I shift my bum a bit. I really should have asked to clean up a bit before all this. Not that a place where lammergeiers are is likely to be big on washrooms, judging from the state of some of the floors I’ve seen around here. I’m thinking through what the head geezer’s just told me. It might be true, but I very much doubt I’m being told the whole truth here.
And what am I supposed to do? I ask.
The head bird looks distinctly uncomfortable, and flaps its wings a bit. It’s dangerous, it says.
I’d kind of guessed that, I says urbanely, feeling pretty grown-up, thank you very much. What did you have in mind? I ask.
The lammergeier fixes me with its ice-black eyes. Going back up the fast-tower, it says. Only higher this time. (It stamps its feet, one after another, and the other birds do the same thing.) Much higher.
I sit back. Throats gone a bit dry.
You got a toilet I could use? I ask.
Looks like the whole bleeding fast-tower’s just packed with shafts. We’re here at the foot of another one. It’s bigger than the one I fell down; a lot bigger. This is the one in the centre of the tower and it must be easily half a kilometre across. Very faint light filters down from… blimey, I don’t know; hell of a far up, that’s for sure.
We are here courtesy of the war, the head bird tells me. Both sides think the other controls this space.
Oh really.
Yes; the fact they may be about to reach an accommodation shortly is another reason for there being a degree of urgency about the present situation.
The head bird is perched with his half-dozen pals on what looks like a peace of crumpled, soot-blackened missile wreckage near the centre of the shaft base. Other lammergeiers are flitting about the place through the shadows. The rock floor of the shaft looks like it used to be smooth but it’s all chipped and scarred now and littered with bits of broken machines. There’s a double set of rails leading in from the side of the shaft which is where we came from; there’s a big cavern there what looks like a museum of rocket flight or something; full of big sheds and mysterious bits of equipment and rusting missiles and big spherical tanks and telescopes and radar dishes and deflated silver balloons like discarded bolgounz.
I look straight up. Didn’t know you could get vertigo looking up.
This is the main shaft, the head bird says, and poses. Once it led to the stars.
I look up again and I can believe it. My head spins at the thought & I almost fall over.
The top of the fast-tower has been inaccessible for as long as anybody or anything can remember, the lammergeier tells me. Many attempts have been made, mostly in secret, to reach its heights. All have failed, as far as we know. It lifts up one foot and looks down at the bit of missile it’s perched on. You see some of the wreckage around you.
Uh-huh, I says. Something up there keeps shooting them down, yeah?
No; but there appears to be an armoured conical base to the tower’s upper reaches at about 20 kilometres which nobody has been able to penetrate.
I look round at all the missile wreckage. The authorities don’t usually let airplanes operate within the castle for fear of a crash weakening the structure, let alone missiles. You can’t help wondering what sort of damage has been done up there by all this wrecked hardware.
So? I says.
We have a final vacuum balloon, the lammergeier says.
A what?
A vacuum balloon, it repeats. Technically, a very strong impermeable membrane enclosing a high vacuum and fitted with a harness.
A harness, I said.
And we have some high-altitude breathing equipment.
You have, have you? I says. (and am thinkin, oh-oh…)
Yes, master Bascule. We are asking you to take the balloon up as far as you can and then climb some way beyond the level the balloon attains.
Is that possible? How far up we talking?
It is certainly possible, though not without risk. The altitude is approximately 20 kilometres.
Has anybody else been up that high?
They have.
They get back down again?
Yes, the lammergeier says, stamping from side to side again and flapping its wings out a bit. Several missions have attained such heights in the past.
What am I supposed to do up there?
You will be given a package to take with you. All you have to do is deliver it.
Where? Who to?
You will see when you get there. I can’t tell you any more.
If this is so urgent, how come you guys can’t do it? I ask, looking round at the other birds.
One of our number tried, the head bird says. We believe he is dead. Another was about to mount a second attempt just before you appeared but we were not very hopeful of success. The problem is that we cannot fly to a half of the altitude required, and once the balloon will rise no more simply walking up steps appears to be the best means of gaining height. We are not built for walking. You are.
I think about all this.
It is a simple task in a sense, the head lammergeier says, but without it the asura’s mission will surely fail. However, this is a dangerous undertaking. If you lack the courage to take it on then be sure that most humans would feel the same way. Probably the sensible thing to do is to turn it down. You are barely an adolescent, after all.
The head bird lowers his neck a little and looks round at his to nearest pals.
We ask too much, he says, sounding sorrowful. Come – and he starts to open his wings as if to fly away.
I swallow hard.
I’ll do it, I says.
Next original section
* * *
TRANSLATION – NINE – 4
Original text
Hoo-wee! I’m probably higher than anybody else in the whole wide world right now, excepting only the people in the fast-tower assuming there’s anybody up there of course.
The balloon is a great enormous shadow above me. I’m hanging under it by what looks like a pair of threads from a wispy net of more threads what loop over the big sphere. The lammergeiers strapped these three oxygen tanks to my chest and gave me this light little package to put on my back. I’ve got another mask on now, too.
& a bottle of water.
& warmer clothes.
& a torch,
& a knife.
& a headache, though that’s probably the least of my problems, but nevermind.
& I’ve got a parachute too, though that might have to go when I get a bit higher up.
The birds at the bottom of the shaft seemed to be in a bit of a hurry and I only got about 10 minutes of instruction on how to control the balloon while I was getting kitted out with the high-altitude clothing and stuff, but it boils down to using a couple of pairs of lines to pull hinged flaps like airbrakes which should steer me a bit, and (to control my speed of ascent) waiting for the balloon to slow down and then cutting off lengths of plastic tubing secured to the same threads holding me.
The lammergeiers brought the balloon out of a big shed in the cavern at the foot of the shaft; it ran on rails attached to the ceiling. The balloon is just a big sphere full of vacuum; it’s as simple as that. It looks greyish and according to the birds is made of some sort of stuff similar to the fabric of the castle, so it must be pretty strong. The threads were already draped over the balloon.
What if it busts? I asked, joking really, but the head bird looked kind of awkward and said something about other models with lighter balloons inside them not being up to the job and if it was going to burst it would be low down probably and they would give me a parachute for lower altitudes.
Anyway, not to worry I said, kind of wishing I hadn’t asked in the first place.
I got my flying lesson, they weighed me, then they gave me the various bits of stuff, strapped me in, pushed the balloon – with me hanging under it – along the rails out into the bottom of the shaft and along to just before where the rails ended. They attached the lengths of plastic tubing to the harness in front of me and that was us ready.
Good look, master Bascule, the head bird said. We wish you all the best.
Me too, I said, which might not have been very gracious, but at least it was true. Oh, and thanks for all your help, I said.