The Fountains of Paradise

He was insulated from all but the most determined tourists and students by an extension of the moat, and screened from their gaze by a thick wall of mutated Ashoka trees, blazing with flowers throughout the year. The trees also supported several families of monkeys, who were amusing to watch but occasionally invaded the villa and made off with any portable objects that took 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 the simians – who would be back quickly enough, for they had long ago learned that no-one would really harm them.

One of Taprobane's more outrageous sunsets was transfiguring the western sky when the small electrotrike came silently through the trees, and drew up beside the granite columns of the portico. (Genuine Chola, from the late Ranapura Period – and therefore a complete anachronism here. But only Professor Sarath had ever commented on it; and he of course invariably did so.)

Through long and bitter experience, Rajasinghe had learned never to trust first impressions, but also never to ignore them. He had half-expected that, like his achievements, Vannevar Morgan would be a large, imposing man. Instead, the engineer was well below average height, and at first glance might even have been called frail. That slender body, however, was all sinew, and the raven-black hair framed a face that looked considerably younger than its fifty-one years. The video display from Ari's BIOG file had not done him justice; he should have been a romantic poet, or a concert pianist – or, perhaps, a great actor, holding thousands spell-bound by his skill. Rajasinghe knew power when he saw it, for power had been his business; and it was power that he was facing now. Beware of small men, he had often told himself – for 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 old enemies came to this remote spot, to exchange news and to reminisce about the past. He welcomed such visits, for they gave a continuing pattern to his life. Yet always he knew, to a high degree of accuracy, the purpose of the meeting, and the ground that would be covered. But as far as Rajasinghe was aware, he and Morgan had no interests in common, beyond those of any men in this day and age. They had never met, or had any prior communication; indeed, he had barely recognised Morgan's name. Still more unusual was the fact that the engineer had asked him to keep this meeting confidential.

Though Rajasinghe had complied, it was with a feeling of resentment. There was no need, any more, for secrecy in his peaceful life; the very last thing he wanted now was for some important mystery to impinge upon his well-ordered existence. He had finished with Security for ever; ten years ago – or was it even longer? – his personal guards had been removed at his own request. Yet what upset him most was not the mild secrecy, but his own total bewilderment. The Chief Engineer (Land) of the Terran Construction Corporation was not going to travel thousands of kilometres merely to ask for his autograph, or to express the usual tourist platitudes. He must have come here for some specific purpose – and, try as he might, Rajasinghe was unable to imagine it.

Even in his days as a public servant, Rajasinghe had never had occasion to deal with TCC; its three divisions – Land, Sea, Space – huge though they were, made perhaps the least news of all the World Federation's specialised bodies. Only when there was some resounding technical failure, or a head-on collision with an environmental or historical group, did TCC emerge from the shadows. The last confrontation of this kind had involved the Antarctic Pipeline – that miracle of twenty-first-century engineering, built to pump fluidised coal from the vast polar deposits to the power plants and factories of the world. In a mood of ecological euphoria, TCC had proposed demolishing the last remaining section of the pipeline and restoring the land to the penguins. Instantly there had been cries of protest from the industrial archaeologists, outraged at such vandalism, and from the naturalists, who pointed out that the penguins simply loved the abandoned pipeline. It had provided housing of a standard they had never before enjoyed, and thus contributed to a population explosion that the killer whales could barely handle. So TCC had surrendered without a fight.

Rajasinghe did not know if Morgan had been associated with this minor débacle. It hardly mattered, since his name was now linked with TCC's greatest triumph.