The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke

Author:Arthur C. Clarke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780553288193
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1990-12-01T10:00:00+00:00

28

The First

Lowering

There would be nothing to see for at least another twenty minutes. Nevertheless, everyone not needed in the control hut was already outside, staring up at the sky. Even Morgan found it hard to resist the impulse, and kept edging toward the open door.

Seldom more than a few meters from him was Maxine Duval’s latest remote, a husky youth in his late twenties. Mounted on his shoulders were the usual tools of his trade—twin cameras in the traditional right forward, left backward arrangement, and above those a small sphere not much larger than a grapefruit. The antenna inside that sphere was doing very clever things, several thousand times a second, so that it was always locked on the nearest comsat despite all the antics of its bearer. At the other end of that circuit, sitting comfortably in her studio-office, Duval was seeing through the eyes of her distant alter ego and hearing with his ears—but not straining her lungs in the freezing air. This time, she had the better part of the bargain. It was not always the case.

Morgan had agreed to the arrangement with some reluctance. He knew that this was a historic occasion, and had accepted Duval’s assurance that “my man won’t get in the way.” But he was keenly aware of all the things that could go wrong in such a novel experiment—especially during the last hundred kilometers of atmospheric entry. On the other hand, he also knew that Duval could be trusted to treat either failure or triumph without sensationalism.

Like all great reporters, Maxine Duval was not emotionally detached from the events that she observed. She could give all points of view, neither distorting nor omitting any facts she considered essential. Yet she made no attempt to conceal her own feelings, though she did not let them intrude.

She admired Morgan enormously, with the envious awe of someone who lacked all real creative ability. Ever since the building of the Gibraltar Bridge, she had waited to see what the engineer would do next; and she had not been disappointed.

But though she wished Morgan luck, she did not really like him. In her opinion, the sheer drive and ruthlessness of his ambition made him both larger than life and less than human. She could not help contrasting him with his deputy, Warren Kingsley. Now there was a thoroughly nice, gentle person (“and a better engineer than I am,” Morgan had once told her, more than half seriously). But no one would ever hear of Kingsley; he would always be a dim and faithful satellite of his dazzling primary. As he was perfectly content to be.

It was Kingsley who had patiently explained to Duval the surprisingly complex mechanics of the descent. At first sight, it appeared simple enough to drop something straight down to the equator from a satellite hovering motionless above it. But astrodynamics was full of paradoxes. If you tried to slow down, you moved faster. If you took the shortest route, you burned up the most fuel.

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