Pillar to the Sky (12 page)

“Three days from now?” Eva asked. “I thought we were just going to Seattle.”

Franklin smiled.

“For starters. I want you to meet our team first. I regret this, but my darn lawyers will hang me if I don’t say this now: you will have to sign the nondisclosure forms before you decide to work with me. After that, then on to someplace else once we get the paperwork taken care of.”

As he spoke he stood up and stretched, the somewhat narrow cabin of the Gulfstream confining his towering six-and-a-half-foot frame.

“But for right now, I feel like I need a few hours of log time copiloting this bird. Miss Victoria, would you care to copilot for this copilot?”

She leapt up with a grin.

“Can we try a loop?” she cried.

He laughed softly.

“I think the FAA and the pilot would not approve, but we’ll still try a few tricks—all legal, of course, young lady.”

Minutes later, after Victoria had announced over the intercom that all passengers should expect some turbulence and to secure their seat belts, the jet was weaving and banking. The now replaced copilot was sprawled out in the aft bed, fast asleep; Erich was stirring and muttering that the turbulence felt like the damn flak while going in for a drop; Eva was complaining that this man up at the controls was not the best example for their daughter; and Gary was silently reading through the pages of data in his computer in all but absolute disbelief.

The dream could indeed be real.

5

Eighteen Years Earlier

The two stood at Erich’s door, both nervous. They had sent up their joint report to him the day before and now it was time for the final meeting of their internship. Eva was flying out from Dulles at the end of the day, and Gary would drive back to West Lafayette, Indiana, after dropping her off at the airport.

The door opened and both stiffened slightly. It was the assistant director of Goddard, saying something over his shoulder to Erich about him coming over for dinner soon. He paused and looked at the two interns.

“So you two are his imaginative geniuses,” he said, extending his hand first to Eva and then Gary.

“Now, the real act of genius,” he chuckled, “would be convincing the higher-ups to try to work just fifty billion or so more into the budget. If you could pull that miracle off, I’d hire you on the spot right now!”

Neither of them spoke and he smiled.

“Of course, your luggage must be checked, Miss Petrenko, before you depart our company today.”

She reddened, and Gary, standing behind the administrator, started to wave his hand to urge her not to explode.

The assistant director laughed and extended his hand for a fatherly pat on her shoulder.

“The Cold War is over, Miss Petrenko. Just joking, there will be no luggage check. Please convey to Professor Rakolvski, who I assume you are working with, my warmest regards. Years ago we agreed that most of this rivalry was foolishness and it is time to work together.”

The icy glare changed to a warm smile.

“He is my mentor.”

The assistant director winked at her.

“I know; that is why we agreed you’d be our first exchange intern. My old friend Basil and I had a long talk about you before you were even aware of our plot. Safe travels home.”

He held out a small box.

“Not sure if this will get through your customs, but Basil claimed a great weakness for my wife’s pecan pie. Please convey it to him with our warmest wishes.”

Eva actually curtsied slightly as she took the box, definitely still an Old World custom and clear indication this meeting was no accident: the assistant director had been waiting to meet her and bid her a fond farewell.

He shook her hand again and left. Erich, as usual behind his desk, had tea already poured for Eva and coffee for Gary. He waved them into his office, motioning for Gary to close the door.

“So you met the assistant to my boss,” he said. “I think he was hanging around to meet you two.”

“Why would that be, sir? There are fifty interns checking out today.”

“Besides his friendship with your Basil Rakolvski, whom I hold in high regard as well, I daresay it is because I passed your report on to him last night. He e-mailed back to me.” Erich gestured at his computer. “Actually, I hate those things; everyone says they will make life easier for us, but I think we’ll wind up spending half our days just answering the darn mail. Anyhow, I think he said something to the effect of I was bloody crazy for letting you two work on this and nothing else for the summer. That it was a sci-fi fantasy dream. If a Senator Proxley got wind of the fact that even interns were working on it, especially one from Russia…”

He paused.

“Excuse me: especially if one from the newly independent Ukraine was involved, he’d be screaming about security. And after saying that, he said he wants the two of you back next summer to continue your research, this time with a stipend and expenses covered by us as well.”

The two could not contain their grins. In the last few weeks Gary had taken to bringing along an extra bologna sandwich and a bag of chips when he noticed how Victoria would beg off going to the café for lunch.

“So, you two finally reached some sort of agreement?” Erich asked.

“We met in the middle,” Eva said. “Actually, about 90 percent my way.”

She looked over at Gary and smiled.

Erich picked up the 155-page printout that they had written together over the last two weeks. It admitted to one predication outside the realm of current science: that research in carbon-60 nanotube technology would accelerate and reach the strength required for the tower within fifteen to twenty years. After that assumption, everything else followed.

Erich made the gesture of thumbing through the report.

“I like the idea of it being a ribbon rather than a thread but, given costs and the complexity of manufacturing a ribbon when we have yet to even create sufficient material beyond a few millimeters in length, that the first attempt should be a single wire—good thinking—and that from that single wire, we later haul up material for a ribbon at a fraction of the cost of sending it up via rockets.”

He paused.

“But regarding collision avoidance with the wire by deliberately triggering a harmonic wave to swing the tower out of the way, I think you are a bit overoptimistic about the ability to dampen that.”

“I know, sir, the whole ‘Galloping Gertie’ nightmare,” Gary replied, “but it is the only alternative we could come up with for collision avoidance.”

“Exactly.”

Both he and Eva had pulled up videotapes of the infamous “Galloping Gertie” bridge disaster of 1940 and even watched the original 16-millimeter films of the incident in the National Archives, at times pausing frame by frame. “Galloping Gertie” was the tragic, sarcastic nickname for an elegant, slender suspension bridge built over the Tacoma Narrows in Washington State in the late thirties. Too elegant and too slender. The design engineers had run all the usual calculations about the impact of wind and weather but had let slip by wind of a particular velocity from a particular direction. It had set the bridge to swaying, which like all suspension bridges it was designed for. But a harmonic wave had set in, like a vibration on a violin string, running up and down the string; just as the wave reached a particular point, the impact of the wind increased the vibration, building on it, doubling its intensity with each wave running up and down the length of the bridge.

It was a remarkable film to watch. A car abandoned by a panicked driver in the middle of the bridge was soon being tossed up in the air like a child’s toy as the waves of the harmonic vibration raced back and forth along the length of the bridge. Torque began to set in, the bridge floor twisting and swaying … and then it simply ripped itself apart.

It was fascinating and it was horrifying.

“So you propose that eventually there will be thrusters not just to bend the ribbon out of the way of any debris or satellite but also to dampen out any harmonics.”

They nodded.

“A tricky game when you think of ‘Gertie.’”

“Sir, the computer technology to work in advance of that and fire at precisely the right intervals will handle it,” Eva replied. “If we can get some time on that Cray computer next year, we might be able to work out a variety of simulations.”

“We have no other alternative,” Gary said.

“No, obviously not. Just, at times it is healthy to think worse-case scenario. You are coming into your landing site, your computer is overloading, spitting out a 1201 alarm, where you were programmed to land on close inspection is a boulder field. You spot what might be a good landing spot a couple of miles away and Mission Control is telling you that you’ve only got a minute’s worth of fuel left.”

Of course he was referring to the famed piloting of Armstrong and Aldrin with
Apollo 11
. If they had not abandoned the programmed landing site, they would have crashed. If they had panicked even for a second and been indecisive or decided it was time to argue about where they should land, they’d have crashed.

“I only trust silicon so far when it comes to decisions. Suppose there is a full power failure along the entire system while the mother of all storms is blowing out a coronal mass ejection from the sun, and an ascent or descent car has jammed up on its track.”

The two were silent.

Erich shook his head but then smiled.

“My job is to encourage, but then to poke holes in the dreams of interns and freshly minted Ph.D.’s. Neither of you have factored in two or more potentially disastrous events hitting at the same time. Thank God for
Apollo 13
they still had the lunar lander attached when the command module had its blowout and power was lost. No one had ever thought up that one for the simulators, or using the lunar lander engine as a booster to get them home quicker before they ran out of power and breathable air.”

The two were silent.

He closed the report.

“A good start, you two. Brilliant, actually. Just poking you a bit to start thinking about the next step, the numerous steps to come. I’ll send you my analysis and the holes I see after you get back to your universities. I can tell you right now that the weight to send what you call a ‘ribbon’ aloft would be staggering, so start smaller, lighter, then build from there as you suggest. It’s brilliant.

“You are both invited back next summer to continue your research—together.”

He gave them a conspiratorial smile. Eva did not react. Gary did blush a bit as he looked sidelong at Eva. After ten weeks he was absolutely smitten with her, but she had indicated no interest beyond an occasional sisterlike peck on the cheek when he had shown some courtesy. He knew that darn near every male intern and for that matter every single male staffer, some well into their forties, had tried hitting on her this summer, and the result was that she was referred to as the “ice princess,” along with a few other less than complimentary nicknames. The few times she had really opened up about her personal life, it was always about her parents, younger brother, and sisters, who she adored, reverence for her heroic grandfather, but never a word about at least a boyfriend back home. She was absolutely focused on one thing, her dream of this tower. And he had allowed her to pull him into that dream, not in order to try to win her favor, but because he found that he actually could believe.

There was another change in Eva that had become apparent over the summer. She had even grudgingly admitted in roundabout ways that she tended to look upon the idea of a tower almost as a work of art, a spiritual act, and when she did “loosen up,” it was about the beauty of it, the societal impact, the dreams of humanity to reach for the stars and how, once that doorway was open, the world could be transformed. In contrast, he saw it from the more analytical perspective of a born engineer and at times sent her crashing back down to the hard earth of mathematical realities.

“When’s your flight?” Erich asked, looking at Eva.

“Leaves at 5:15, direct to Moscow.”

“Who’d have thought it ten years ago. Direct flights daily, Dulles to Moscow, but God protect you if it’s Aeroflot,” Erich said softly. “Anyhow, that leaves you two enough time to get over there and say your good-byes.”

He made a show of looking at his old-fashioned wristwatch, the same one he had worn in the war.

“One final question. Your academic plans for the forthcoming year?”

“Well, sir, I have my dissertation, of course. Professor Rakolvski has already approved the topic.”

“Very good, I look forward to seeing the drafts next summer.”

He had just put the pressure on her. When it came to dissertations in aerospace engineering, two to three years was the norm.

“And you, Gary?”

“I’ll submit my dissertation proposal next week, once I’m back at Purdue.”

“Subject
?
”

He took a deep gulp.

“Space elevators,” he said, his voice a bit strangled.

“What?”

Eva turned in her chair, and if looks could kill …

“We can both work on the same subject,” he said hurriedly. “No one else has taken it to a dissertation level yet.”

“I had the idea first.”

“It’s not copyrighted,” Gary said defensively.

“So all summer long you were just acting polite so you could pump me for everything I know and run out and publish it first.”

“Like hell,” Gary snapped, surprised that anger had taken hold of him. Beyond their work together, he had all oh-so-cautiously tried to truly earn her trust and maybe even some emotional response. Her malevolent gaze told him that had just been vaporized.

“Eva. You hooked me on the idea. What else could I possibly do?” he offered hastily.

Erich, sitting across from them, just relit his pipe and smiled good-naturedly without saying a word.

“Don’t you dare publish first,” she said bitterly.

“Both of you, wait a minute…” Erich began, but it was like trying to wade in between two wildcats that had finally cut loose. They ignored him; the building tension of the entire summer had been unleashed, with accusation and counter-accusation being shouted back and forth. That he was a thief plundering her ideas; that she was arrogant, stuck-up, and it was not her idea to start with, that Tsiolkovsky had thought it up first a hundred years ago and anyone could work on it from there.