h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello. Please ignore my previous story as no care was taken in throwing it together. Subsequently, it was crap. The following is my story proper. Enjoy...
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The pair had put a brave face on it, but they were obviously nervous. Excited beyond words, too, of course, but this was it - they were finally starting their journey. Well, that wasn't strictly true - their journey had begun when they had left home and travelled to Manila, but they knew that in a few minutes time, home would be more than just one day away.

They were still outside in the sticky air of Manila, but the cable station was edging closer as they shuffled along in the long line of passengers.

Nyar was still surprised at how unimpressive a sight the cable made. He had half expected to have been speechless on seeing one of the famous elevator cables, but in reality, he had had to stop himself from saying, 'is that it?' like some ignorant schoolboy. - The fact remained: the elevators were the single most ambitious engineering project ever undertaken in all of human history, and they had revolutionised local space travel. Just because you can only make out the first few hundred feet of a cable when viewed from its base didn't alter its greatness in history.

Rheyn had attempted to break the nervous silence a couple of times while they had been waiting to board an elevator car, but Nyar had let it close back around his words like a fog every time. He couldn't engage in conversation when he was nervous.

Their progress in the line had finally taken them into the cable station itself, and, Nyar saw, this was slightly more impressive. - The scale and precision of the elevator could be glimpsed at last. The station was a fairly large, circular building consisting of three tiers. In the central and lowest of the tiers lay the cable, suspended a few metres in the air - the bottom of the cable itself didn't actually connect with the ground of the station (or Earth, if you like), it was simply tethered. - 35,800 km of cable, 9 metres thick throughout, poised and balanced so perfectly, that it didn't need to touch the ground. Nyar was a little closer to understanding the significance of it.

They were standing on the highest tier which was at ground level, and was thronged with people all the way around. The next tier down was less packed, and a steady stream of people was emerging from a tunnel on the far side straight onto it.

'I think we queued for no reason,' said Nyar.

'What? Why do you think that?' said Rheyn, glad of the conversation at last.

'We seem to be on the visitors level, lots of people are waving and even more are wandering about aimlessly. Down there is where we want to be.'

'Well, there's an elevator car on that level, so you're probably right.'

They found their way down and meandered towards the car. It was mostly cylindrical in shape, apart from the curve of its back to accommodate the circular cable, and was currently hanging off the bottom of the cable awaiting its fill of passengers. A walkway was extended from the centre of the car in the third tier to meet the second, and people were busily flowing along it.

When they were half way across the walkway Nyar piped up, 'Well,' he said, 'we're coming up to the point of no return, any doubts?'

'We are indeed,' replied Rheyn, 'and no, I have none. You?'

'All the time, I've never been to the Luna before.'

'We've never left Earth for that matter, either of us.'

'Doesn't it bother you in the least?'

Rheyn shook his head, 'Not really,' he said, lying.

A few seconds later Nyar took in a deep breath and steadily crossed the threshold of the car. It consisted of three stories, each story had fifty rooms and an open lounge/viewing area and bar to sit at and watch the world grow smaller. It shouldn't have been called an elevator car, thought Nyar, a climbing hotel would have been more appropriate.

After finding a couple of rooms on the top floor, they positioned themselves as close as possible to the clear wall of the car.
Thirty minutes later the car made a slight shudder and slowly began its three day ascent to geostationary orbit.

As soon as the car had cleared the station the cable angled south on a barely detectable gradient and the car swung underneath accordingly. This was because the cable was the shape of a 'Y', flipped vertically so it straddled the equator and landed in both Manila in the Philippines and close to Broome in northwestern Australia. The point where the two strands joined was some 20,000 km up.

Their speed quickly built up to around 500 km an hour and Manila was already beginning to resemble a toy-town. A while later, every island of the Philippines was in view, Nyar and Rheyn's nervousness had already given way to wide-eyed wonderment.

But by far, the thing that caught their imagination the most was witnessing the line of shadow sweep across from east to west as the part of the world below them turned to night.

By the end of the first 24 hours, the car was at an altitude of 11,000 km and the view still fascinated them both. Nyar was perhaps slightly more enthusiastic about it than Rheyn had become, though. But Rheyn had secretly woken himself early to watch the dawn terminator travel westwards over the globe.

When they awoke on the 'morning' of the third and final day, Earth filled their vision. Even the most blasé passenger was glued to the transparent wall of the car for most of the morning.

It was a humbling moment for both Nyar and Rheyn, and they both had to stop themselves from bounding around the lounge like an excited child and crying like an over-emotional wreck every few minutes.

The car began to slow down as the last few thousand km of the cable got closer, and then, of course, gravity all but disappeared inside the car. Laughter rang out all throughout the top story as people experienced the lack of gravity. Nyar and Rheyn were, unashamedly, part of this frivolity, and all thoughts of how far away their homes were had abandoned them long ago.