Pillar to the Sky by William R. Forstchen

was twilight, the sun setting to the left, the landscape to either side and the tops of clouds brilliant with reflected light, while straight above, the sky was shifting to blue and then dark indigo.
    It was a computer-generated vision of his dreams. He looked over at Eva and saw tears glistening in her eyes. Victoria had laid down her pad and sat in silence, watching the large video screen. The view shifted as if a passenger were looking out the window and the curvature of the earth was now noticeable, the glow of the atmosphere on the horizon giving way to a deeper indigo. The view shifted forward again, and then the screen was filled with a sea of stars beyond that pillar, which continued on straight up, ever upward, with no end in sight.
    The heavens above, a sea of stars, a full moon off to the right. But it was the stars that held Gary’s vision and dreams, and he, too, had tears in his eyes as if he were actually aboard that “car,” riding his dream to the heavens.
    The video suddenly came to an end.
    “With your help we are going to build that,” Franklin said, and his voice was actually touched with emotion. Gary turned away from the video screen and saw that Franklin was indeed filled with emotion. He chuckled a bit self-consciously.
    “Some of my IT guys put that together for me—promotion video when the time is right. A lot still to be added. Stopping at what they call ‘Five Hundred Mile Station,’ a tourist destination. Some really cool views from five hundred miles up that only astronauts had before. Then a stop at what they are calling ‘Geriatric One,’ at the 12,000-mile mark. Some interesting thoughts there about medical benefits of low gravity for the mobility impaired. Then on up to the top at geosynch orbit. They promise it will go viral when we use it for selling the program.”
    He looked to Eva, then Gary, and again gave that infectious laugh.
    “If it wouldn’t embarrass you later, I wish I had this cabin rigged for taking video. Your expressions right now are priceless.”
    He paused.
    “Well, actually I do have it rigged, but that is rather against the law if folks are filmed unaware … No, there are no hidden audio and such. I know some others in my position and in government who do that, but I hope you trust me on that.”
    “Trust him.”
    It was Erich, who apparently had woken up at some point.
    “I hate take offs,” Erich grumbled. “Bad memories of the time we wound up ditching in the North Sea. Then again, lucky we did: the Krauts were waiting for us where we were supposed to drop, and the other two teams were wiped out.”
    He shrugged, forcing a smile: it was a story that Gary had never heard about his war experiences, which he would try to prod out of him some day.
    “Ah, my friend, the usual?” Franklin asked, and Erich nodded, coming up to sit across the aisle from them, refusing Victoria’s offer of her seat and accepting the double Scotch handed to him by Franklin.
    Franklin sat back down, pausing to look at the video image, the sea of stars bisected by the tower that rose into infinity.
    “How do we do that?” Gary asked, staring at the screen filled with stars. “You saw the massacre we endured today at the Senate hearings. It is over with, at least in our lifetimes.”
    “That? Just a speed bump. NASA though a government agency—and dare I say the best of them all, along with our military who keep us free—does have friends in the private sector. Patriots, though that word sounds old-fashioned to some, who believe in dreams bigger than the narrow minds of a few who get elected for a few terms and then disappear without a trace in our history books. I have friends in a dozen different companies who kept projects alive when government funding was not there because they believed it was best for our country to keep those projects alive. So, my friends, just say I am one of those who still believe.”
    “And you are suggesting…?” Eva asked.
    “If the