaring straight up to the heavens, with the golden rim of the sun at the top.

And there waiting for them was Franklin.

“Request permission to come aboard,” Victoria said with a smile, and, grinning, he embraced her.

“Permission granted.”

A polite kiss and an embrace then between Franklin and Eva. Several dozen were gathered round. Protocol demanded that she first be introduced to the president of Kiribati, who embraced her warmly and actually draped over her a garland of flowers.

“Blessings for you, miss,” he said, his voice husky, “and thank you on behalf of my nation. I believe that in the end you shall save my nation from disappearing. Thank you.”

And there were genuine tears in his eyes.

The husband of the president of the United States was there with their two daughters, as wide-eyed and excited as ever—so much so that they actually embraced Victoria and laughed while their father expressed regret that “The President truly wishes she could be here, but other duties call, though she does expect to see you soon enough.”

“I will be honored, sir, when I do see her again,” and then with a smile added, “atop our Pillar.”

Standing to one side was George, now chief of all ground engineering projects for his country and his even more rotund and always beloved doctor wife who had once taken care of an airsick sixteen-year-old girl. Victoria rushed over to them, hugging both, thanking them for taking the time to be with the group this day. Even as they spoke, the doctor ordered her to open her mouth and popped in two ginger root tablets “to make sure our favorite miss does not embarrass herself!”

She gratefully kissed them both.

The Brit and his American partner … they certainly had aged these last few years. They, too, had lost billions in the venture with the first tower, but were always easygoing about it all; it was, as the Brit said, worth every shilling if in the end someone did make it.

Then the other protocols of various officials, NASA reps, even the actor who had portrayed a famous astronaut along with his friend the film director, who both insisted she hold to her promise that they would go all the way up within the week. If two giants of an industry could have been captured beaming like children, this would have been the moment, but for now the comm links had been shut down for the sake of privacy, and even for security reasons.

She trusted these two, a rare thing when dealing with most of the Hollywood crowd, because their hearts, be it regarding films about space or the heroism of our military in a long-ago war, were good as their word, and she agreed to the project with one clear understanding. Any dime of profit—she was savvy enough to say—“gross profit”—would go to a scholarship foundation for the children of Kiribati and for high school students wishing to pursue studies in physics, chemistry, and aeronautics. It was a deal they happily agreed to, much to their credit, and in that agreement she had pushed along her endorsement that they deserved a trip up, which the director said he looked forward to filming as background material and even a documentary with the favorite actor providing narrative.

“Shall we get started?” Franklin announced.

She looked over at him and smiled.

Now here was about to begin the real acid test of their Pillar. Over the last year dozens of ascent stages had gone up, all of them cargo-carrying. This would be the first ascent in what in NASAspeak was called PAP2, (Pillar Ascent Pod Two).

She did not know it yet, but Franklin had stenciled across the bottom of it
Gary Morgan Two
.

It was a far cry from the desperate measure of her father on the first Pillar and was in fact the prototype that Pillar Inc. had been working on prior to the loss of the first tower. Two stories high, it was entirely enclosed. The upper level was fitted out with comfortable recliner-like chairs that could be extended into sleeping bunks, lifted almost exactly from upscale first-class on trans-Pacific flights. The lower deck had bathroom facilities and a small galley area. The traction unit was hooked to one edge of a ribbon, and would draw power from the megawatts of energy now coursing down the tower. No more jet packs and rocket thrusts to get started. For these test runs, it even had a very small third deck, just enough room for the occupants to cram in, break free of the ascent stage, and fall back to earth if there was an emergency.

Once additional pods were in place, even that would be done away with; if a pod ever jammed, another one would rendezvous. Future designs even allowed for hard docking so that in a shirtsleeve environment the stranded travelers could transfer while techs would take over and solve the problem.

Franklin, all grins, motioned for Eva to board through the hatchway, and she did so, smiling, followed by the Brit and his partner. Fuchida had even been offered this ride, but he flatly refused, declaring that even flying inside the atmosphere was unnerving for him.

Franklin stood behind her. She was about to step up the rampway into the pod and hesitated. Turning to look back, she breathed in deeply. The air was rich with the scent of the sea. She thought of a favorite play,
Our Town
, and how at the end the character of Emily spoke of the simplest pleasures of life, the feel of flannel sheets on a cold winter day, the crystal purity of the air, the smell of breakfast cooking, the sound of her father’s voice.