Yet I'm only fifty-nine – and it will be at least five years, even if all goes very well, before the first passenger car rides up to Midway Station. Then another three years of tests, calibration, system tune-ups. Make it ten years, to be on the safe side…

Though it was warm, he felt a sudden chill. For the first time, it occurred to Vannevar Morgan that the triumph upon which he had set his soul might come too late for him. And quite unconsciously he pressed his hand against the slim metal disc concealed inside his shirt.

33. CORA

“Why did you leave it until now?” Dr. Sen had asked, in a tone appropriate to a retarded child.

“The usual reason,” Morgan answered, as he ran his good thumb along the seal of his shirt. “I was too busy – and whenever I felt short of breath I blamed it on the height.”

“Altitude was partly to blame, of course. You'd better check all your people on the mountain. How could you have overlooked anything so obvious?”

How indeed? thought Morgan, with some embarrassment.

“All those monks – some of them were over eighty! They seemed so healthy that it never occurred to me…”

“The monks have lived up there for years – they're completely adapted. But you've been hopping up and down several times a day -”

“– twice, at the most -”

“– going from sea level to half an atmosphere in a few minutes. Well, there's no great harm done – if you follow instructions from now on. Mine, and CORA's.”

“CORA's?”

“Coronary alarm.”

“Oh – one of those things.”

“Yes – one of those things. They save about ten million lives a year. Mostly top civil servants, senior administrators, distinguished scientists, leading engineers and similar nit-wits. I often wonder if it's worth the trouble. Nature may be trying to tell us something, and we're not listening.”

“Remember your Hippocratic Oath, Bill,” retorted Morgan with a grin. “And you must admit that I've always done just what you told me. Why, my weight hasn't changed a kilo in the last ten years.”

“Urn… Well, you're not the worst of my patients,” said the slightly mollified doctor. He fumbled round in his desk and produced a large holopad. “Take your choice-here are the standard models. Any colour you like as long as it's Medic Red.”

Morgan triggered the images, and regarded them with distaste.

“Where do I have to carry the thing?” he asked. “Or do you want to implant it?”

“That isn't necessary, at least for the present. In five years' time, maybe, but perhaps not even then. I suggest you start with this model – it's worn just under the breastbone, so doesn't need remote sensors. After a while you won't notice it's there. And it won't bother you, unless it's needed.”

“And then?”

“Listen.”

The doctor threw one of the numerous switches on his desk console, and a sweet mezzo-soprano voice remarked in a conversational tone: “I think you should sit down and rest for about ten minutes.” After a brief pause it continued: “It would be a good idea to lie down for half an hour.” Another pause: “As soon as convenient, make an appointment with Dr. Sen.” Then:

“Please take one of the red pills immediately.”

“I have called the ambulance; just lie down and relax. Everything will be all right.”

Morgan almost clapped his hands over his ears to cut out the piercing whistle.

“THIS IS A CORA ALERT. WILL ANYONE WITHIN RANGE OF MY VOICE PLEASE COME IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS A CORA ALERT. WILL -”

“I think you get the general idea,” said the doctor, restoring silence to his office. “Of course, the programmes and responses are individually tailored to the subject. And there's a wide range of voices, including some famous ones.”

“That will do very nicely. When will my unit be ready?”

“I'll call you in about three days. Oh yes – there's an advantage to the chest-worn units I should mention.”

“What's that?”

“One of my patients is a keen tennis player. He tells me that when he opens his shirt the sight of that little red box has an absolutely devastating effect on his opponent's game…”

34. Vertigo

There had once been a time when a minor, and often major, chore of every civilised man had been the regular updating of his address book. The universal code had made that unnecessary, since once a person's lifetime identity number was known he could be located within seconds. And even if his number was not known, the standard search programme could usually find it fairly quickly, given the approximate date of birth, his profession, and a few other details. (There were, of course, problems if the name was Smith, or Singh, or Mohammed…)

The development of global information systems had also rendered obsolete another annoying task. It was only necessary to make a special notation against the names of those friends one wished to greet on their birthdays or other anniversaries, and the household computer would do the rest. On the appropriate day (unless, as was frequently the case, there had been some stupid mistake in programming) the right message would be automatically flashed to its destination. And even though the recipient might shrewdly suspect that the warm words on his screen were entirely due to electronics – the nominal sender not having thought of him for years – the gesture was nevertheless welcome.

But the same technology that had eliminated one set of tasks had created even more demanding successors. Of these, perhaps the most important was the design of the Personal Interest Profile.

Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day, or their birthday. Morgan's list contained fifty items; he had heard of people with hundreds. They must spend all their waking hours battling with the flood of information, unless they were like those notorious pranksters who enjoyed setting up News Alerts on their consoles for such classic improbabilities as:

Eggs, Dinosaur, hatching of

Circle, squaring of

Atlantis, re-emergence of

Christ, Second Coming of

Loch Ness Monster, capture of

or finally

World, end of

Usually, of course, egotism and professional requirements ensured that the subscriber's own name was the first item on every list. Morgan was no exception, but the entries that followed were slightly unusual:

Tower, orbital

Tower, space

Tower, (geo) synchronous

Elevator, space

Elevator, orbital

Elevator, (geo) synchronous

These names covered most of the variations used by the media, and ensured that he saw at least ninety percent of the news items concerning the project. The vast majority of these were trivial, and sometimes he wondered if it was worth searching for them – the ones that really mattered would reach him quickly enough.

He was still rubbing his eyes, and the bed had scarcely retracted itself into the wall of his modest apartment, when Morgan noticed that the Alert was flashing on his console. Punching the COFFEE and READOUT buttons simultaneously, he awaited the latest overnight sensation.