Sri Kanda, the Sacred Mountain, was the holiest place in the ancient land of Taprobane. It was also the only possible site for the most daring feat of engineering in Man's history - a Space elvator 50,000 kilometers high! Vannevar Morgan's visionary dream would link Earth to the stars - if a million technical, political, and monetary problems could be solved - and if the ages old order of monks atop Sri Kanda would ever allow their sanctuary to be profaned forever... Two thousand years earlier the mad King Kakidasa had fought the monks of Sri Kanda to create his own vision of glory - and paid with his life. Morgan faced the same struggle, and perhaps the same fate! This won the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for best novel in 1980.