THE FOUNTAINS OFPARADISEArthur C. Clarke

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ITHE PALACE

1Kalidasa

The crown grew heavier with each passing year. Whenthe Venerable Bodhidharma Mahanayake Thero hadso reluctantly!first placed it upon his head, PrinceKalidasa was surprised by its lightness. Now, twentyyears later, King Kalidasa gladly relinquished the jewel-encrusted band of gold, whenever court etiquetteallowed.

There was little of that here, upon the windsweptsummit of the rock fortress; few envoys or petitionerssought audience on its forbidding heights. Many ofthose who made the journey to Yakkagala turned backat the final ascent, through the very jaws of thecrouching lion, that seemed always about to spring fromthe face of the rock. An old king could never sit upon

this heaven-aspiring throne. One day, Kalidasa might betoo feeble to reach his own palace. But he doubted ifthat day would ever come; his many enemies wouldspare him the humiliations of age.

Those enemies were gathering now. He glancedtowards the north, as if he could already see the armiesof his half-brother, returning to claim the blood-stainedthrone of Taprobane. But that threat was still far off,across monsoon-riven seas; although Kalidasa put moretrust in his spies than his astrologers, it was comfortingto know that they agreed on this.

Malgara had waited almost twenty years, makinghis plans and gathering the support of foreign kings. Astill more patient and subtle enemy lay much nearer athand, forever watching from the southern sky. Theperfect cone of Sri Kanda, the Sacred Mountain,looked very close today, as it towered above thecentral plain. Since the beginning of history, it hadstruck awe into the heart of every man who saw it.Always, Kalidasa was aware of its brooding presence,and of the power that it symbolised.

And yet the Mahanayake Thero had no armies, noscreaming war elephants tossing brazen tusks as they

charged into battle. The High Priest was only an oldman in an orange robe, whose sole material possessionswere a begging bowl and a palm leaf to shield him fromthe sun. While the lesser monks and acolytes chantedthe scriptures around him, he merely sat in cross-leggedsilenceand somehow tampered with the destinies ofkings. It was very strange.

The air was so clear today that Kalidasa could seethe temple, dwarfed by distance to a tiny whitearrowhead on the very summit of Sri Kanda. It did notlook like any work of man, and it reminded the king ofthe still greater mountains he had glimpsed in his youth,when he had been half-guest, half-hostage at the courtof Mahinda the Great. All the giants that guardedMahindas empire bore such crests, formed of adazzling, crystalline substance for which there was noword in the language of Taprobane. The Hindusbelieved that it was a kind of water, magicallytransformed, but Kalidasa laughed at such superstitions.

That ivory gleam was only three days march awayone along the royal road, through forests and paddy-fields, two more up the winding stairway which he couldnever climb again, because at its end was the only

enemy he feared, and could not conquer. Sometimes heenvied the pilgrims, when he saw their torches markinga thin line of fire up the face of the mountain. Thehumblest beggar could greet that holy dawn and receivethe blessings of the gods; the ruler of all this land couldnot.

But he had his consolations, if only for a little while.There, guarded by moat and rampart, lay the pools andfountains and Pleasure Gardens on which he hadlavished the wealth of his kingdom. And when he wastired of these, there were the ladies of the rocktheones of flesh and blood, whom he summoned less andless frequentlyand the two hundred changelessimmortals with whom he often shared his thoughts,because there were no others he could trust.

Thunder boomed along the western sky. Kalidasaturned away from the brooding menace of the mountain,towards the distant hope of rain. The monsoon was latethis season; the artificial lakes that fed the islandscomplex irrigation system were almost empty. By thistime of year he should have seen the glint of water in themightiest of them allwhich, as he well knew, hissubjects still dared to call by his fathers name:

Paravana Samudra, the Sea of Paravana. It had beencompleted only thirty years ago, after generations oftoil. In happier days, young Prince Kalidasa had stoodproudly beside his father, when the great sluice-gateswere opened and the life-giving waters had poured outacross the thirsty land. In all the kingdom there was nolovelier sight than the gently rippling mirror of thatimmense, man-made lake, when it reflected the domesand spires of Ranapura, City of Goldthe ancientcapital which he had abandoned for his dream.

Once more the thunder rolled, but Kalidasa knewthat its promise was false. Even here, on the summit ofDemon Rock, the air hung still and lifeless; there werenone of the sudden, random gusts that heralded theonset of the monsoon. Before the rains came at last,famine might be added to his troubles.

Your Majesty, said the patient voice of the courtAdigar, the envoys are about to leave. They wish topay their respects.

Ah yes, those two pale ambassadors from acrossthe western ocean! He would be sorry to see them go,for they had brought news, in their abominableTaprobani, of many wondersthough none, they were

willing to admit, that equalled this fortress-palace in thesky.

Kalidasa turned his back upon the white-cappedmountain and the parched, shimmering landscape, andbegan to descend the granite steps to the audiencechamber. Behind him, the chamberlain and his aidesbore gifts of ivory and gems for the tall, proud men whowere waiting to say farewell. Soon they would carry thetreasures of Taprobane across the sea, to a cityyounger by centuries than Ranapura; and perhaps, for alittle while, divert the brooding thoughts of the EmperorHadrian.

* * *His robes a flare of orange against the white plaster ofthe temple walls, the Mahanayake Thero walked slowlyto the northern parapet. Far below lay the chequer-board of paddy-fields stretching from horizon tohorizon, the dark lines of irrigation channels, the bluegleam of the Paravana Samudraand, beyond thatinland sea, the sacred domes of Ranapura floating likeghostly bubbles, impossibly huge when one realisedtheir true distance. For thirty years he had watched that

ever-changing panorama, but he knew that he wouldnever grasp all the details of its fleeting complexity.Colours, boundaries altered with every seasonindeed, with every passing cloud. On the day that hetoo passed, thought Bodhidharma, he would still seesomething new.

Only one thing jarred in all this exquisitely patternedlandscape. Tiny though it appeared from this altitude,the grey boulder of Demon Rock seemed an alienintruder. Indeed, legend had it that Yakkagala was afragment of the herb-bearing Himalayan peak that themonkey god Hanuman had dropped, as he hastilycarried both medicine and mountain to his injuredcomrades, when the battles of the Ramayana wereover.

From this distance, of course, it was impossible tosee any details of Kalidasas folly, except for a faint linethat hinted at the outer rampart of the PleasureGardens. Yet once it had been experienced, such wasthe impact of Demon Rock that it was impossible toforget. The Mahanayake Thero could see inimagination, as clearly as if he stood between them, theimmense lions claws protruding from the sheer face of

the cliffwhile overhead loomed the battlements uponwhich, it was easy to believe, the accursed King stillwalked.

Thunder crashed down from above, rising swiftly tosuch a crescendo of power that it seemed to shake themountain itself. In a continuous, sustained concussion itraced across the sky, dwindling away into the east. Forlong seconds, echoes rolled around the rim of thehorizon. No-one could mistake this as any herald of thecoming rains; they were not scheduled for another threeweeks, and Monsoon Control was never in error bymore than twenty-four hours. When the reverberationshad died away, the Mahanayake turned to hiscompanion.

So much for dedicated re-entry corridors, hesaid, with slightly more annoyance than an exponent ofthe Dharma should permit himself. Did we get a meterreading?

The younger monk spoke briefly into his wristmicrophone, and waited for a reply.

Yesit peaked at a hundred and twenty. Thatsfive db above the previous record.

Send the usual protest to Kennedy or Gagarin

Control, whichever it is. On second thoughts, complainto them both. Not that it will make any difference, ofcourse.

As his eye traced the slowly dissolving vapour trailacross the sky, Bodhidharma Mahanayake Theroeighty-fifth of his namehad a sudden and most un-monkish fantasy. Kalidasa would have had a suitabletreatment for space-line operators who thought only ofdollars per kilo to orbit something that probablyinvolved impalement, or metal-shod elephants, orboiling oil.

But life, of course, had been so much simpler, twothousand years ago.

2The Engineer

His friends, whose numbers dwindled sadly every year,called him Johan. The world, when it remembered him,called him Raja. His full name epitomised five hundredyears of history; Johan Oliver de Alwis Sri Rajasinghe.

There had been a time when the tourists visiting theRock had sought him out with cameras and recorders,but now a whole generation knew nothing of the dayswhen he was the most familiar face in the solar system.He did not regret his past glory, for it had brought himthe gratitude of all mankind. But it had also brought vainregrets for the mistakes he had madeand sorrow forthe lives he had squandered, when a little more foresightor patience might have saved them. Of course, it waseasy now, in the perspective of history, to see what

should have been done to avert the Auckland Crisis, orto assemble the unwilling signatories of the Treaty ofSamarkand. To blame himself for the unavoidableerrors of the past was folly, yet there were times whenhis conscience hurt him more than the fading twinges ofthat old Patagonian bullet.

No-one had believed that his retirement would lastso long. Youll be back within six months, WorldPresident Chu had told him. Power is addictive.

Not to me, he had answered, truthfully enough.For power had come to him; he had never sought it.

And it had always been a very special, limited kind ofpoweradvisory, not executive. He was only SpecialAssistant (Acting Ambassador) for Political Affairs,directly responsible to President and Council, with astaff that never exceeded teneleven, if one includedARISTOTLE. (His console still had direct access toAris memory and processing banks, and they talked toeach other several times a year.) But towards the endthe Council had invariably accepted his advice, and theworld had given him much of the credit that should havegone to the unsung, unhonoured bureaucrats of thePeace Division.

And so it was Ambassador-at-Large Rajasinghewho got all the publicity, as he moved from one trouble-spot to another, massaging egos here, defusing crisesthere, and manipulating the truth with consummate skill.Never actually lying, of course; that would have beenfatal. Without Aris infallible memory, he could neverhave kept control of the intricate webs he wassometimes compelled to spin, that mankind might live inpeace. When he had begun to enjoy the game for itsown sake, it was time to quit.

That had been twenty years ago, and he had neverregretted his decision. Those who predicted thatboredom would succeed where the temptations ofpower had failed did not know their man or understandhis origins. He had gone back to the fields and forestsof his youth, and was living only a kilometre from thegreat, brooding rock that had dominated his childhood.Indeed, his villa was actually inside the wide moat thatsurrounded the Pleasure Gardens, and the fountains thatKalidasas architect had designed now splashed inJohans own courtyard, after a silence of two thousandyears. The water still flowed in the original stoneconduits; nothing had been changed, except that the

cisterns high up on the rock were now filled by electricpumps, not relays of sweating slaves.

Securing this history-drenched piece of land for hisretirement had given Johan more satisfaction thananything in his whole career, fulfilling a dream that hehad never really believed could come true. Theachievement had required all his diplomatic skills, plussome delicate blackmail in the Department ofArchaeology. Later, questions had been asked in theState Assembly; but fortunately not answered.

He was insulated from all but the most determinedtourists and students by an extension of the moat, andscreened from their gaze by a thick wall of mutatedAshoka trees, blazing with flowers throughout the year.The trees also supported several families of monkeys,who were amusing to watch but occasionally invadedthe villa and made off with any portable objects thattook their fancy. Then there would be a brief inter-species war with fire-crackers and recorded danger-cries that distressed the humans at least as much as thesimianswho would be back quickly enough, for theyhad long ago learned that no-one would really harmthem.

One of Taprobanes more outrageous sunsets wastransfiguring the western sky when the small electrotrikecame silently through the trees, and drew up beside thegranite columns of the portico. (Genuine Chola, fromthe late Ranapura Periodand therefore a completeanachronism here. But only Professor Sarath had evercommented on it; and he of course invariably did so.)

Through long and bitter experience, Rajasinghe hadlearned never to trust first impressions. but also never toignore them. He had half-expected that, like hisachievements, Vannevar Morgan would be a large,imposing man. Instead, the engineer was well belowaverage height, and at first glance might even have beencalled frail. That slender body, however, was all sinew,and the raven-black hair framed a face that lookedconsiderably younger than its fifty-one years. The videodisplay from Aris BIOG file had not done him justice; heshould have been a romantic poet, or a concert pianistor, perhaps, a great actor, holding thousands spell-bound by his skill. Rajasinghe knew power when hesaw it, for power had been his business; and it waspower that he was facing now. Beware of small men, hehad often told himselffor they are the movers and

shakers of the world.And with this thought there came the first flicker of

apprehension. Almost every week, old friends and oldenemies came to this remote spot, to exchange newsand to reminisce about the past. He welcomed suchvisits, for they gave a continuing pattern to his life. Yetalways he knew, to a high degree of accuracy, thepurpose of the meeting, and the ground that would becovered. But as far as Rajasinghe was aware, he andMorgan had no interests in common, beyond those ofany men in this day and age. They had never met, orhad any prior communication; indeed, he had barelyrecognised Morgans name. Still more unusual was thefact that the engineer had asked him to keep thismeeting confidential.

Though Rajasinghe had complied, it was with afeeling of resentment. There was no need, any more, forsecrecy in his peaceful life; the very last thing he wantednow was for some important mystery to impinge uponhis well-ordered existence. He had finished withSecurity for ever; ten years agoor was it even longer?his personal guards had been removed at his ownrequest. Yet what upset him most was not the mild

secrecy, but his own total bewilderment. The ChiefEngineer (Land) of the Terran ConstructionCorporation was not going to travel thousands ofkilometres merely to ask for his autograph, or toexpress the usual tourist platitudes. He must have comehere for some specific purposeand, try as he might,Rajasinghe was unable to imagine it.

Even in his days as a public servant, Rajasinghe hadnever had occasion to deal with TCC; its three divisionsLand, Sea, Spacehuge though they were, madeperhaps the least news of all the World Federationsspecialised bodies. Only when there was someresounding technical failure, or a head-on collision withan environmental or historical group, did TCC emergefrom the shadows. The last confrontation of this kindhad involved the Antarctic Pipelinethat miracle oftwenty-first-century engineering, built to pump fluidisedcoal from the vast polar deposits to the power plantsand factories of the world. In a mood of ecologicaleuphoria, TCC had proposed demolishing the lastremaining section of the pipeline and restoring the landto the penguins. Instantly there had been cries of protestfrom the industrial archaeologists, outraged at such

vandalism, and from the naturalists, who pointed outthat the penguins simply loved the abandoned pipeline.It had provided housing of a standard they had neverbefore enjoyed, and thus contributed to a populationexplosion that the killer whales could barely handle. SoTCC had surrendered without a fight.

Rajasinghe did not know if Morgan had beenassociated with this minor dbcle. It hardly mattered,since his name was now linked with TCCs greatesttriumph.

The Ultimate Bridge, it had been christened; andperhaps with justice. Rajasinghe had watched, with halfthe world, when the final section was lifted gentlyskywards by the Graf Zeppelinitself one of themarvels of the age. All the airships luxurious fittings hadbeen removed to save weight; the famous swimmingpool had been drained, and the reactors were pumpingtheir excess heat into the gas-bags to give extra lift. Itwas the first time that a dead-weight of more than athousand tons had ever been hoisted three kilometresstraight up into the sky, and everythingdoubtless tothe disappointment of millionshad gone without ahitch.

No ship would ever again pass the Pillars ofHercules without saluting the mightiest bridge that manhad ever builtor, in all probability, would ever build.The twin towers at the junction of Mediterranean andAtlantic were themselves the tallest structures in theworld, and faced each other across fifteen kilometres ofspaceempty, save for the incredible, delicate arch ofthe Gibraltar Bridge. It would be a privilege to meet theman who had conceived it; even though he was an hourlate.

My apologies, Ambassador, said Morgan as heclimbed out of the trike. I hope the delay hasntinconvenienced you.

Not at all; my time is my own. Youve eaten, Ihope?

Yeswhen they cancelled my Rome connexion,at least they gave me an excellent lunch.

Probably better than youd get at the HotelYakkagala. Ive arranged a room for the nightitsonly a kilometre from here. Im afraid well have topostpone our discussion until breakfast.

Morgan looked disappointed, but gave a shrug ofacquiescence. Well, Ive plenty of work to keep me

busy. I assume that the hotel has full executive facilitiesor at least a standard terminal.

Rajasinghe laughed. I wouldnt guarantee anythingmuch more sophisticated than a telephone. But I have abetter suggestion. In just over half-an-hour, Im takingsome friends to the Rock. Theres a son-et-lumireperformance that I strongly recommend, and yourevery welcome to join us.

He could tell that Morgan was hesitating, as he triedto think of a polite excuse.

Thats very kind of you, but I really must contactmy office.

You can use my console. I can promise youyoull find the show fascinating, and it only lasts an hour.Oh, Id forgottenyou dont want anyone to knowyoure here. Well, Ill introduce you as Doctor Smithfrom the University of Tasmania. Im sure my friendswont recognise you.

Rajasinghe had no intention of offending his visitor,but there was no mistaking Morgans brief flash ofirritation. The ex-diplomats instincts automatically cameinto play; he filed the reaction for future reference.

Im sure they wont, Morgan said, and

Rajasinghe noted the unmistakable tone of bitterness inhis voice. Doctor Smith would be fine. And nowif Imight use your console.

Interesting, thought Rajasinghe as he led his guestinto the villa, but probably not important. Provisionalhypothesis: Morgan was a frustrated, perhaps even adisappointed man. It was hard to see why, since he wasone of the leaders of his profession. What more couldhe want? There was one obvious answer; Rajasingheknew the symptoms well, if only because in his case thedisease had long since burned itself out.

Fame is the spur, he recited in the silence of histhoughts. How did the rest of it go? That lastinfirmity of noble mind. To scorn delights, andlive laborious days.

Yes, that might explain the discontent his still-sensitive antennae had detected. And he suddenlyrecalled that the immense rainbow linking Europe andAfrica was almost invariably called the Bridge occasionally the Gibraltar Bridge but neverMorgans Bridge.

Well, Rajasinghe thought to himself, if yourelooking for fame, Dr. Morgan, you wont find it here.

Then why in the name of a thousand yakkas have youcome to quiet little Taprobane?

Copyright

A Gollancz eBook

Copyright The Estate of Arthur C. Clarke 1978All rights reserved.

The right of Arthur C. Clarke to be identified as the author of thiswork has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 byGollanczThe Orion Publishing Group LtdOrion House5 Upper Saint Martins LaneLondon, WC2H 9EAAn Hachette UK Company

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the BritishLibrary.

ISBN 978 0 575 12176 8

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