Article 23 Read Free

pillar of the Skyhook tower rising into space above them.
    "Here comes a car heading down," Matt said, and pointed.
    It took Justin several seconds to pick it out, a small white cylinder which quickly started to grow in size. For a brief instant Justin felt a moment of panic since it looked like the car was on their track and coming straight in for a head on collision. The car snapped past them on a parallel track and disappeared.
    The three settled into lounge chairs in the middle of the room to watch the show as every minute a downward-bound car shot past on the passenger track to their right. Every few minutes a heavy cargo pod whisked by on their left, loaded with several hundred tons of manufactured goods from space. Justin watched the pods go by, realizing just how those manufactured items from space were now so important back on Earth. The cars were loaded with high-grade plastisteel , a hundred times stronger than the old fashioned steel made on Earth, as well as drugs, ball bearings, computer chips, quartz holo cubes, and even the latest rages in the art world, sand cast sculptures from Mars and paintings from the Aquarius Three orbital colony, which was made up almost entirely of artists.
    Some of tile stuff those artists were putting out was beyond Justin's comprehension, but the galleries in New York, London, Moscow and Paris were all paying top dollar for it. Small communal colonies were setting up in space every month as groups of people, united by a wide variety of special interests, banded together, had a small orbital home built, and moved from Earth. There were art colonies, religious communities and monasteries, some rather weird cults and even one strange group who pretended they were characters from a popular old television and movie series from the late 20th century.
    A lot of older people were retiring to space as well, especially those with disabilities that would have slowed them down on Earth. At some of the colonies many people, born all the way back in the middle of the 20th century, were still going strong and having the time of their lives freed from the bonds of Earths gravity, aided by the new longevity drugs manufactured in space.
    "Here comes the five hundred kilometer station," Brian said. "We'd better get our seatbelts back on." Even as he spoke, the computer requested that all passengers return to their seats and buckle up.
    The station looked like a huge donut, over one-third of a kilometer across and set like a ring around the tower. Justin gulped hard as the car started a rapid deceleration down to just thirty kilometers per hour.
    As the speed dropped off Justin found that it was far easier to pick out details of the tower. The sides were coated with heavy plastisteel shielding. When the tower was built, tens of thousands of objects were still in low Earth orbit, most of it junk going back to the early days of space exploration. A lot of it had been swept up, but there were still occasional stray bits of material, bolts, parts of booster rockets, and supposedly even a camera and glove lost by an early American astronaut drifting around. Without the shielding, an impact could do some serious damage.
    Those satellites still in low Earth orbit were carefully routed around the tower, but it was better to be safe than lose a trillion-dollar investment. A battery of laser cannons had recently been installed at the station with the explanation that they could destroy any junk or small meteors that might threaten the tower. Another reason that no one talked about was fear that Trac raiders might show up again as they had seven years ago. Rather than destroy a colony or two, they might go for the tower and cripple the entire space program of Earth.
    The five hundred-kilometer station was the offloading point for crews working in low Earth orbit, and it was also a major tourist attraction. As they shifted over to the express track that cut straight through the station Justin caught a glimpse of