Arthur Clarke - Firstborn

Most of them are based on facilities at sea, actually — reused oil rigs and the like — including Bandara, the first.”

“Bandara?”

“The Aussie elevator, off Perth. They call it Bandara now.

Named for an Aboriginal legend of a world tree.”

“Why do you need to move your base? In case a hurricane comes?”

“Well, yes, though as I said they’ve got hurricanes pretty much licked these days.” He glanced at the sky. “But further up there are other hazards. Relic satellites in low Earth orbit. Even NEOs.

Near — Earth objects. Asteroids. This thing goes a long way up, Bisesa, and has to deal with a lot of perils along the way. Are you ready to move on?”

He brought them to one of the trucks. He called it a “spider.” It had solar-cell wings folded up against its flanks, and that complicated pulley mechanism on its roof. Its transparent hull was loaded up with some kind of cargo, palettes and boxes. The spider was actually moving, though slower than walking pace, rolling in a line of others identical save for registration numbers stamped on its hull—

the spiders were making for the thread in a kind of complicated spiral queuing system, Bisesa saw.

Alexei walked alongside the spider. He dug a plastic disc the size of a hockey puck out of his pocket, and slapped it to the spider’s hull. “Just give it a moment to break through the protocols and establish its interface—” He briskly leapt up onto the spider’s roof, and stuck another hockey puck to the pulley mechanism up there.

By the time he was down on the ground again a transparent door had slid back, and he grinned. “We’re in. Myra, can you give me a hand?” He jumped easily inside the hull, and began to bundle the cargo carelessly out of the door. Myra helped by shoving it aside.

“Just so I’m clear,” Bisesa said uncertainly, “we shouldn’t be doing this, should we? In fact we’re stowing away in a cargo truck.”

“It’s human-rated,” Alexei said confidently. “Pressurized. Good radiation shielding, and we’ll need it; we’ll be spending rather a long time in the van Allen belts. We’ll be fine with the gear I brought along. It was thought best to get you off the planet as fast as possible, Bisesa.”

“Why? Myra, are you on the run? Am I?”

“Sort of,” Myra said.

Alexei said, “Let’s move it. We’re nearly at the ribbon.”

Once the cargo was cleared, Alexei summoned his suitcase. It extended little hydraulic legs to jump without difficulty into the spider’s hull. Myra followed, and then only Bisesa was walking alongside the trundling spider.

Mura held out her hand. “Mum? Come on. It’s an easy step.”

Bisesa looked around, beyond the jungle of spiders, to the blue sky of Canaveral, the distant gantries. She had an odd premonition that she might never come this way again. Might never set foot on Earth again. She took a deep breath; even among the scents of oil and electricity, she could smell the salt of the ocean.

Then she stepped deliberately off the crawler platform and into the hull, one step, two. Myra gave her a hug, welcoming her aboard.

The hull’s interior was bare, but it was meant for at least occasional human use. There was a handrail at waist height, and little fold-down seats embedded in the walls. The view through the transparent hull was obscured by those big folded-away solar panel wings.

Alexei was all business. He spread a softscreen over the inner hull, tapped it, and the door slid shut. “Gotcha.” He took a deep breath. “Canned air,” he said. “Nothing like it.” He seemed relieved to be shut up in the pod.

Bisesa asked, “You’re a Spacer?”

“Not strictly. Born on Earth, but I’ve lived most of my life off the planet. I guess I’m used to environments you can control. Out there in the raw, it’s a little — clamoring.” He reached up and peeled his tattoo off his face.

Bisesa touched her cheek, and found her own tattoo came away like a layer of wax. She tucked it in a pocket of her suit.

Alexei advised them to sit down. Bisesa pulled down a seat, and found a narrow pull-out plastic belt that she clipped around her waist. Myra followed suit, looking apprehensive.

The spiders before them in the line were clearing away now, revealing the ribbon, a vertical line of silver, dead straight.

Alexei said, “What’s going to happen is that our spider will grab onto the ribbon with the roller assembly above our heads.

Okay? As soon as it has traction it will start to climb. You’ll feel some acceleration.”

“How much?” Bisesa asked.

“Only half a G or so. And only for about ten seconds. After that, once we hit our top speed, we’ll climb smoothly.”

“And what’s the top speed?”

“Oh, two hundred klicks an hour. The ribbon’s actually rated for twice that. I’ve disabled the speed inhibitor, if we need it.”

“Let’s hope that’s not necessary,” Bisesa said dryly.

Myra reached over and slipped her hand into her mother’s. “Do you remember how we went to see the opening of the Aussievator?

It was just after the sunstorm. I was eighteen, I think. That was where I got to know Eugene again. Now there are elevators all over the world.”

“It was quite a day. And so is this.”

Myra squeezed her hand. “Glad I woke you up yet?”

“I’m reserving judgment.” But her grin was fierce. Who could resist this?

Alexei watched this interplay uncertainly.

They were rolling toward the ribbon. Over their heads, with a clumsy clunk, the pulley assembly unfolded itself. The ribbon really was narrow, no more than four or five centimeters across. It seemed impossible that it could support the weight of this car, let alone hundreds — thousands? — of others. But the spider trundled forward without hesitation.

The roller assembly tipped up, closed itself up around the ribbon, and, with a surge like a punch in the belly, the spider leapt sky-ward.

In that first moment they left the spider farm behind, and were up and out in the bright sunlight. Glancing up, Bisesa saw the ribbon arrowing off into invisibility in a cloudless sky, with the bright pearls of other spiders going ahead of her, up into the unknown.

And when she looked down, peering around the obstruction of the solar panels, she saw the world falling away from her, and a tremendous view of the Cape opening up. She shielded her eyes from the sun. There were the gantries and blockhouses, and the straight-line roads traveled by generations of astronauts. A spaceplane of some kind rested on a runway, a black-and-white moth.

And a bit further on a white needle stood tall beside a rusted gantry.

It had to be a Saturn V, perhaps bearing a recreation of Apollo 10, the next precursor of the century-old Moon landings. But she had already risen higher than the Saturn ’s needle nose, already higher than the astronauts climbing their gantries to their Moon ships.

The ascent was rapid, and just kept going. Soon she seemed able to see down the beach for kilometers. Canaveral looked more water than land, a skim of earth on the silver hide of the great ocean that opened up to the east. And she saw cars and trucks parked up on the roads and beside the beach, with tiny American flags flutter-ing from their aerials.

“People still come to see,” Alexei said, grinning. “Quite a spectacle when the Saturn s go up, I’m told. But the Ladder is more impressive, in its way—”

There was a jolt.

“Sorry about that,” Alexei said. “End of the acceleration.” He tapped his softscreen, and a simple display lit up, showing altitude, speed, air pressure, time. “Three hundred meters high, speed maxed out, and from now on it’s a smooth ride all the way up.”