Sean McMullen: Eight Miles

“How long have we been aloft?” he asked me.

“One hour and thirty minutes.”

“And what endurance have we?”

“Very little. The seal of the bag is imperfect—some hole that my crew missed—so hot air slowly leaks out. I balance that by stoking up the furnace and working the bellows, but the air is cold and thin up here, and it is using too much lamp oil.”

Gainsley scowled but did not argue. This was a ship, after a fashion, and I was the captain. He returned to his questioning of Angelica. The wind swung around and began to blow us back toward London. There was little for me to do, other than feed in hot air every so often to maintain height. I watched as Angelica became even more alert. She examined the magnetic compass, Gainsley’s pocket watch, and even the furnace. After studying the last-mentioned for some minutes and watching me at work, she gently pushed me aside, bled in some lamp oil, and applied herself to the bellows.

“Astounding,” I gasped. “She deduced its operation, merely from watching.”

“Very high intelligence,” said Gainsley.

“And an understanding of machines.”

Now Angelica scrutinised the barometer, where the mercury indicated that we had risen another quarter mile. To my complete astonishment she touched her finger to the new level of mercury.

“She understands the operation of this balloon as well as the altitude barometer,” I said. “Very few of my passengers could claim that.”

“Up here, in rarefied air, she is transformed,” Gainsley observed.

“How can this be?”

“Remember my theory, adaptive morphology? I think she comes from a civilization in very high mountains. Ascending into cool, thin air frees her mind from the effects of the sludge that we breathe.”

Finally, I declared that we would have to descend. By then Angelica had not spoken a single word, but she had demonstrated awesome intelligence. My balloon was one of the most advanced vehicles available, yet she understood its workings and instruments.

“Only four hours of exposure to the thin air, yet her brain cleared,” said Gainsley in triumph.

“She did not speak.”

“Yet she understood the balloon’s workings.”

“Her werefox race must have its own language,” I suggested.

It was at this point, just as we began our descent, that Angelica began tapping at the altitude barometer and making upward movements with her other hand. The part of the scale that she was indicating was for eight miles. This part of the scale was where I had marked uncalibrated altitude projections. She looked to me, her eyes alive and full of pleading. I held up the empty lamp oil barrel and shook my head. She seemed to comprehend, for she now sat quietly on the car’s wicker floor and closed her eyes, resigned to the oblivion of sea level.

Using the varying directions of the wind at different altitudes, I managed to steer us back over Gainsley’s estate, then bring us to earth just a mile from where we had ascended. Kelly and Feldman presently arrived with the waggon, then Gainsley’s groom brought a light carriage. He was quick to get Angelica into the carriage and away from sight, but with this done he returned to speak with me as I helped my men pack the balloon away.

“How high may we ascend?” he asked, “and how long may we stay there?”

“Hot air has its limitations,” I explained. “My balloon must carry its own fuel. Going higher means using more fuel. Using more fuel means less is left over to sustain the hot air and maintain our height.”

“Could you build a balloon to reach eight miles?”

I almost choked on my own gasp. The question was akin to asking whether a new type of gun could shoot a duck even more dead than dead.

“There is no point,” I replied. “Above five miles the air is so rarefied that one may not breathe.”

“But could you build a balloon to do it?”

“Using hydrogen, yes, but to what end? It would be our dead bodies that achieve the feat.”

“Then how high may we go?”

“I think you mean how high in safety. Four miles is my answer.”

“Why four?”

“Remember, the air thins as we ascend. I have ascended three and one half miles. It was distressing but endurable. My lips and those of my companion turned blue, and fatigue set in very quickly. Four miles is double what we achieved today.”

“Have others gone higher?”

“Yes. Some months ago the aeronauts Charles Green and Spencer Rush reached five miles. They found it near impossible to breathe, however, and consider themselves lucky to have survived.”

“Five miles. The height is comparable to the highest of mountains to the north of India.”

“So I have read.”

“So we too could do it?”

“Yes, but it would be appallingly dangerous.”

“I fought Napoleon, just a quarter century ago. How can this be more dangerous than trading volleys with his soldiers?”

“Death is death, whatever the cause. Why ascend five miles in search of it?”

“Because at four or five miles we may well clear Angelica’s mind to a greater degree. She may even be able to speak. Begin planning for another hot air flight tomorrow, but also draw up plans for a balloon filled with hydrogen.”

“Do you realise that hydrogen is even more volatile than gunpowder?”

“Of course, Mr. Parkes, I am a man of science. Send the bills for whatever you need to me.

“So am I to be kept in your employment?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, board and lodging, plus whatever rate you were earning by taking people on pleasure flights. The same for your men.”

That night I dreamed, and my dreams were lurid. My mind was filled with visions of vast, gleaming things that glided through blackness, and blossoms of fire that became twinkling clouds of glitter. I awoke, not so much distraught as puzzled. The dreams had become part of my memory. What was more confusing was that I had other memories that were not part of the dreams. There were splendid cities full of graceful crystalline towers and wide promenades, yet all of them were strewn with dead creatures. At first I thought that the bodies were of vermin, but many of them were wearing straps and belts, gold braid, ceremonial swords, and even helmets. Perhaps they had built the cities, these creatures that wore no clothes but fur. They closely resembled Angelica.

We made another dozen hot air ascents while the hydrogen bag was being fabricated. We did not manage much more in communicating with Angelica, but the visions continued to pour into my head every time we ascended. I said nothing, because practical men are not meant to have visions and I wanted to keep Gainsley’s trust. Would you travel on a ship whose captain said that he could see water sprites, mermaids, and harpies? I can only compare my visions to leafing through randomly chosen books in a library. I saw nothing of the whole picture, just snatches of fragments.

A gasworks at the edge of London provided the hydrogen, which saved the cost of buying a hydrogen reactor, and chemicals to fuel it. The first hydrogen flight saw us ascend from the city in the half-light before dawn. We remained at four miles for only a quarter hour, because Gainsley quickly weakened, then lost consciousness. I descended rapidly, and when he revived he confessed that his lungs had been weakened by some childhood disease. On the other hand Angelica had been vastly improved by even the brief exposure to the thin air, and had even scrawled some characters and diagrams on a notepad. Alas, we could make no sense of them.

On the way down I had a number of ideas. Gainsley had been complaining about his lungs preventing him from staying at four miles. I offered to take Angelica to five miles without him and report what she did, but he would not hear of it. Whatever she did, he wanted to be there to see it.