of an ocean liner but built vertically.
An avatar appeared in the form of a black-and-white-suited butler who even sported a waxed moustache.
“Welcome to the Mediterranean Space Elevator. We have received special dispensation for a high-speed ascent to Haven for which you are required to be seated at certain times. If you would kindly follow me.”
Cheng and I looked at each other before following the hologram of the host down the spiral staircase to a lower lounge.
The room was shaped like a doughnut, as all five decks were, with the elevator cable running through the center of the whole capsule. On this floor, all the windows were slanted downward. It was filled with people sitting in chairs, all strapped in. I was beginning to have the feeling this was going to be quite a ride.
I seated myself in the chair, and a harness wormed its way disconcertingly around me, pulling me back into the seat.
Over the next few minutes, the final stragglers took their seats and settled in. I idly flicked through the safety briefing and videos on my HUD display. I could feel that same feeling of anticipation as when I was waiting for a passenger aircraft to begin accelerating to take off.
“Please stand by for high-speed ascent. Five, four, three, two…” a voice rang out over the PA system, “…one.”
I was thrust down into my seat as the elevator car surged upward. It slid out of the anchorage, and sunlight washed through the windows. This was nothing like the sedate journey of my first trip on the elevators. They wanted to get us up into space quickly. I felt like I was on an amusement park drop tower in reverse.
As we accelerated, the anchorage’s true shape took form below us. An artificial island shaped like a starfish was lined with runways on its arms, loading decks for cargo ships lying between them. As I watched, it struck me as strangely sedate, yet bustling—contradictory, I know.
We climbed higher and higher, the anchorage shrinking below us into the clear blue Mediterranean Sea. Distant land masses came into view, all looking pure and clean, far removed from some of the places I’d ended up in. All in all, I could have picked a hell of a lot of a worse way to travel.
Chapter 8
The Space Elevator
The elevator cable was thirty-six thousand kilometers long. Cars normally climbed it at an average of five hundred kilometers per hour into geostationary orbit, meaning it took around three days to get up to Haven. The cars going up and coming down would speed up and slow down, which helped control the oscillation of the cable, basically letting it swing back and forth to avoid hitting all the stuff that was flying around in orbit.
One little mistake in the AI controlling the swinging of the elevator cable and it would smash into one of the big space cities that orbited near it. It was a scary thought for a police officer who had cut his teeth on the Bohemian streets of London, Islington. It had never happened in the fifteen years the elevator had been running, but still, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the equator if the cable was cut—or, for that matter, in a car ascending or coming down.
I was no rocket scientist, but even I knew that the elevator hadn’t yet made it out far enough from Earth to reach what was effectively zero gravity. There was a hell of a difference between zero-g and being in free fall. The stuff maintaining orbit below us was subject to free fall because of Earth’s gravity but maintained enough velocity to not crash into it. Basically, anything in orbit was falling around the curve of the Earth. If we were to somehow fall out of the car, we wouldn’t have any horizontal velocity and gravity would carry us straight down—a long drop to a very messy end. The only consolation was that the vacuum outside would kill us in seconds. All in all, a pretty morbid thought.
That normally sedate experience of ascending the cable had been completely thrown out of the airlock this time. The
An avatar appeared in the form of a black-and-white-suited butler who even sported a waxed moustache.
“Welcome to the Mediterranean Space Elevator. We have received special dispensation for a high-speed ascent to Haven for which you are required to be seated at certain times. If you would kindly follow me.”
Cheng and I looked at each other before following the hologram of the host down the spiral staircase to a lower lounge.
The room was shaped like a doughnut, as all five decks were, with the elevator cable running through the center of the whole capsule. On this floor, all the windows were slanted downward. It was filled with people sitting in chairs, all strapped in. I was beginning to have the feeling this was going to be quite a ride.
I seated myself in the chair, and a harness wormed its way disconcertingly around me, pulling me back into the seat.
Over the next few minutes, the final stragglers took their seats and settled in. I idly flicked through the safety briefing and videos on my HUD display. I could feel that same feeling of anticipation as when I was waiting for a passenger aircraft to begin accelerating to take off.
“Please stand by for high-speed ascent. Five, four, three, two…” a voice rang out over the PA system, “…one.”
I was thrust down into my seat as the elevator car surged upward. It slid out of the anchorage, and sunlight washed through the windows. This was nothing like the sedate journey of my first trip on the elevators. They wanted to get us up into space quickly. I felt like I was on an amusement park drop tower in reverse.
As we accelerated, the anchorage’s true shape took form below us. An artificial island shaped like a starfish was lined with runways on its arms, loading decks for cargo ships lying between them. As I watched, it struck me as strangely sedate, yet bustling—contradictory, I know.
We climbed higher and higher, the anchorage shrinking below us into the clear blue Mediterranean Sea. Distant land masses came into view, all looking pure and clean, far removed from some of the places I’d ended up in. All in all, I could have picked a hell of a lot of a worse way to travel.
Chapter 8
The Space Elevator
The elevator cable was thirty-six thousand kilometers long. Cars normally climbed it at an average of five hundred kilometers per hour into geostationary orbit, meaning it took around three days to get up to Haven. The cars going up and coming down would speed up and slow down, which helped control the oscillation of the cable, basically letting it swing back and forth to avoid hitting all the stuff that was flying around in orbit.
One little mistake in the AI controlling the swinging of the elevator cable and it would smash into one of the big space cities that orbited near it. It was a scary thought for a police officer who had cut his teeth on the Bohemian streets of London, Islington. It had never happened in the fifteen years the elevator had been running, but still, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the equator if the cable was cut—or, for that matter, in a car ascending or coming down.
I was no rocket scientist, but even I knew that the elevator hadn’t yet made it out far enough from Earth to reach what was effectively zero gravity. There was a hell of a difference between zero-g and being in free fall. The stuff maintaining orbit below us was subject to free fall because of Earth’s gravity but maintained enough velocity to not crash into it. Basically, anything in orbit was falling around the curve of the Earth. If we were to somehow fall out of the car, we wouldn’t have any horizontal velocity and gravity would carry us straight down—a long drop to a very messy end. The only consolation was that the vacuum outside would kill us in seconds. All in all, a pretty morbid thought.
That normally sedate experience of ascending the cable had been completely thrown out of the airlock this time. The
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