Arthur Clarke - The Last Theorem

“Actually,” Ranjit complained, “I didn’t. The progress reports they sent the advisory council were pretty sketchy.”

“Yes,” Vorhulst conceded, “I know they were. We’re hoping the big three will loosen up a little now, because those tubes are going to change everything. One of them is right under the Sinus Iridium—the ‘Bay of Rainbows.’ It’s a beaut. It’s eighteen hundred meters long, and ship three will be carrying the machinery to seal it up because Lunar Development has a plan for it. The big three want tourists, you see.”

Myra looked skeptical. “Tourists? Last I heard there were about eleven people living in the lunar colony and it was costing a fortune just to keep them fed and supplied with air to breathe.”

Vorhulst grinned. “In the old days, yes. That was when they had to be supported from Earth’s surface, by rockets. But now we’ve got the Skyhook! Oh, there’ll be tourists, all right. And to give them a good reason to go there, the big three pulled a few strings, and now the Olympics association has made a deal.”

Natasha, previously uncharacteristically silent, perked up. “What kind of a deal?”

“To hold the kind of events they can’t do on Earth, Tashy. You see, lunar gravity’s only 1.622 meters per second squared, so—”

Natasha held up her hands. “Please, Dr. Vorhulst!”

“Well, it’s just about one sixth as much as Earth’s at the surface. That means that the minute anybody does competitive sports on the moon, all the old records that involve running or jumping are just out the window. I’m not sure that even the Sinus Iridium tube is tall enough to let the high jumpers strut their stuff.”

Ranjit was looking skeptical. “You think people are going to travel a couple of hundred thousand kilometers just to watch some athletes jump high?”

“I do,” Vorhulst insisted. “So does Lunar Development. But that’s not the star turn. What would you say to a contest that hasn’t been possible on Earth? Like a race between humans in muscle-powered flight?”

If he expected Ranjit to answer, he was disappointed. There was a crash of dishes as Natasha jumped to her feet. “I would say I’m ready!” she cried. “I want to go! And, you’ll see, I’ll win!”

She did go there, too.

Not immediately, of course. A lot had to be done before that first-ever lunar Olympics could be held—a lot done to the moon to make it possible, for example, and a quite large lot that had to be done to the Skyhook to at least make it possible to carry passengers with a reasonable hope that they would get there alive. Now that the briefing texts had become more informative, Ranjit devoured them as soon as they arrived, all the space-cadet fever that Joris Vorhulst had awakened in him flashing back.

Fortunately for Ranjit’s peace of mind the world seemed to have taken a turn for the better. The second dose of Silent Thunder had restrained some of the unruliest of the world’s leaders. His seminars kept going well enough to keep Dr. Davoodbhoy pleased, and his little family continued to be an unfailing delight.

Especially Natasha. The prospect of college looming just a few years before her was no problem, but there was also the lunar Olympics Dr. Vorhulst had promised. Training for that was not easy. It made the athletes’ training for every other Olympics look like ten minutes of morning jumping jacks to keep the love handles away.

Of course, Natasha was not the only one training for that unprecedented match. All over the world young athletes were wondering if they could get themselves fit enough for the flying events. Since the task of training would have to be accomplished within the tyranny of Earth’s uncompromising 1-G gravity, a good deal of ingenuity was going to be required.

There were two lines of approach to the problem of muscle-powered flight. The “balloonatics” believed in employing gas bags of various shapes, so that the athlete was supported in flight, using all his muscle power to crank a propeller without the need of expending any effort simply to stay aloft. The sky-bikers, on the other hand, preferred to do everything by their muscles alone. For them sporting goods manufacturers had rapidly invented a whole array of propeller-driven devices. Thanks to carbon-60 nanotubes, the same molecules that made the Skyhook a working means of transportation instead of an idle dream, these devices were so light that even on Earth they could be lifted with one hand—on the moon, with a single finger!

What none of these ambitious athletes had was a true one-sixth gravity practice arena. They had to do the best they could, usually by using equipment counterweighted to give the equivalent of lunar gravity. All of which meant that it was not only ingenuity that was called for. Also required was quite a lot of money.

That would have exceeded the purchasing capacity of a college professor by a considerable margin, but for those purposes, Natasha’s needs got considerable support from Sri Lankans in high places. Even those who had no particular interest in sporting events enjoyed calling attention to the fact that Sri Lanka had become the world’s doorway to space. So the money was pledged, and a great lunar-gravity gym was built on the outskirts of Colombo. There Natasha practiced sky-biking to her heart’s content.

The gym was only a ten-minute drive from their home, and so Natasha’s family were often present as spectators. Sometimes more than spectators; Robert loved watching his big sister pump her way across the “sky” of the gym—loved even more when at last there was a little bit of open time on the machines. Then Robert, too, got his chance to fly.

Of course it was not only Natasha who was given the use of the lowgrav gym. Hopeful candidates from all over the island begged for the chance to try their own skills on the machines, and more than thirty of them won the opportunity. But it was Natasha Subramanian who consistently outperformed every challenger.

And, on the day when the Sri Lankan team at last assembled at the Skyhook terminal to be elevated to their first experience of space, it was Natasha who carried the island’s hope of victory.

When Myra got a look at the prices the tour companies were advertising for the lunar Olympics, she gasped. “Oh, Ranjit,” she moaned, one hand pressed to her heart. “We can’t let Tashy fly that race without us there, but how can we go?”

Ranjit, who had been expecting no less, was quick to reassure her. Families of contestants received a substantial discount. So did members of the advisory board, himself included, and when you put the two discounts together, the cost of the tickets was no more than outrageous.

Not impossible, though. Accordingly, Myra, Ranjit, and young Robert presented themselves at the terminal. Like everybody else in the world who owned a telescreen—which, to a close approximation, was pretty much everybody in the world—they had seen the rapturous news stories that had accompanied the Skyhook’s evolution to passenger-carrying. They knew how the passenger capsules worked, and what it would feel like to be borne skyward at a steady rate of meters per second.

What they had not entirely appreciated, though, was quite how many seconds, even at that speed, it was going to take to get from Sri Lanka to the Sinus Iridium. This was not a weekend trip.

In the first half dozen days they had got only as far as the lower Van Allen belt, when the Subramanians—along with other families aboard, namely, the Kais, the Kosbas, and the unpronounceably named Norwegians—had to hustle into shelter against the murderous Van Allen radiation. The shelter consisted of the triple-walled sleep-and-sanitation chambers of the capsule. Those contained the toilets, the laughably named “baths,” and twenty—count ’em, twenty—extraordinarily narrow bunks arrayed in ranks of five. When you had to head for the shelter, what you brought with you was the skimpy Skyhook special garments you were wearing (nearly weightless, to save on load, and as close to unsoilable as fabric technology could make them, since there was no hope of laundry), your medications, if any, and yourself. You could bring nothing else. Least of all, modesty.