“What progress are you making?”
"Can't say. But I'm sure the cut's pretty deep by this time. It must be. . .
He wished that he could switch off CORA, but that of course was impossible, even if she had not been out of reach between his breastbone and the fabric of his spacesuit. A heart monitor that could be silenced was worse than useless – it was dangerous.
“Dr. Morgan,” said CORA, now distinctly annoyed, “I really must insist. At least half-an-hour's complete rest.”
This time Morgan did not feel like answering. He knew that CORA was right; but she could not be expected to understand that his was not the only life involved. And he was also sure that – like one of his bridges – she had a built-in safety factor. Her diagnosis would be pessimistic; his condition would not be as serious as she was pretending. Or so he devoutly hoped.
The pain in his chest certainly seemed to be getting no worse; he decided to ignore both it and CORA, and started to saw away, slowly but steadily, with the loop of fibre. He would keep going, he told himself grimly, just as long as was necessary.
The warning he had relied upon never came. Spider lurched violently as a quarter-ton of dead-weight ripped away, and Morgan was almost pitched out into the abyss. He dropped the spinnerette, and grabbed for the safety belt.
Everything seemed to happen in dreamlike slow motion. He had no sense of fear, only an utter determination not to surrender to gravity without a fight. But he could not find the safety belt; it must have swung back into the cabin.
He was not even conscious of using his left hand, but suddenly he realised that it was clamped around the hinges of the open door. Yet still he did not pull himself back into the cabin; he was hypnotised by the sight of the falling battery, slowly rotating like some strange celestial body as it dwindled from sight. It took a long time to vanish completely; and not until then did Morgan drag himself to safety, and collapse into his seat.
For a long time he sat there, his heart hammering, awaiting CORA's next indignant protest. To his surprise, she was silent, almost as if she too had been equally startled. Well, he would give her no further cause for complaint; from now on he would sit quietly at the controls, trying to relax his jangled nerves.
When he was himself again, he called the mountain.
“I've got rid of the battery,” he said, and heard the cheers float up from earth. “As soon as I've closed the hatch I'll be on my way again. Tell Sessui and Co to expect me in just over an hour. And thank Kinte for the light – I don't need it now.”
He repressurised the cabin, opened the helmet of his suit, and treated himself to a long, cold sip of fortified orange juice. Then he engaged drive and released the brakes, and lay back with a sense of overwhelming relief as Spider came up to full speed.
He had been climbing for several minutes before he realised what was missing. In anxious hope he peered out at the metal grille of the porch. No, it was not there. Well, he could always get another spinnerette, to replace the one now following the discarded battery back to earth; it was a small sacrifice for such an achievement. Strange, therefore, that he was so upset, and unable fully to enjoy his triumph… He felt that he had lost an old and faithful friend.
53. Fade Out
The fact that he was still only thirty minutes behind schedule seemed too good to be true; Morgan would have been prepared to swear that the capsule had halted for at least an hour. Up there in the Tower, now much less than two hundred kilometres away, the reception committee would be preparing to welcome him. He refused even to consider the possibility of any further problems.
When he passed the five-hundred-kilometre mark, still going strong, there was a message of congratulations from the ground. “By the way,” added Kingsley, “the Game Warden in the Ruhana Sanctuary's reported an aircraft crashing. We were able to reassure him – if we can find the hole, we may have a souvenir for you.” Morgan had no difficulty in restraining his enthusiasm; he was glad to see the last of that battery. Now if they could find the spinnerette – but that would be a hopeless task…
The first sign of trouble came at five-fifty kilometres. By now the rate of ascent should have been over two hundred klicks; it was only one nine eight. Slight though the discrepancy was – and it would make no appreciable difference to his arrival time – it worried Morgan.
When he was only thirty kilometres from the Tower he had diagnosed the problem, and knew that this time there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Although there should have been ample reserve, the battery was beginning to fade. Perhaps those sudden jolts and restarts had brought on the malaise; possibly there was even some physical damage to the delicate components. Whatever the explanation the current was slowly dropping, and with it the capsule's speed.
There was consternation when Morgan reported the indicator readings back to the ground.
“I'm afraid you're right,” Kingsley lamented, sounding almost in tears. “We suggest you cut speed back to one hundred klicks. We'll try to calculate battery life – though it can only be an educated guess.”
Twenty-five kilometres to go – a mere fifteen minutes, even at this reduced speed! If Morgan had been able to pray, he would have done so.
“We estimate you have between ten and twenty minutes, judging by the rate the current is dropping. It will be a close thing, I'm afraid.”
“Shall I reduce speed again?”
“Not for the moment; we're trying to optimise your discharge rate, and this seems about right.”
“Well, you can switch on your beam now. If I can't get to the Tower, at least I want to see it.”
Neither Kinte nor the other orbiting stations could help him, now that he wished to look up at the underside of the Tower. This was a task for the searchlight on Sri Kanda itself, pointing vertically towards the zenith.
A moment later the capsule was impaled by a dazzling beam from the heart of Taprobane. Only a few metres away – indeed, so close that he felt he could touch them – the other three guiding tapes were ribbons of light, converging towards the Tower. He followed their dwindling perspective – and there it was.
Just twenty kilometres away! He should be there in a dozen minutes, coming up through the floor of that tiny square building he could see glittering in the sky, bearing presents like some troglodytic Father Christmas. Despite his determination to relax, and obey CORA's orders, it was quite impossible to do so. He found himself tensing his muscles, as if by his own physical exertions he could help Spider along the last fraction of its journey.
At ten kilometres there was a distinct change of pitch from the drive motor; Morgan had been expecting this, and reacted to it at once. Without waiting for advice from the ground, he cut speed back to fifty klicks. At this rate he still had twelve minutes to go, and he began to wonder despairingly if he was involved in an asymptotic approach. This was a variant of the race between Achilles and the tortoise; if he halved his speed every time he halved the distance, would he reach the Tower in a finite time? Once he would have known the answer instantly; now he felt too tired to work it out.
At five kilometres he could see the constructional details of the Tower – the catwalk and protective rails, the futile safety net provided as a sop to public opinion. Although he strained his eyes he could not yet make out the airlock towards which he was now crawling with such agonising slowness.
And then it no longer mattered. Two kilometres short of the goal Spider's motors stalled completely. The capsule even slid downwards a few metres, before Morgan was able to apply the brakes.