And now at last, as they began the final ascent, there came the first intimation of the approaching day. The eastern stars still shone with undiminished glory—Venus most brilliantly of all—but a few thin, high clouds began to glow faintly with the coming dawn. Morgan looked anxiously at his watch, and wondered if he would be in time. He was relieved to see that daybreak was still thirty minutes away.
One of the passengers suddenly pointed to the immense stairway, sections of which were occasionally visible beneath them as it zigzagged back and forth up the mountain’s now rapidly steepening slopes. It was no longer deserted; moving with dreamlike slowness, dozens of men and women were toiling painfully up the endless steps. Every minute, more and more came into view. For how many hours, Morgan wondered, had they been climbing? Certainly all through the night, and perhaps much longer—for many of the pilgrims were quite elderly, and could hardly have managed the ascent in a single day. He was surprised to see that so many still believed.
A moment later, he saw the first monk—a tall, saffron-robed figure moving with a gait of metronome-like regularity, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and completely ignoring the car floating above his shaven head. He also appeared capable of ignoring the elements, for his right arm and shoulder were bare to the freezing wind.
The cable car was slowing down as it approached the terminus. Presently it made a brief halt, disgorged its numbed passengers, and set off again on its long descent. Morgan joined the crowd of two or three hundred people huddling in a small amphitheater cut in the western face of the mountain. They were all staring out into the darkness, though there was nothing to see but the ribbon of light winding down into the abyss. Some belated climbers on the last section of the stairway were making a final effort, as faith strove to overcome fatigue.
Morgan looked again at his watch; ten minutes to go. He had never before been among so many silent people. Camera-carrying tourists and devout pilgrims were united now in the same hope. The weather was perfect; soon they would know if they had made this journey in vain.
There came a delicate tinkling of bells from the temple, invisible in the darkness a hundred meters above their heads; and at the same instant, all the lights along that unbelievable stairway were extinguished.
Now they could see, as they stood with their backs toward the hidden sunrise, that the first faint gleam of day lay on the clouds far below; but the immense bulk of the mountain still delayed the approaching dawn.
Second by second, the light was growing on either side of Sri Kanda, as the sun outflanked the last strongholds of the night. Then there came a low murmur of awe from the patiently waiting crowd.
One moment there was nothing. Then it was there, stretching half the width of Taprobane—a perfectly symmetrical, sharp-edged triangle of deepest blue. The mountain had not forgotten its worshippers. There lay its famous shadow across the sea of clouds, a symbol for each pilgrim to interpret as he pleased.
It seemed almost solid in its rectilinear perfection, like some overturned pyramid rather than a mere phantom of light and shade. As the brightness grew around it, and the first direct rays of the sun struck past the flanks of the mountain, it appeared by contrast to grow even darker and denser. Yet through the thin veil of cloud responsible for its brief existence, Morgan could dimly discern the lakes and hills and forests of the awakening land.
The apex of that misty triangle must be racing toward him at enormous speed as the sun rose vertically behind the mountain, but Morgan was conscious of no movement. Time seemed to have been suspended; this was one of the rare moments of his life when he gave no thought to the passing minutes. The shadow of eternity lay upon his soul, as did that of the mountain upon the clouds.
Now it was fading swiftly, the darkness draining from the sky like a stain dispersing in water. The ghostly, glimmering landscape below was hardening into reality. Halfway to the horizon, there was an explosion of light as the sun’s rays struck upon some building’s eastern windows. And beyond that—unless his eyes had tricked him—Morgan could make out the faint, dark band of the encircling sea.
Another day had come to Taprobane.
* * *
Slowly, the visitors dispersed. Some returned to the cable-car terminus, while others, more energetic, headed for the stairway, in the mistaken belief that the descent was easier than the climb. Most of them would be thankful enough to catch the car again at the lower station; few indeed would make it all the way down.
Only Morgan continued upward, followed by many curious glances, along the short flight of steps that led to the monastery and to the very summit of the mountain. By the time he had reached the smoothly plastered outer wall—now beginning to glow softly in the first direct rays of the sun—he was short of breath, and was glad to lean for a moment against the massive wooden door.
Someone must have been watching. Before he could find a bell push or signal his presence in any way, the door swung silently open, and he was welcomed by a yellow-robed monk, who saluted him with clasped hands.
“Ayu bowan, Dr. Morgan. The Mahanayake Thero will be glad to see you.”
14
The Education of Starglider
Extract from Starglider Summaries, First Edition, 2071:
“We now know that the interstellar spaceprobe generally referred to as Starglider is completely autonomous, operating according to general instructions programmed into it sixty thousand years ago. While it is cruising between suns, it uses its five-hundred-kilometer antenna to send information back to its base at a relatively slow rate, and to receive occasional updates from Starholme, to adopt the lovely name coined by the poet Llewellyn ap Cymru.
“While it is passing through a solar system, however, it is able to tap the energy of a sun, and so its rate of information transfer increases enormously. It also ‘recharges its batteries,’ to use a doubtless crude analogy. And because, like our own early Pioneers and Voyagers, it employs the gravitational fields of the heavenly bodies to deflect it from star to star, it will operate indefinitely unless mechanical failure or cosmic accident terminates its career.
“Centaurus was its eleventh port of call. After it had rounded our sun like a comet, its new course was aimed precisely at Tau Ceti, twelve light-years away. If there is anyone there, it will be ready to start its next conversation soon after A.D. 8100. . . .
“Starglider combines the functions of both ambassador and explorer. When, at the end of one of its millennial journeys, it discovers a technological culture, it makes friends with the natives and starts to trade information, in the only form of interstellar commerce that may ever be possible. Before it departs again on its endless voyage, after its brief transit of their solar system, Starglider gives the location of its home world—already awaiting a direct call from the newest member of the galactic communications network.
“In our case, we can take some pride in the fact that, even before it had transmitted any star charts, we had identified its parent sun and even beamed our first transmissions to it. Now we have only to wait one hundred and four years for an answer. How incredibly lucky we are, to have neighbors so close at hand!”
It was obvious from its first messages that Starglider understood the meaning of several thousand basic English and Chinese words, which it had deduced from an analysis of television, radio, and, especially, broadcast video-text services. But what it had picked up during its approach was a very unrepresentative sample from the whole spectrum of human culture; it contained little advanced science, still less advanced mathematics, and only a random selection of literature, music, and the visual arts.
Like any self-taught genius, therefore, Starglider had huge gaps in its education. On the principle that it was better to give too much than too little, as soon as contact was established, Starglider was presented with the Oxford English Dictionary, the Great Chinese Dictionary (Mandarin edition), and the Encyclopaedia Terrae. Their digital transmission required little more than fifty minutes, and it was notab
le that immediately thereafter Starglider was silent for almost four hours—its longest period off the air. When it resumed contact, its vocabulary was immensely enlarged, and more than ninety-nine percent of the time it could pass the Turing test with ease—that is, there was no way of telling from the messages received that Starglider was a machine, and not a highly intelligent human.
There were occasional giveaways—for example, incorrect use of ambiguous words, and the absence of emotional content in the dialogue. This was only to be expected; unlike advanced terrestrial computers, which could replicate the emotions of their builders, when necessary, Starglider’s feelings and desires were presumably those of a totally alien species, and therefore largely incomprehensible to man.
And, of course, vice versa. Starglider could understand precisely and completely what was meant by “the square on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares on the other two sides.” But it could scarcely have the faintest glimmer of what lay in Keats’s mind when he wrote:
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. . . .
Still less
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate. . . .
Nevertheless, in the hope of correcting this deficiency, Starglider was also presented with thousands of hours of music, drama, and scenes from terrestrial life, both human and otherwise. By general agreement, a certain amount of censorship was enforced here. Although mankind’s propensity for violence and warfare could hardly be denied (it was too late to recall the Encyclopaedia), only a few carefully selected examples were broadcast. And, until Starglider was safely out of range, the normal fare of the video networks was uncharacteristically bland.
For centuries—perhaps, indeed, until it had reached its next target—philosophers would be debating Starglider’s real understanding of human affairs and problems. But on one point there was no serious disagreement. The hundred days of its passage through the solar system altered irrevocably men’s views of the universe, its origin, and their place in it.
Human civilization could never be the same after Starglider had gone.
15
Bodhidharma
As the massive door, carved with intricate lotus patterns, clicked softly shut behind him, Morgan felt that he had entered another world. This was by no means the first time he had been on ground once sacred to some great religion. He had seen Notre-Dame, Hagia Sophia, Stonehenge, the Parthenon, Karnak, Saint Paul’s, and at least a dozen other major temples and mosques. But he had viewed them all as frozen relics of the past, splendid examples of art or engineering but with no relevance to the modern mind. The faiths that had created and sustained them had all passed into oblivion, though some had survived until well into the twenty-second century.
But here, it seemed, time had stood still. The hurricanes of history had blown past this lonely citadel of faith, leaving it unshaken. As they had done for three thousand years, the monks still prayed, and meditated, and watched the dawn.
During his walk across the worn flagstones of the courtyard, polished smooth by the feet of innumerable pilgrims, Morgan experienced a sudden and wholly uncharacteristic indecision. In the name of progress, he was attempting to destroy something ancient and noble; and something that he would never fully understand.
The sight of the great bronze bell, hanging in a campanile that grew out of the monastery wall, stopped Morgan in his tracks. Instantly, his engineer’s mind estimated its weight at not less than five tons, and it was obviously very old. How on earth . . . ?
The monk noticed his curiosity, and gave a smile of understanding.
“Two thousand years old,” he said. “It was a gift from Kalidasa the Accursed, which we felt it expedient not to refuse. According to legend, it took ten years to carry it up the mountain—and the lives of a hundred men.”
“When is it used?” asked Morgan, after he had digested this information.
“Because of its hateful origin, it is sounded only in time of disaster. I have never heard it, nor has any living man. It tolled once, without human aid, during the great earthquake of 2017. And the time before that was 1522, when the Iberian invaders burned the Temple of the Tooth and seized the Sacred Relic.”
“So after all that effort—it’s never been used?”
“Perhaps a dozen times in the last two thousand years. Kalidasa’s doom still lies upon it.”
That might be good religion, Morgan could not help thinking, but hardly sound economics. He wondered irreverently how many monks had succumbed to the temptation of tapping the bell, ever so gently, just to hear for themselves the unknown timbre of its forbidden voice. . . .
They were walking now past a huge boulder, up which a short flight of steps led to a gilded pavilion. This, Morgan realized, was the very summit of the mountain. He knew what the shrine was supposed to hold, but once again the monk enlightened him.
“The footprint,” he said. “The Muslims believed it was Adam’s; he stood here after he was expelled from Paradise. The Hindus attributed it to Siva or Saman. But to the Buddhists, of course, it was the imprint of the Enlightened One.”
“I notice your use of the past tense,” Morgan said in a carefully neutral voice. “What is the belief now?”
The monk’s face showed no emotion as he replied: “The Buddha was a man, like you and me. The impression in the rock—and it is very hard rock—is two meters long.”
That seemed to settle the matter, and Morgan had no further questions while he was led along a short cloister that ended at an open door. The monk knocked, but did not wait for any response as he waved the visitor to enter.
Morgan had half expected to find the Mahanayake Thero sitting cross-legged on a mat, probably surrounded by incense and chanting acolytes. There was, indeed, just a hint of incense in the chill air, but the chief incumbent of the Sri Kanda Maha Vihara sat behind a perfectly ordinary office desk equipped with standard display and memory units. The only unusual item in the room was the head of the Buddha, slightly larger than life, on a plinth in one corner. Morgan could not tell whether it was real or merely a projection.
Despite his conventional setting, there was little likelihood that the head of the monastery would be mistaken for any other type of executive. Quite apart from the inevitable yellow robe, the Mahanayake Thero had two features that, in this age, were extremely rare: he was completely bald, and he was wearing spectacles.
Both, Morgan assumed, were by deliberate choice. Since baldness could be so easily cured, that shining ivory dome must have been shaved or depilated. And he could not remember when he had last seen spectacles, except in historical recordings or dramas.
The combination was fascinating, and disconcerting. Morgan found it virtually impossible to guess the Mahanayake Thero’s age. It could be anything from a mature forty to a well-preserved eighty. And those lenses, transparent though they were, somehow concealed the thoughts and emotions behind them.
“Ayu bowan, Dr. Morgan,” said the High Priest, gesturing to the only empty chair. “This is my secretary, the Venerable Parakarma. I trust you won’t mind if he makes notes.”
“Of course not,” said Morgan, inclining his head toward the remaining occupant of the small room. He noticed that the younger monk had flowing hair and an impressive beard. Presumably, shaven pates were optional.
“So, Dr. Morgan,” the Mahanayake Thero continued, “you want our mountain.”
“I’m afraid so, Your—er—Reverence. Part of it, at any rate.”
“Out of all the world—these few hectares?”
“The choice is not ours, but Nature’s. The earth terminus has to be on the equator, and at the greatest possible altitude, where the low air density minimizes wind forces.”
“There are higher equatorial mountains in Africa and South America.”
Here we go again, Morgan thought, groaning silently. Bitter experience had taught him that it was a
lmost impossible to make laymen, however intelligent and interested, appreciate this problem, and he anticipated even less success with these monks. If only the earth were a nice, symmetrical body, with no dents and bumps in its gravitational field . . .
“Believe me,” he said fervently, “we’ve looked at all the alternatives. Cotopaxi and Mount Kenya—and even Kilimanjaro, though that’s three degrees south—would be fine except for one fatal flaw. When a satellite is established in the stationary orbit, it won’t stay exactly over the same spot. Because of gravitational irregularities, which I won’t go into, it will slowly drift along the equator. So all our synchronous satellites and space stations have to burn propellant to keep them on station. Luckily, the amount involved is quite small.
“But you can’t keep nudging millions of tons—especially when they’re in the form of slender rods tens of thousands of kilometers long—back into position. And there’s no need to. Fortunately for us—”
“Not for us,” interjected the Mahanayake Thero, almost throwing Morgan off his stride.
“—there are two stable points on the synchronous orbit. A satellite placed at them will stay there. It won’t drift away. Just as if it’s stuck at the bottom of an invisible valley . . .
“One of those points is out over the Pacific, so it’s no use to us. The other is directly above our heads.”
“Surely a few kilometers one way or the other would make no difference. There are other mountains in Taprobane.”
“None more than half the height of Sri Kanda—which brings us down to the level of critical wind forces. True, there are not many hurricanes exactly on the equator. But there are enough to endanger the structure, at its very weakest point.”
“We can control the winds.”
It was the first contribution the young secretary had made to the discussion, and Morgan looked at him with heightened interest.