A Visitor to the Future - 16 - Drop Anchor, Disembark
"How would you even go about building something like this?" I asked. The scale was almost inconceivable.
Tungsten floated forward - but he didn't seem to be using the wall or grips to kick off from - instead a faint whirring noise was audible from within his torso area.
"Quite simple really," he explained, "First, you require raw materials. Sending them up to orbit is terribly inefficient, so you identify asteroids that are particularly carbon-rich. Next, you send them to Earth by attaching large rockets to them. That whole process takes several years. Then it's just a matter of setting up factories and turning the raw carbon into carbon nanotubes, weaving them into the best form for the cable itself."
"Super simplified, but that's the compressed version, yes," said Sarkona, "I'll add that the Earth space elevator is one of the largest constructions ever made. Earth's size means the cable has to be very long."
I looked at the sheer size of the elevator cable in front of me, shrinking into the distance. "What if the cable breaks? Would the cable fall to Earth?"
"That depends on where the breakage occurs," said Tungsten, "The cable's centre of mass is outside Earth's atmosphere, so a break near the bottom would fling both the cable and Anchor Station out into space. A break near the top would result in the cable falling to Earth - anywhere in the middle would be a mixture of the two."
"And what about people underneath where the cable falls? What would happen to them?"
Tungsten chuckled. "The majority of the cable would simply burn up in the atmosphere. The maintenance stations and climbers are equipped with heat shielding and parachutes. Anything that might be a danger can also be destroyed by high-speed missiles - but that's ultimately not necessary, as this cable is so massive that it would take many hours to fall from orbit. Plenty of time to move everyone out of the way. I'm told that they do regular evacuation drills in the likely impact zones."
"I said before that the Consortium is very good at contingency planning! You should see the asteroid defence systems at some point too!" added Sarkona.
The way in which Tungsten talked about the subject with casual ease, he seemed utterly convinced there was no possible chance of anything going wrong.
"Look," said Antonia, "There are some smaller climbers going up and down the cable. What are they doing?"
"Maintenance drones!" said Tungsten, "Constantly checking for any issues in the cable. I'm surprised that you didn't notice them last time you came through."
"I was distracted," she replied, "It was my first time off Earth." At that she pointed widely at the view from the window, pausing briefly to take it in once more.
"Anyway, we should get moving," said Sarkona, "The climber will be heading down soon and it'll be a few days before it gets back up here again."
At that, we floated on our way.
_
The journey down the space elevator was largely uneventful - I looked over my notes, sampled more delicious food and listened to whoever had a story to tell. I was slowly realising that space travel involved a lot of waiting - I was going to have to pick up more hobbies or interests to keep myself occupied.
The elevator began to slow about halfway down the cable, and then as we passed through a delicate layer of clouds our destination became visible.
Nestled in the crook of the coastline was Anchor - the reason for the name now obvious. Seemingly perched on top of the water was a great mass of interconnected platforms which rose up around the elevator cable in a semi-circle. Even at this great distance I could see a great hive of activity - rockets, planes, and giant airships clamoured for airspace, and I could see naval vessels of all varieties docked at jetties and harbours. The depth of the city became clearer the closer we got - no layer greatly covered another layer, instead the various tiers fanned out like the leaves of a plant, with massive support pillars that seemed to impossibly hold them all up above the ocean. Each and every layer seemed to have a different architectural style - some buildings were integrated seamlessly into the layers themselves, and others were simply held up by them. I saw large parks and even a huge swimming pool that occupied entire layers as small helicopter-like drones carried people from one layer to another.
"Well, this is new," said Sarkona, impressed, "They've been busy the last twenty years!"
The climber continued to descend and drew us neatly into a circular building constructed around the base of the cable. And just like that, it was time to disembark.
"Well, now I see why this place is called Anchor,” I said, “An anchor of both sea and sky."
We walked out of the climber and into the building, which reminded me greatly of a train station, but something was missing - there were no people rushing about the place to catch trains - no, the atmosphere was calm and subdued.
The building opened up into a large plaza, where all manner of people went about their business. A ten-foot tall humanoid CI picked their way through the crowd as a bunch of joggers ran about them. There was a street performer playing a stringed instrument who had gathered quite a crowd, and an artist was painting a large mural of a seagull on the side of a wall. It was chaos - but comfortable chaos. Everyone seemed to be at ease and content. A warm sea breeze blew over the plaza, and the tang of salt made me think of beaches and sand. Tungsten was spinning around, attention captivated by everything around us. His attention was particularly fixed on the sky, and I was suddenly reminded that this was his first time on Earth. There was a huge difference between the enclosed space of the elevator as it descended and the sheer overwhelming nature of the open, blue sky. In time he became a little more composed and fell into step with us - but his mood, like the weather, remained sunny.
Antonia pointed out a small café and the four of us headed over there, taking a seat at a small table. The proprietor's accent was reminiscent of South African, and he put down his book to happily serve us each with a hot drink in a shallow ceramic cup and three melkterts. The hot drink was spicesnap, a ginger-like blend popularised on Earth within the last few decades.
"So," said Tungsten, "Before we all scatter to the winds I wondered if you might all be interested in taking the Anchor Challenge."
"Oh," said Antonia, "I didn't realise you were interested in living here?"
"I'm not," admitted Tungsten, "But I am interested in the challenge - which has come recommended highly to me as something which I would find very interesting indeed. Would you like to make it a group activity?"
"I'll admit I was curious when I read about it," said Sarkona, then turning to me, "You said you were interested too?"
I nodded, "I've been in Anchor less than an hour but I already feel like being able to stay here might be nice - even if it's just while I look around."
"Keeping your options open, I see! Very good," said Antonia, "Sure, I'm in!"
Tungsten nodded and brought out his projection disc to access the infranet, making gestures and navigating screens in Human. Shortly afterwards he dismissed it and announced that someone would be with us shortly.