Ghosts of Engines Past (2 page)

“You have lost me, sir.”

“I have a theory, Mr Parkes. In my theory of adaptive morphology I assert that humans take other physical forms under extremes. For example in polar regions they may become seals if they dwell there too long.”

“The silkie legend of the Scots: people turning into seals.”

“Yes, and I think that extreme altitudes might render us into a form like that of Angelica.”

Gainsley's estate was not far to the north of London, and he sent his draught horses to draw my transport wagon there. Kelly and Feldman were my tending crew, and they spent most of the night setting the frame, and unpacking and checking the balloon itself. I was up two hours before dawn, adjusting my altitude barometer and installing it in the wicker car.

Inflating a balloon on the ground is not a problem. One has unlimited fuel to supply the hot air, and to keep that hot air maintained. Once aloft, it is a different matter. The little furnace in the wicker car is fuelled by lamp oil that the balloon must carry, so this oil must be used sparingly. It was the work of a half hour to inflate the bag sufficiently that it stood up by itself, then I sent word to the manor house that we were ready to ascend. Gainsley emerged with Angelica, leading her by a chain attached around her waist. She was dressed in the manner of a boy.

We rose very rapidly, drifting right over the roof of the manor house. The wind was southerly and very light, and the sky was clear. At first Gainsley made a big show of looking over the side and exclaiming at the sight of his estate, far below. He almost seemed to forget why we were there, and chattered about ascending with an artist next time, to have his lands painted from above. I had the barometer calibrated to display altitude in quarters of miles. At a mile and a half Gainsley suddenly remembered why he had paid for the ascent.

“A mile and one half, almost eight thousand feet,” he said, peering at my barometer.

“We are ascending slowly, at about five miles per hour,” I reported.

“Six minutes from the prescribed height,” he replied. “Angelica was apparently found at eleven thousand feet. Can you hold that altitude?”

“That I can, sir. Bleeding a little hot air from the balloon will reduce our buoyancy and stabilize our height.”

I released some hot air, and we continued to ascend but at a much slower rate. According to my barometer, we settled at twelve thousand feet. By my estimate we were drifting north north east at three miles per hour. The direction of the wind was different up here.

It was at this altitude that the visions began. Actually the term visions does not do them justice, they were more like memories that were not mine being implanted in my mind. I seemed to have walked beside canals built across deserts of red sand beneath an unnaturally dark blue sky with a pale and tiny sun. In the distance I could see a city, but it was more of a metropolis of immense crystals of saltpeter, feldspar and quartzite than like London.

I had paid Angelica no attention until now, being occupied with tending the furnace, checking the barometer, and monitoring the direction and progress of our drift relative to the ground. It was Gainsley who took me by the arm and pointed to her. Angelica had begun the ascent sitting on the floor of the wicker car, paying no heed to what was going on around her. Now she was on her feet, looking over the edge of the car. As I watched, she turned away and scrutinized my altitude barometer. For a full minute at least she stared at the mercury, then she raised a hand slowly before making a horizontal chopping motion.

“Sign language,” said Gainsley. “She is telling us that she understands what is happening. We have been rising, but now we have stopped.”

“More than that,” I said with a very odd prickle in my skin. “She understands my altitude barometer on first viewing.”

In London, at sea level, Angelica had showed not the slightest interest in the machines and furniture that surrounded her. Even the mechanics of doors were beyond her. Now she was able to read a barometer, and that ability was beyond ninety-nine in every hundred of my fellow Britons.

I noticed her eyes. For the first time they were alert, calculating, even intelligent.

“Angelica, can you hear me?” asked Gainsley.

At the sound of her assigned name she turned her head.

“Angelica, speak to me,” urged Gainsley. “Speak. Speak English, French, Hindi, anything.”

He put a hand to his ear, to signify that he expected an answer. Angelica did not reply.

At the pace of a slow walk we drifted over the countryside. Far below I could see farmhouses and other manors. Gainsley continued to coax and question Angelica. She proved disappointing. He showed her pictures of mountains, foxes and even a sketch of herself. She displayed vague interest, but did not speak.

“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 towards London. There was little for me to do, other than feed in hot air 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 scrutinized 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 of the time, 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 upwards 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 wagon, 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 to 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 realize 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 for you and your men, plus double our agreed rates for the flights because of the increased danger.”

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 gas works 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.

“If only I could make the ascent myself,” he sighed.

“Impossible. Even at four miles we are on borrowed time. You especially.”

“Green and Rush did it.”

“Only briefly. They were on borrowed time too.”

“Yet they lived.”

“They lived because they descended in haste. People must acclimatize slowly to very high altitudes. Mountaineers I have spoken to say that it takes weeks.”

“Find a way. Two hundred pounds, and I will pay for whatever you need.”

“Two hundred pounds, you say?” I exclaimed, both amazed and puzzled by his generosity.

“I do pledge that.”

“Then there may be a way. I have been reading about the nature of air, my lord. You may have heard of the experiments with glass jars and candles. Burn a candle in one, and it will go out when the oxygen is exhausted. Introduce a mouse to that depleted air, and it soon suffocates.”

“Explain further.”

“Suffocation interests me, being a balloonist. I performed this experiment, then I piped some pure oxygen into that depleted air. The mouse revived.”

Gainsley thought about this for some time, smiling and nodding every so often.

“How heavy is the mechanism for supplying oxygen?” he asked at last.

“I need a bigger reactor to supply enough oxygen for humans, but it need not be very heavy. Just a tank, some pipes, spigots, and a sealable chute.”

“Then build it, build it! I shall pay for the materials and labor.”

“And the two hundred pound bounty?”

“It is yours.”

The problem of staying alive at extreme altitudes occupied my mind a great deal in the days that followed. Oxygen is the essential ingredient of air that gives us life, yet it comprises only one part in five of air's volume. Provide air that is five parts in five oxygen, and one might well survive in much thinner air. I paid a visit to Darkington and Sons, Pneumatic Systems and Valves of Sheffield. Jeremy Darkington was about Gainsley's age, but he was dressed as a tradesman and spoke with a hybrid Yorkshire-Cockney accent. He was a skilled metalworker who had made good by supplying valves for steam trains.