Because her subjects, aliens and their ancient messages, were not like safely dead poets or scientists. They could turn up from wormholes unseen, demand the impossible—and out of the awe humans had for them, they could get it. No matter how crazy-dangerous. Awe, she thought, had a lot to do with awful.

In her headphones came the tinny controller voice: “Ready, check. Go.” Using her augmented binoculars, Rachel plucked their images out of the clearing far below. Tiny motes buzzing around, tended by the tech team. There were two main routes for climbing Everest, and she stood at 6.5 kilometers altitude along the southeast ridge, on the south side of Everest in Nepal. This was the technically easier route, with far more infrastructure in place. The chopper had found its flat zone near where the Lifters would land to refuel. Then they would attempt the peak in one straight shot.

Now. Filmy pink plumes vented from the Lifters of Fraq and Chen. They swooped up into the firmament with lofty grace. Just specks, from here.

Fraq described a helix wrapping around Chen, zooming past her. Like his helix about Rachel on the Plunge. Then he made a complicated move, sailing around her, then hovering so she could overtake. He made artful darting moves and arced away, spinning the Lifter somehow. Chen dared not imitate that, Rachel thought.

Abruptly he banked back toward her and zipped across, forcing the Lifter to its limits.

Madness, Rachel thought. Just the sort of swooping he had done when they fell from orbit. Why?

Yet somehow he had caught the imagination of the world. An alien embracing their most extreme sport! Videos of their drop-off moments reran everywhere.

Several had died attempting it since. Others came through, often with injuries. She had been lucky—and had enjoyed Fraq’s help along the way, with his bizarre maneuvers—but only afterward realized how risky it had been.

In their comfy lives, people needed risk as a stimulant. Soon enough, a milder version of the orbital plunge appeared. Earthers needed thrills.

Especially cool ones.

The Star Tower had begun offering “outer ascents” at a high price. People journeyed up the tower while attached to a moving chair outside—full view!

Their chairs were pulled just as the elevator cabin was, but at different speeds, according to the taste of the ascending tourist. The same ride downward supplied the return energy to help power the orbital tower itself, through electromagnetic induction harvesting. That gave the chair customers a muted thrill like orbitfall, but safe. Slo-mo thrills! Higher drop rates cost more, of course.

Ascents usually went one or two hundred kilometers up, to avoid too great a radiation exposure, because the trip could take days. Then they came down, taking the “outer descent” to witness the slow spectacle of the world’s blithe curvature. They had a small capsule that cost a fortune.

But several people a month still took the orbitfall. Some died. There had been heart attacks from the thrill alone. Further evidence, Rachel thought as she sucked in the thin air, of a culture with far too much time and money on its hands. A culture that needed new horizons, fresh perspectives, something worth giving themselves to. Instead, they gave their lives for pointless thrills.