The Prophet's Ladder

by Jonathan Williams

  Todd grimaced slightly. “Well, no, not really. Everyone’s been focusing on the solifuge deployment.” His eyes shifted slightly to the left, away from Karim towards a blank living room wall. “John…John Bolivar did express reservations about...about what we were doing… he thought we might be...hurting...our friends and family back home. In their wallets I mean. Financially.”

  Karim made a mental note. “ I see.”

  Todd began backpedaling. “But I’m sure...I’m sure he’s totally devoted to the mission, to the team. He wouldn’t be involved in anything like this. For God’s sake he’s been over for dinner here twice now, with his wife!”

  “Todd, there is no need to worry. No Al-Hatem employee will be harmed on my watch, God willing. I assure you.”

  “Alright… alright. Sorry Karim. I’m still a little out of it...a little jazzed up. I just need time to process all of this.” Todd rubbed the back of his neck, obviously perturbed.

  “Of course. I understand.” Karim stood up. “ In the meantime take a few days off, try to relax. We’ll keep an eye on the both of you, but please do not leave the Al-Hatem municipal boundaries.”

  Todd stood to shake his hand. Anne duplicated the gesture. “Thank you, Karim, for everything. I’ll check in on the solifuge mission updates from home.”

  “Good day to you both.” Karim departed with a rapid stride, but two of his security detail remained behind, inconspicuously flanking their apartment entrance from several meters on either side. The rattled couple shut the door behind him.

  “Well, shit,” muttered Anne. Todd didn’t say anything.

  ****

  The rocket was massive. They had named it Al-Rakiza, ‘the Pillar’, but it was known pejoratively as ‘Nur’s Big Blunder,’ amongst various news outlets. Some editorialists prone to crudity had used even more graphic language to describe the launch vehicle, comparing it to the sheikh’s phallus. The launch of a single Rakiza rocket cost upwards of $1 billion U.S. dollars, and was capable of carrying a 180 metric ton payload into geosynchronous orbit. Even with its massive third generation RocCosdyne engine, two additional solid rocket boosters were necessary to generate enough lift to push the monstrosity into space. The first launch of a Rakiza had liquefied the reinforced concrete launch pad beneath its bulk, the roar of its engines permanently deafening any creatures that were unfortunate enough to live within a ten-mile radius of the Al-Hatem spaceport. It had exploded halfway through its inaugural flight, showering down bits of debris across 300 square kilometers of the surrounding desert; no one had been aboard.

  They tried again a month later, and this time the Rakiza had succeeded where its predecessor had failed. The rocket did not soar as much as punch its way into the sky, a projectile possessed of a singular, almost demonic will.

  Behind the ship unspooled a thin, monofilament strand, coated in a heat resistant polymer, a patented resin designed to protect the strand as it was exposed to the rocket’s fiery exhaust. The substance had taken years of research and development to devise, and it was a multinational team of chemical engineers’ pride and joy, their greatest creation. The resin hardened and shed itself as scales from the thin strand after a time, leaving the wire to hang there, suspended; a glinting, shimmering strand several microns thick. International air traffic had to be permanently cleared around the line, a breathtaking feat in itself, costing scores of government lobbyists’ salaries and not a few politicians’ careers in the process.

  Al-Rakiza II entered the mesosphere and dropped its boosters, which would, after deploying parachutes, descend back to Earth for recovery and reuse, each shell capable of being reloaded with propellant. The ship continued to increase its velocity, arcing eastward, the onboard computer carefully adjusting the trajectory, laying in an intercept course with MSO-17993-L7. The rocket exited the mesosphere and entered the exosphere, dropping the first of its three stages in order to lessen its mass. Each of the stage’s four pieces used chemical thrusters to orient its fall away from the strand of wire that still trailed the vehicle, the interior spooling mechanism turning so rapidly that it needed to be artificially cooled even at this freezing height. The rocket was not so tall now, not as bulky, but its second stage motors were nearly as powerful as its first, though capable of superior thrust vectoring and more precise adjustments in Delta-V.

  Currently, the slight drag from the strand trailing through the atmosphere became noticeable, and this was where the superior power of the Rakiza rocket became evident. Despite its tail, the ship burned on a new orientation through the upper atmosphere and into space, fashioning a stable, geosynchronous orbit around the planet, equalizing periapsis and apoapsis, forming a perfect, circular garter about mother Earth.

  An opaque black dot grew closer and closer, only noticeable through the absence of a starfield: the asteroid. Several kilometers distant from its destination and closing fast, Al-Rakiza shed its second stage in two equal parts, unveiling a series of four smaller thrusters at its rear, each capable of independent orientation, rotation, and thrust. The nose cone also ejected away, the ship now displaying an immense grappling arm on its face, its very center containing a series of elaborate drill bits; all the while the monofilament thread unspooled behind it, neither slack nor fully taut. The asteroid approached, the smaller solifuge spiders visible as pockmarks or ticks on its scarred skin, the surface of the planetoid shifting from outright black to a greyish hue in the reflected light from Earth. Small RCS thrusters diminished the Rakiza’s velocity: thirty meters a second became twenty, became ten, then five, then two. A deep hole on the asteroid was visible, not naturally occurring but man-made, its depths excavated over many weeks by the team of robotic spiders. Surrounding the cavity like a silo was a trellis constructed of nonferrous, lightweight metal rods brought up from Earth by a series of cargo rocket deliveries.

  The ship burned its last few liters of fuel in order to correct its angle of approach and coasted, almost lazily, into the pit fashioned to contain its bulk, precisely dug so that the rim of the hole was equal to the rear hip of the rocket. The Rakiza used its grappling drill to secure a firm hold inside the asteroid. Hundreds of tiny nozzles, previously unnoticeable on the massive, hulking rocket’s frame, opened and began spraying the interior of the hole with chemical foam, the substance hardening upon contact with the vacuum of space, filling in every nook and cranny, permanently anchoring the ship to the orbiting asteroid. Here too the solifuge spiders sprung into action, connecting the stern of the ship to the docking lattice, disassembling the rocket motors. One automaton used its many cameras to inspect the tether itself, checking for any damage or abnormalities, the live feed of microscopic images beamed back down to Earth, reviewed by almost every Al-Hatem engineer, even those not directly assigned to the enterprise, for here the true beginnings of their impossible dream was made evident. The core of the space elevator had been fashioned.

  Over the next two months the spiders worked ceaselessly, under the careful supervision of the Al-Hatem teams back in the UAE who worked in six-hour shifts to ensure that the solifuges did not deviate from their mission one iota. The machines further secured the Rakiza to the asteroid, installing multiple redundant systems as they were shipped by rocket shuttle up from Earth, reinforcing the growing silo structure with sheets and bands of carbon nanotube material spun from the 3D printers carried in their abdomens. The assemblage began to look less and less like a structure derived from any human culture or aesthetic; more and more it resembled a burrowing spider’s mound, fibrous weaves coating its surface like a smooth, faux-organic dome. Were a casual observer from some hypothetical alien species to perceive the planetoid, they might believe the thing infested by some loathsome pest (this perhaps, not being far from the truth).

  Eventually, the solifuges completed the first phase of the great work. The tether was now fully connected to the asteroid, its counterweight, and was rotating about the Earth, remaining erect and completely vertical despite the stresses of the planet’s
atmosphere. It was a marvel, and all the peoples of the world observed with great interest. Even still, though the cable was an amazing feat of human ingenuity, it was still only a curiosity, for it yet served no practical purpose. The tether was still too thin, too fragile by far for any significant mass to travel its length, from Earth to the sky and space itself. Now the solifuges would address the true challenge, the greatest possible test of their abilities: increasing the mass and strength of the cable that stretched from the asteroid down to the Earth, as true spiders would of a hanging strand of web silk.

  Chapter 8

  1333 CE, India

  The court of Delhi was both foreign and familiar to Ibn Battuta all at once. The sight of courtiers in lavish robes and the chatter of innumerable government officials, sycophants, and petitioners was all quite mundane to the sightseer, who by now had voyaged the length and breadth of the inhabited world. He had trod upon countless lands and had met many a king and each had suffered him gladly, for few in his age could boast of such a distance journeyed. And yet, this place was different. The smells were truly foreign to him. Such a suffusion of spices and piquant scent; he had never breathed its like before. The sounds too were so unlike those of his native Morocco. Here there were musicians playing many stringed instruments that droned and warbled, also small bound drumskins upon which hands thumped and rapped in tight precision. All together it formed a melodious, cheerful tune that danced and flitted through the air like a hummingbird. Here too the court of Muhammad bin Tughluq, a Muslim Turk himself, hosted representatives of religions unfamiliar to the Maghrebi explorer. Jain ascetics, Hindu priests, even a Buddhist monk; all were permitted to confer with the sultan. It was a panoply of humanity: a colorful display of the sheer variety that encompassed the human condition. So many cultures as mighty rivers met their confluence here, in this corner of the world.

  Eventually, after a long procession of viziers and governors who bowed and scraped before bin Tughluq, Ibn Battuta was granted an audience with the sovereign. He was interrogated at length by the Sultan himself, who seemed an educated man, one particularly interested in the explorer’s encounters with the various Sufist schools found throughout the Dar al Islam. He answered all the monarch’s questions as graciously and eloquently as he could, for in truth Ibn Battuta fostered some hope of gaining employment here; it was rumored that the Sultan sought capable Muslims to administer his kingdom and paid them fabulous salaries for their work. After the interview, during a lull in the court’s activities Ibn Battuta observed one of the holy men, the Buddhist monk, stand up from his seat in a shaded corner of the palace courtyard, beneath an ancient fig tree. The monk, a barefoot young man in saffron robes, approached the Moroccan and bowed politely. In his hands he held what appeared to be prayer beads made of fragrant sandalwood.

  Shockingly, the monk began speaking in formal Arabic. “Peace be upon you, great traveler.”

  “And peace be with you. You speak Arabic!”

  The man grinned widely, his visage all the more noticeable for its lack of facial hair. “ I do. Does this surprise you?”

  “I must confess, it does. I did not think the language of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and our holy text would be known to those priests who are not of our religion.”

  “Well, it is the trader’s language, and the language of our ruler. It helps to be a polyglot in this land.”

  “Of course, of course. May I have your name, sir? I believe I am at a disadvantage in your hearing mine earlier, during my presentation to the Sultan.”

  “Certainly, master Battuta. My name is Saptna.”

  “It is a great pleasure to meet you, Saptna. May we sit?”

  The two men reclined by an ornate fountain, its flowing, sparkling waters cooling the ambient air about them, and they conversed well into the afternoon. Refreshments were brought to them by the Sultan’s servants on several occasions, though these they hardly touched, so deeply immersed were they in their discourse. They spoke of their respective travels, of the tenets of the monk’s Buddhist faith, its differences from—and similarities to— various aspects of Islamic philosophy.

  The conversation was enthralling and moving in turn, likened by Ibn Battuta to manna from heaven; a sustenance as refreshing as a seaside breeze on a hot summer day.

  “But your faith has no conception of God? You are an atheist? Surely not. Such a thing is indeed sinful. Who created the world then, if not the All-knowing, the most Supreme?”

  “We do not disavow or subscribe to there being one God or many. The Buddha taught that for all practical purposes it does not matter, that the universe and its worlds are eternal. Only that we are trapped in a pattern of cyclical rebirth, or Samsara, and in order to escape it, to lose ‘ourselves’ as it were, we must recognize the Four Noble Truths, as I’ve mentioned previously.

  “Yes, yes, life is suffering. Attachment to desire. I see, I see. Very interesting. You mentioned the concept of a ‘loss of self.’ This sounds very similar to certain Sufist teachings that I have studied at great length. In order to grow closer to God, many Sufists believe that when the individual self is lost, the universal self can be found. They seek a primordial state of being’ or the Fitra. In this way one is united with God.”

  “Truly? That sounds remarkably alike to my own understanding of a person obtaining enlightenment, as our teacher the Buddha has done.

  The dialogue went on, the two men comparing viewpoints and worldviews until eventually Saptna was forced to excuse himself so that he might perform his evening rites. Ibn Battuta retired to his guest room in the palace to pray and to reflect on what he had heard and said. The words of their conversation glowed in his memory like iron ingots pulled from a blacksmith’s forge; the potential was there to shape them into something lasting, something pure; a treasure. Though he knew in his heart he himself would remain a faithful Muslim, and despite feeling sorrow for Saptna’s ignorance of his creator, the monk’s philosophy remained an intriguing notion: alien and yet, containing an inkling—the hint— of something rather profound. This land beyond the Indus and its people was indeed proving to be more fascinating, more alluring, than he could possibly have imagined. How much further was there to go? What other beliefs, other nations of men, were there to discover? The explorer mused on such thoughts, as he often did, for some time.

  ****

  Karim Thawadi was a competent man, and a diligent employee. He had been in Sheikh Nur’s employ for over ten years, and he was very good at his job. Managing Al-Hatem Aerospace’s middle management took a certain kind of patience; the old comparison to herding cats did not go far enough. Not only were engineers, programmers, and scientists an especially demanding lot, Karim had the vast array of the employees’ cultural, linguistic, and religious considerations to contend with. Indeed it had taxed even his considerable abilities to manage these workers’ day-to-day affairs and also assist the sheikh with his various calendars, appointments, summits and meetings, though he did it without complaint and with assiduous care. Some observers would claim that he did the work of five men, and this was true, but Karim knew he was up to the task. He had the education (an MBA from a prestigious British university), he had the skillsets (fifteen years, Saudi Royal Guard), and now here he was, in a remote, hidden, underground bunker somewhere in the Empty Quarter, managing his wayward employees as per usual.

  ‘Managing’ in this specific instance was a euphemism of course. Ninety-nine percent of Al-Hatem employees had no idea this location even existed, let alone what went on inside its walls. The sheikh was the optimistic, visible face of the company. It was his vision that allowed the company to rise, quite literally, to the forefront of aviation and aerospace technology; it was he who procured the money to finance their endeavors; the work that inspired such hope not only for millions of Arabs in the region whose last ten centuries of history were fraught with embarrassment after embarrassment after ignoble defeat, but also for the billions of people worldwide who yearned for somethin
g greater, who believed in the capacity of humanity’s noble spirit. Karim, on the other hand, was the mechanic who serviced the greasy, grimy gears beneath the machine’s finished exterior, and sometimes, well.... sometimes that job required getting your hands dirty.

  “Once again, John, I would really appreciate your cooperation in this matter. Please tell me the location of the safehouse.”

  The bound man was strapped naked to a broad steel table. Electrodes were attached to his temples and genitals. His face was covered with a water soaked towel, and through it he ineffectually gasped for air.

  “I don’t fucking know what you’re talking about! You can’t do this to me! I’m an American citizen! I’m….”

  The searing jolt of electricity clamped John Bolivar’s jaw muscles shut, his teeth biting down painfully on his tongue. Karim let the high voltage course through the man’s body for several seconds before flicking the switch off. “I really don’t have time for this. We know agents of one or more branches of U.S. intelligence contacted you, and that you agreed to feed them information. I’m sure they provided you with the location of a safehouse in the event of your informant status being revealed. Your situation is now compromised. Tell me the location, and we’ll let you go.”

  John shook his head with rage. “You think I’ll tell you shit? You’re going to kill me no matter what I say! Why would you let me go after doing this to me? I’d tell the whole world if I get out of here. Fuck you.”

  Karim reached for the pitcher of ice water that rested on the wall-bolted workbench. He poured it carefully onto John’s face, waterboarding the man: a simple, popular method of torture, one employed by the Americans most recently in Iraq. He knew on an intellectual level that torture wasn’t an effective means of extracting relevant information from a prisoner, but he found the whole process provided some amount of stress relief; it was almost a form of meditation, or prayer. He would go to Hell, surely, if there were such a place, but this was his best work, his sacrifice for the greater good. John gasped for air, drowning and suffocating in the towel’s wet, clinging folds. Eventually, after his victim’s gasps diminished, he remove the towel, allowing the man to breathe again.