Modern science has a different explanation, and it’s not just that there is less air to breathe. Breathing consists of two processes. One is expiration, the expansion and deflation of the lungs that draws in and expels air. The other is gas exchange, where elements from the inhaled air pass through the delicate membranes of the inner lung and move into the blood that is being pumped through the lungs by our hearts.
Oxygen forms twenty per cent of Earth’s atmosphere, and powers most of our bodily functions. Gas exchange ensures an ample supply of oxygen into the blood, and expels our body’s waste product, carbon dioxide. And this is the key: the gas exchange is driven by differences in pressure.
Put very simply, there is less oxygen in the blood flowing through our lungs than exists in the inhaled air, and the difference in pressure forces the oxygen from the air into the blood, which is where we need it to be. (Likewise, the difference in pressure forces the carbon dioxide out of the blood and into the air in the lungs, which we then exhale.)
But as a climber ascends a mountain, even though the percentage of oxygen remains the same in the air, the overall air pressure coming into the lungs grows less; the pressure of the oxygen is less, and so the exchange of oxygen through the lung membranes slows, and less of it gets into the blood. And when that happens, bodily functions suffer.
The body has ways of coping with this. It can produce more red blood cells, which are particularly good at absorbing oxygen, to make up the difference. This is what happens during the ‘acclimatisation’ phase of climbing a mountain. If a climber goes slowly, and spends several days or a week or two at middle altitudes before going very high, their body has time to produce the extra red blood cells, and so is better prepared for thin air.
But there are limits. Regardless of acclimatisation, most climbers will begin to suffer severely above about seven thousand metres, where the air pressure, and hence the oxygen pressure, is less than half that of sea level. At this height, the body gets so little oxygen that it begins to waste away, effectively slowly dying, hence the name ‘the death zone’. And so most climbers at this point will use what is known as supplementary oxygen.
The climber wears a mask attached to a pressurised gas cylinder, inhaling an extra two or three litres of pure oxygen per minute. The mask is not sealed against the outer air, so the general pressure within the lungs remains the same, but nevertheless the oxygen flow increases the percentage of oxygen in the air reaching the lungs, which boosts the oxygen transfer process.
But individuals do vary. While most ascents of Everest, at eight thousand eight hundred and forty-eight metres, have been achieved using oxygen, several daring climbers in recent years have made the summit entirely under their own steam, using no supplementary oxygen at all. On the Wheel, climbers have reached as high as nine thousand five hundred metres unaided, but only in the greatest distress and at peril to their lives. It would be fair to say that the absolute limit for an unaided climber, no matter how fit or acclimatised, would be ten thousand metres, no more.
But interestingly, even with supplementary oxygen, the limit is not much higher, lying somewhere towards about thirteen thousand metres. At this height, air pressure drops to under ten per cent of sea level. Even with an oxygen mask, the pressure of gasses entering the lungs is now so low that no matter how high the oxygen percentage is, the pressure of it is less than the pressure of the oxygen already in the blood, and so the gas transfer process fails.
Indeed, it begins to reverse. Rather than oxygen flowing from the lungs to the blood, it begins to leak from the blood into the lungs, the prolonged effects of which would clearly be fatal. Of course, long before that point, a climber would have collapsed. Thirteen thousand metres is really only a theoretical upper limit. In practise, no one has climbed higher, using supplementary oxygen alone, than just over ten and half thousand metres, only a kilometre higher than the record of climbers going unaided.
How then does the Richman expedition seek to climb to twenty-five thousand metres? At the summit of the Wheel the air pressure is effectively zero, and an unprotected human, far from being able to breathe (and quite apart from the deadly cold) would find not only his blood evaporating through his lungs due to lack of pressure, but every fluid in his body likewise boiling and seeking to escape his very skin.
An awful fate. How to avoid it? Wear space suits, of course. But the real solution to the problem lies with that key word pressure once more.
Like astronauts in space, the climbers in Richman’s team, when they venture high on the mountain, will be wearing special pressurised suits. The exact pressure and ratio of oxygen inside these suits is yet to be determined (space-walking astronauts, for instance, breathe pure oxygen at one third atmospheric pressure) but the effect will be the same. By enclosing their bodies in airtight suits, they can maintain the air around them and hence in their lungs at a high enough pressure to ensure that oxygen can be easily absorbed into their blood. The fact that their suits will also protect them from the extreme cold of high altitude, and from the extreme solar radiation, is more a bonus than anything else. Pressure is the crucial function.
Now, the Richman expedition is not the first try this. Several expeditions in the late 1960s made similar attempts on the Wheel using full pressure suits. However, as the suits in question were rather primitive, the best height achieved was just over twelve thousand five hundred metres. This is impressive enough, being halfway up the mountain, and a record that stands to this day: and yet nevertheless a disappointment. It remains to be seen how high the Richman expedition will get, but it’s beyond doubt that their pressure suits represent a leap forwards in high-climbing technology.
To examine this, we must now pass to the laboratories of NASA and of their affiliate designers, the famous David Clark company …
6
ENTERTAINMENTS
Waiting for Rita when she returned to her apartment, propped up on a side table in the entry hall, was a gold-printed invitation. It read: Your presence is requested upon the Terrace this evening for a Carnival of Flame and Fireworks, and an Ascent of the Wheel. 7 pm. Dress warmly! And, hanging from a hook on the wall beside the table, a fashionable coat had magically appeared, full-length and fur-trimmed, accompanied by a matching pair of calf-high boots, and a fur-lined hat.
All of which, it turned out, when Rita tried them on, fitted her perfectly. And attired thusly (though only carrying the coat and hat) she duly set out at seven that night and climbed to the Atrium and then on upwards still to the Conservatory.
Her first glance through the glass walls out to the Terrace gave an impression of flames flickering and people moving about, but before going out she paused at the airlock doors to read the weather screen. The colour was green, the temperature minus eleven degrees Celsius, the wind no more than a breath. In other words, she thought, shrugging on the coat, it was as balmy a night as could be hoped for there on the Mount.
Donning the fur hat last of all, she passed through the doors and emerged onto the Terrace. The chill air nipped immediately at the bare skin of her face, but the sensation was delicious when the rest of her was so enfolded. And before her lay … why, it was like some lavish scene from Hollywood.
Fires burned everywhere, flaming bright in the freezing darkness. Some were great bonfire flares rearing from the tops of stone pillars, others were more comfortably sized blazes set in stone bowls around which couches were gathered, others again were tiny jets of coloured flame burning within lanterns or at the tips of candelabras set in alcoves. No corner of the Terrace was left unilluminated—not even the pool. Flames burned there too around the water’s edge, and in the middle, by some trick, fire even seemed to spring from the water itself.
All the fires were smokeless—presumably they were gas-fed—but there was just enough movement in the icy air to everywhere set the flames dancing and flaring, making the golden light across the Terrace undulate and shift hypnotically. And through this glow ran traces of steam that rose fro
m the heated waters of the pool, a gorgeous mist that shimmered and hid and revealed.
Through this wonderland strode Walter Richman, hands out to greet Rita. ‘How do you like it?’ he said, genuinely excited, it seemed, with a sweep of his arms to encompass the fires all about.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she replied quite honestly. ‘But I’d hate to see your gas bill.’
‘You’d be horrified, sure enough,’ he laughed. ‘But we have plenty in reserve in the tanks down at Base. The whole island gets its power from natural gas, as a matter of fact—an LNG carrier stops here every month or so to fill us up. Of course, we don’t light all these fires every night, and some of them are only temporary anyway—but this is how it will look for the big opening party, more or less.’
‘So, is this the ‘carnival of flame’ that was mentioned on the invitation?’
‘It’s the beginning of it, yes. The fireworks part is still to come.’
‘And an ‘ascent of the Wheel’? What on earth is that going to be?’
He shook his head. ‘All in good time. After dinner. Then you’ll see.’
He led her over to the others, who were grouped around a bar that stood near the eastern edge of the Terrace. A laid dinner table flanked by tall flaming pillars waited beyond. The position would by daylight have offered a stunning view of the Wheel, and for Rita an appalling one, for beyond the low parapet there was only the great plummet away to the sea, but for now, dimmed by the bright flames, both the fall and the mountain could only be guessed at in the shadows. Likewise, though the sky was clear, the stars were for the moment reduced to only pale echoes of the brilliant constellations that they had all witnessed last night in the Lightning Room.
Rita exchanged greetings with the others: Kushal, Madelaine, Clara and Eugene. The mood among them was much brighter than it had been at the terse lunch. No doubt the fantasy setting, and the expectation of the show to come, had something to do with that. And also, maybe, it was the addition of Richman to the group. Without him—there was no denying it—Rita and the others were a cast without the leading actor—there was an irritating irrelevance to everything they did and said. But with Richman present—and a cheerful, voluble Richman at that—there was a focus to it all.
Eventually they sat down to dinner. Rita was once again placed at her host’s right hand, and the billionaire was once again particularly solicitous towards her, asking all about her day and her exploration of the Observatory. In reply, she made no mention of her encounter with the cleaner, nor, when she spoke of the Cavern Pool, did she detect any change in Richman’s manner that might indicate he was aware of the incident, or of the woman’s firing.
‘I love that pool,’ he enthused. ‘I do twenty laps there most mornings, and then I warm-down with a few rounds of slow breaststroke through the tunnels. It’s wonderfully meditative.’
‘Was that the idea behind the design?’ Rita asked.
‘Oh yes. There’s nothing more calming then swimming inside a cave—I found that out years ago on some of my expeditions. The pool up here is fine and spectacular, but floating under an open sky is not the same as within a rock-bound space.’
‘You might be right.’
‘Of course, I do a hard run, five miles, in the Games Arena before the swim,’ Richman continued. ‘Have you visited there yet?’
Rita shook her head. ‘Not yet.’
He was briefly serious. ‘Your father. I understand. But I hope you can overcome your aversion—the Arena is truly a marvel, a tour de force in its own right. You mustn’t miss it.’
‘I’ll get there,’ she promised.
Even Kennedy, when the security chief appeared, seemed almost cheerful in the flame light. He arrived as the dinner plates were being cleared away by the waitress and bent to Richman’s ear to murmur a few quiet words, to which the billionaire nodded in satisfaction.
‘So how many people in the building right now, Kennedy?’ enquired Eugene from the end of the table, playing what appeared to be a familiar game with the security chief. ‘Must be a lot.’
Kennedy straightened. ‘Fifty-five. Get off your ass and go check it if you like.’
The IT expert laughed.
‘Why so many?’ Rita asked.
Kennedy gave her a glance. ‘Tonight’s show, of course. We’ve got the fireworks teams here, and, well, other specialists too. You’ll see.’
It was interesting. Watching him, it seemed to Rita that the intensity had gone from Kennedy’s eyes, but they remained sharp nonetheless, with no sense of coming down. Perhaps the security chief had other drugs to help cope with the after-effects.
‘Meanwhile, have you given Mr Richman your opinion of his art collection, yet?’ Kennedy asked her, a twitch of mockery on his lips. And in an aside to his employer he added, ‘I happened upon Ms Gausse in the Entrance Hall earlier today. She was especially interested in The Triumph of Death.’
‘Ah,’ said the billionaire.
‘An intriguing work,’ commented Kushal from across the table. ‘Though very grim. But no doubt the artist’s intent was to warn of the inevitability of death, and hence to say, enjoy life while you may, which is not so grim a message after all.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Richman agreed with a smile. ‘But it’s not quite what appeals to me. What I admire about the work—about most medieval art—is an understanding that I think modern society has largely lost. Namely, that pain and mortality are not meant to be strangers to us, but are in fact our most constant companions through life. Confronting them both, accepting them, striving in defiance of them, cheerfully, and in full knowledge of inevitable defeat, is the whole point of life. Otherwise, we really are just livestock, dumb and terrified, being herded by death towards the abattoir.’
‘Or victims upon a breaking wheel?’ Rita asked, for the billionaire was still watching her.
‘Or that,’ he nodded.
A recklessness took hold of Rita. ‘Of course, it must be easier to not fear death when you’re already so famous that no one will forget your name for generations, and when you leave behind a building like this one as a permanent legacy.’
He laughed. ‘Nothing is permanent, sure as hell not fame. As for this place, I don’t kid myself. As soon as I’m dead, my beloved children will flog it off as quick as they can to the highest bidder, if one can be found. Likely as not it’ll end up as a hotel for honeymooners, or a backpacker lodge for mountain climbers. But the running costs will ruin anyone who tries to maintain it, and so inevitably it’ll become neglected and run down, and eventually it’ll be abandoned. A hundred years from now, as regards this place at least, I’ll only be remembered as the fool who sank a fortune into a folly.’ His smile was winning. ‘The point, again, lies in not giving a shit about any of that. In my lifetime, whatever it takes, this place will shine, because I say that it will.’
There was more laughter around the table, but Rita had a sudden uneasy image of exactly what he was describing, of this same luxurious Terrace upon which they sat, but now all desolate and broken and covered in ice as the wind whistled over it. But the desolation wasn’t a century in the future, or fifty years, or even ten. It was sooner than that. Much sooner. Tempting fate, she thought. Richman, in his confidence, was tempting the fates.
‘But speaking of maintenance,’ the billionaire said abruptly, with an elaborate glance around, ‘what’s happened to the damn lighting up here?’ Taken aback, everyone looked. It seemed that, unobserved, the fires about the Terrace had been dying away. It must have been gradual, or surely someone at the table would have noticed, but now even the largest of the blazes dwindled to flickers, and night came to the Terrace. Overhead, the stars, barely visible earlier in the evening, were bright.
‘Is there a problem with the gas, I wonder?’ Kushal ventured.
But before anyone else could speak, a low thump detonated from somewhere below them; then, with a whistled shriek, something shot up from below the western rim of the Terrace
and climbed into the night, trailing sparks. High, high it rose against the pale backdrop of the Milky Way. Then—
BOOM. A golden flower exploded, flaring silver as it spread against the darkness, then frittered away in embers falling towards the distant sea.
‘Ah,’ said everyone around the table, and rose to their feet as one.
A fusillade of detonations followed, the fireworks launched apparently from lower balconies of the Observatory, so that the rockets leapt into view without warning from beneath the Terrace. First they filled only the western sky, but then the north and south, and finally to the east, so that the summit of the Mount soon seemed to be surrounded by a thunderstorm, the clouds formed of boiling smoke, the lightning flashing multi-coloured.
Richman was laughing. ‘This is only the beginning!’ he cried to them all. ‘Watch the rockets; follow the path they make!’
The starbursts were now confined to the eastern side of the Terrace. One by one, the rockets were arcing further and further away from the Observatory before they detonated, soaring ever deeper into the gulf of darkness that lay between the Mount and the Wheel.
Away, away went the starbursts, the gazes of everyone on the Terrace following, until there was an appreciable lag of a second or two between the blossom of the flower and the BOOM of its ignition. And then three seconds, then four. And now the starbursts were lonely showers of light out in the void, getting further away still. And also lower, descending gradually in the dark, explosion by explosion, until each starburst came below eye level.
Rita grasped it at last. The detonations were moving towards the Wheel, tracing a path, burst by burst, across ten kilometres of night.
Now indeed the rockets were no longer even being launched from the Mount. Dim flares of red on the surface of the ocean far below told of launches from what must be barges or boats moored there for the purpose. Fiery stalks marked each rocket’s ascent, reaching up to the middle airs between the Mount and the Wheel before the flowers bloomed.
The Rich Man’s House Page 22
