Charles Sheffield - The Web Between The Worlds

Rob Merlin is the best engineer who has ever lived. He has designed a machine, called the "Spider," that can extrude graphite cables which enable him to build incredibly long bridges of great strength. His work comes to the attention of "The King of Heaven"--a man by the name of Darius Regulo who nearly owns the space mining business. Regulo doesn't like rockets. He doesn't like the energy wasted in getting them out of Earth's atmosphere and he envisions a space elevator that will reach from Earth to a synchronous orbit in space. A bridge to the stars that will allow materials to be transported to and from Earth without the expense of rocket launches. He wants Merlin to adapt his Spiders for work in space and to extrude silicon cables which will be much stronger than the graphite used on Earth.

Merlin is intrigued and agrees. While working on the project, he meets several people who make him think about his past. Merlin is an orphan. Both of his parents were scientists and they each died in accidents--his father in a lab fire and his mother in a plane crash--within a day of each other. The more contact Merlin has with the people connected to Regulo, the more convinced he becomes that his parents were murdered. But why? And who was responsible?



Read by William Roberts
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged