‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ the climber replied in an irritated tone, ‘it’s getting damn hot down here now. Is it getting hotter up there?’
Kennedy raised a perplexed eyebrow. ‘No.’
‘Lucky you,’ was the muttered answer. ‘I’m moving on again.’
▲
Clara’s next report was yet another reversal in tone, suddenly fierce and vindicated.
‘There has been someone here,’ she declared. ‘There was another section out, almost four whole flights gone, and someone has strung a rope there, just like I’ve been doing higher up.’
‘See, I told you,’ said Kennedy. ‘You didn’t imagine those lights.’
‘Yes.’ A laugh came, somewhat unsteady, distorted through the speaker. ‘Thank god, thought I was going mad for a bit there.’
‘But there’s no other sign of who they were? Just the rope tied? Nothing else?’
‘No other sign. I suppose whoever it was must have given up at that point. No surprise, really—they still had about two kilometres to go to the top of the shaft; they probably thought the stairs were too damaged for them to make it. Strange they didn’t try to use the intercoms, though.’
‘Maybe they didn’t know the shaft intercoms run on Observatory power. They must have thought there was no point trying to call.’
‘I guess …’ But the confidence was gone from the climber’s voice once more, as if some disturbing realisation had come to her.
‘Everything all right, Clara?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing.’
‘What’s the number of the panel there, by the way?’
A pause. ‘I’m not looking at the numbers anymore, I told you that. Moving on.’
▲
‘Fuck, it’s getting hot in here,’ was the comment from the next intercom down. And truly, even through the distortions of the speaker, the climber below sounded flushed and out of breath.
‘Is it time you took another break?’ Kennedy enquired. ‘You’ve got water. Rest and have a drink.’
‘Descending shouldn’t be this hard,’ Clara was complaining, almost talking over the security chief. ‘Hard on the knees, yes, but it shouldn’t be so goddamn tiring. I’m glad this is nearly done.’
‘The heat,’ Kennedy said. ‘There’s no sign of a fire or anything below, is there?’
‘No, all dark down there. I wish it was dawn already, I might be able to see some light at the bottom, even just a bit, coming down the entrance tunnel. It’s only five hundred metres now.’
Kennedy said, ‘I know it doesn’t matter, but just for my sake, what’s the panel number there?’
‘It’s wrong, I can tell you that.’
‘But even so …’
‘It says ES26. Like I said, nonsense. I’m really at ES13, if my count is right.’
Kennedy didn’t speak for a moment, giving a look to Richman, and Rita was aware of a slow curdling of the mood in the Control Room.
‘Okay,’ the security chief said carefully. ‘Well, we’ll stand by for the next check-in.’
‘Roger that.’
And she was gone.
Richman was staring at Kennedy. ‘Is that mike off now? She can’t hear us?’
Kennedy nodded. ‘It’s off.’
‘Then what the hell is going on here? Has she been climbing up again without realising it? That rope she found—just like hers, she said. So is it hers? Has she doubled back on herself?’
Kennedy gave a worried shrug. ‘Hard to believe, but it would explain why the panel numbers haven’t made any sense, if she’s been going up and down all this time without realising it.’
‘But how could that happen, for Chrissake? I mean, I know it’s dark and all in there, but climbing up is not the same as going down! She’d have to be out of her head to not know the difference.’
‘Maybe she is.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve just been thinking. How is the elevator shaft ventilated, do you know?’
The billionaire fell silent a moment, struck by the notion. Then, ‘You think the air is bad down there? That she’s hallucinating?’
‘I know it can happen in old mine shafts,’ said Kennedy, ‘if there’s no air being pumped in. Carbon monoxide or other gasses that are heavier than air can sink to the lower levels, and anyone who enters there is immediately poisoned or suffocated. Is air pumped into this shaft, do you know?’
Richman pondered a moment. ‘There were a few issues during construction, I remember. Men fainting and so on. And some vents were dug laterally to help—but no air is actually pumped into either of the elevator shafts. They’re not like mine shafts, after all, they’re open at both the bottom and the top, so air circulates, it doesn’t get trapped.’
The security chief thought. ‘But if the quake did damage at the bottom, and sealed the lower end of this shaft, then the air could have gone stale down there. Or worse, exhaust gasses from the generators up here might be sinking down the shaft, making it downright deadly.’
Rita said, ‘So the lights she saw, they might really just have been a hallucination?’
‘Could be,’ said Kennedy.
‘You have to get her up, then! It’s dangerous down there, she might suffocate!’
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,’ Richman interjected. ‘We don’t know that yet. She sounds fine enough to me. The intercom numbers might genuinely be messed up, like she says, and someone else really might have climbed part of the way up and strung a rope. Let’s wait and see. We can’t talk to her now until she gets to the next panel anyway.’
‘There’s the walkie-talkie,’ said Rita.
‘Which is next to useless. I say we wait until the next panel and see how she is then. Okay?’
He was talking to Kennedy now, not to Rita, and the okay wasn’t a question, it was an order.
‘The next panel,’ the security chief nodded.
▲
There was a long wait. The clock on the wall ticked to three a.m. On the security video screen, Madelaine was out of her chair again and at the glass wall, staring out into the night on the Terrace. What could she see out there? Why didn’t she go to bed?
The intercom crackled, and then Clara’s voice came, angry. ‘What’s going on up there? Have you sent someone down behind me?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Kennedy.
‘I can see lights above me—a flashlight—way high up. Who is it? Who’s coming?’
Kennedy looked significantly at Richman—what more proof was needed?—and the billionaire raised a hand in surrender.
The security chief addressed the mike. ‘Listen to me, Clara, how does the air feel where you are? How’s your breathing? Normal?’
‘What? My breathing is fine. Who did you send down, I asked? Tell me!’
‘We haven’t sent anyone down. There’s no one above you, so I don’t know what lights you’re seeing, or if they’re even real. Here’s the thing, Clara, we’re worried that the air might be bad down there and that you might be getting disorientated. What’s the number on the panel you’re using now?’
‘The numbers again? I told you—’
‘Please, Clara. It’s important.’
‘Well, it’s ES27. But …’
Rita bowed her head: that confirmed it, the panel before had been ES26. The major-domo was climbing upwards now, not down. Worse, she was nowhere near the bottom, she was merely circling about at the halfway mark.
Kennedy said, ‘I see. Have you found any more collapsed sections with ropes already fixed? The same sort of rope that you’re using?’
‘How did you—?’
‘It’s your own rope, Clara. You’ve been wandering up and down the stairs without realising it for a while. You’ve become disorientated.’
‘Are you crazy? I’m fine.’
‘No, you’re not. We think you’re getting slowly poisoned. You’ve got to keep coming up now, and only up, to get out of the bad air.’
‘Not
a chance. I’m almost at the bottom, I’m not going all the way up again!’
‘You’re not at the bottom. You’ve been going backwards. You’re about halfway again.’
‘I’m … I’m not listening to this. You’ve got it all wrong. I’m going on down.’
‘No, Clara, don’t do that.’
‘I’ll report from the next panel. Goodbye.’
‘Clara? Clara?’
But there was no reply.
▲
There followed a long, anxious interval. Kennedy made repeated calls on the intercom and the walkie-talkie, but there was no response from the climber below. They had no choice but to wait.
At last the intercom burbled, and Clara was there, her tone curt. ‘I’m at ES09 now. Only four hundred and fifty metres to go.’
‘The panel actually says that?’ Kennedy enquired carefully.
‘Of course not, it says ES26, but I know where I am. I’m making good time, that last section was easy, though it’s getting hotter and hotter. I’ve dumped my pack to save on weight and effort. Just got the rope and the torch; that’s all I need now.’
ES26. So Clara was heading down again now. The worst option.
Kennedy was shaking his head. ‘You dumped your pack? I don’t think you should have done that. You need that water and food. And you’re going the wrong way. You have to come up.’
‘Rubbish.’
For the first time, Richman leaned forwards and spoke into the microphone. ‘Clara, it’s Walter here. Listen to me. You’re not thinking straight. It’s like … it’s like when you’re climbing, like you’re at eight thousand metres without oxygen and without acclimatising. You know how crazy climbers can get in situations like that, and they don’t even realise it, they think they’re fine. They’ll even climb up when they think they’re climbing down. You’ve seen it yourself, how climbers have to be talked down over the radio by people at base camp. That’s what’s happening here. We’re trying to talk you back up. You have to do as we say.’ The woman below wasn’t buying it. ‘I’ve been fucking oxygen-deprived, Walter, for real. Do you think I wouldn’t know if I was going through that again? You guys aren’t here. You can’t see what I see. I’m fine, I tell you. And I’m going on. It’s only a few hundred more metres. You’ll see soon enough.’
‘It’s a mistake,’ Richman said gravely.
But again, only silence answered.
▲
‘No. I won’t be doing that,’ said Richman.
Kennedy and Rita were staring at him. Half an hour had passed, more than time enough for the major-domo to have reached the next intercom panel, whichever direction she was headed. But Clara had not reported. Nor had she answered the walkie-talkie. It was clear then what had to be done. Someone had to go down the shaft to get her. But that someone would need climbing experience, which neither Kennedy nor Rita possessed, and that only left …
‘None of us are going down there,’ the billionaire added. ‘No matter what.’
‘She needs help!’ Rita insisted.
‘She does,’ Richman agreed stonily. ‘But we can’t offer it to her. She’s on her own.’
Kennedy was looking sternly unhappy. ‘Jesus, Walt. If she’s only halfway down—’
‘Don’t you get it?’ the billionaire cut him off. ‘It’s too dangerous. If the air is bad, then whoever goes down to help will end up just as confused. We don’t have any breathing equipment here. There are oxygen masks and cylinders in the Museum, but they aren’t charged. Why would they be?’
‘But to just leave her …’
‘It’s exactly like I said, when I talked about mountain climbing. She’s a climber disorientated at eight or nine thousand metres without oxygen, and we’re climbers a few thousand metres down who don’t have any oxygen either. We’d like to go and help, but we can’t, because if we go to the same altitude, we’ll be just as weak and confused as she is. It takes a team of four or five climbers at least, with oxygen or even altitude suits, to bring a stricken climber down from high up. To try it alone is as good as suicide. The same basic reasoning applies here.’
Rita struggled with various protests on her lips, but spoke none of them aloud. The argument was a sound one, even if she did not believe that it was soundness that made Richman refuse to attempt any rescue. At least, not soundness alone.
But was she going to volunteer to go down into that terrible pit? She was excused, of course, being no climber. But if she had in fact had climbing experience, would she dare go anyway?
‘We wait,’ Richman concluded. ‘We hope that she contacts us again, and then we do our best to convince her to come up. But that’s it.’
And the other two found they had nothing to say. On the security monitor, Rita noted distractedly, Madelaine had not moved apparently for perhaps over an hour, she was still at the windows, staring entranced out to the darkness.
▲
It was four thirty a.m. before Clara reported again. ‘I told you fools I was fine,’ came the voice, though it hardly sounded like the major-domo anymore, it had gone bitter and hectoring. ‘See, the panels have come right again, and this one says ES04. I’m only a hundred flights from the bottom now. Satisfied?’
‘Can you actually see the bottom then?’ Kennedy asked neutrally.
‘Not yet,’ came the voice, defensive. ‘It’s all dark still. But I can hear noises down there.’
‘Noises?’
‘People. Talking down there.’
‘Well then, if you shout down, they’ll hear you in turn. Have you tried that?’
‘No, no,’ said the climber evasively, ‘I don’t want to alarm anyone. I’ll wait.’
Kennedy shook his head sadly. ‘Clara, trust me, you’re not where you think you are.’
‘You’re lying! You’re trying to stop me getting to the bottom, getting out! Well, it won’t work. I’m going on—and I won’t call again until I’m down!’
Another click, then dead air.
Kennedy sighed.
‘Try calling the shaft again,’ Rita said, suffused with horror, ‘just to be sure. Even if she’s confused, she might really be hearing people from the bottom. They might answer, even if she won’t.’
The security chief sighed and shook his head, but punched ES into the intercom keypad.
Once more, no one answered.
▲
At five a.m., leaving Kennedy to man the intercom, Rita and Richman descended through the service tunnels to the top of the elevator shaft.
‘Because you never know,’ Rita had argued, aware of how desperate she was starting to sound. ‘If she’s completely delusional, she might have been climbing up for the last few hours. She might be in earshot of the top, or we might be able to see her. If she could hear us yelling, then maybe …’
So they went, and came to the concrete platform overlooking the immense drop into darkness. Peering over the edge as far as she dared, Rita could see nothing but the steel ladders and scaffolding veering away into nothingness. Richman, leaning out far more confidently over the rail then she would ever dare, apparently saw nothing either.
‘I’ll give a shout,’ he warned, and after Rita had stepped back a bit, he cupped his hands and bellowed, ‘Ahoy there! Clara! Can you hear me?’
The call ran echoing down the shaft, but to Rita’s ear it seemed to be quickly stifled, lost in the steady slow creep of air that rose from the depth of the pit. Richman called again, and again, and each time the noise vanished down into the darkness.
No response came.
‘You feel the air moving, right?’ Rita asked.
Richman moved his face experimentally. ‘Yes. Slowly. Rising up the shaft.’
She nodded. ‘But if that’s so, then how can the air down there be bad?’
‘You’re right.’ He considered a moment. ‘But then I was never sure the air was bad anyway. If it was carbon monoxide down there, Clara would be unconscious or dead already, for one. And any other gas or even a simple lack
of oxygen would disable her in time. But she’s not disabled. Something has got into her head, but she’s still moving fine.’
‘Then what is it?’
His eyes were dark. ‘I have no idea. But I know what Kushal would say, if he were here. He’d be quoting your book at me again.’
She stared. ‘You think the Wheel is behind this? You think the mountain has got into her mind?’
‘I’m not saying I believe that, no. But the rest of you seem to think such things are possible.’
Rita considered him narrowly. ‘But wait a minute: if you don’t believe the air is bad, then why won’t you go down and help her? What’s the real reason? Is it just that you’re too scared?’
But the billionaire didn’t rise. ‘The air might be bad, it might not be, breeze or no breeze, but until I know either way, I’d be a fool to take the risk. But feel free to go down if you want to try.’
And it took only a glance into the abyss, at the half-detached ladders dangling, knowing that worse waited further down, entire collapsed sections traversable now only by rope, for Rita to admit that no, she would not be going down.
‘Let’s go back up then,’ said Richman.
▲
Back in the control room, Kennedy was repeatedly dialling the shaft intercoms, in the hope that Clara might be passing by one as it rang.
‘Nothing?’ Rita asked.
‘Nothing. You guys?’
‘No luck either.’
They sat down to wait again.
Rita glanced at the security monitors. Madelaine had vanished from the Conservatory screen. No doubt, thought Rita, she had done the sensible thing at last, and gone off to get some sleep.
▲
It was nearing six a.m., just as the first hints of dawn would be paling the sky outside, that the next call from Clara finally came over the intercom.
The voice was scarcely identifiable anymore as the calm, unflappable woman that Rita had known these last few days. The major-domo sounded beaten and disconsolate, at wit’s end.
‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I should be at the bottom. I’ve gone down past five panels since the one I called from. So where is it?’
The Rich Man’s House Page 44
