The Tower of Mount Everest

Jeff Lattimer felt like a man who just received a new lease on life. The stay in the hospital was just what he had needed to get back on track. He had been so close to the project for so long, under such pressure, and so tired that he hadn’t been able to mentally function. The results had been almost catastrophic. Deaths, equipment ruined, and bad publicity. Cal Malone was doing everything he could to get a scoop... and he had sources he was paying to give him information. With Richard Treinwood off his back, Lattimer was able to focus entirely on the project, unfettered by the usual time pressures and strain he had been subjected to in the past.

“How’s it going, Jose?” Lattimer yells into his microphone from Tubicle One on top of Mount Everest.

“We’re doing great, boss, just great,” Jose says. “Those new engineers seem to know what they’re doing. Mr. Treinwood made a good choice.”

“Of course he did,” says Lattimer. “He picked us didn’t he?” Jose laughs. “So what’s the timetable for mooring four, Jose?”

“Craig Randolph’s men are curing the final tube section as we speak,” Jose replies.

Lattimer leans back in his chair and puts his feet up on his desk. “Then we should be ready to go aerial as early as tomorrow morning.”

“Absolutely, boss,” says Jose.

“The raising of the tower begins officially tomorrow,” says Lattimer. He holds the tip of his nose as he contemplates the significance of the moment. “This is a milestone,” he thinks to himself. He puts his feet down and sits up in his chair. “You know, this might be a good time to have another PR meeting. Keep up the good work, Jose. I’ll give Treinwood a call and see what he wants to do. Call me the minute mooring four is ready, ok?”

“Yeah, boss, will do. Bye.”

Lattimer hangs up and presses in the quick start number for Treinwood’s office. He puts his feet back on the desk and leans back again. “Yes, is Richard in, this is Lattimer... Yes, I’ll hold.” Lattimer swivels his chair back and forth in time with the music playing on the radio. After a few minutes, he hears a voice on the line. “Richard? This is Jeff. Listen, I have some good news for you! The last mooring is curing and should be ready for use by tomorrow morning. I see this as kind of a milestone, the actual beginning of the tower. What do you think?” Lattimer listens intently to what Treinwood is saying. “Yes, I know it’s just some holes in the ground right now, but...,” Treinwood interrupts him. Lattimer begins nodding his head in irritation as he continues listening. “Ok, Richard, you’re the PR man. I’ll let you know when we get the first hundred feet on her. Although it’ll be pretty obvious, just by looking out your window.” Treinwood continues speaking. “WHAAT!?” says Lattimer as he puts his feet down on the floor. “You want me to keep the first hundred feet under wraps? At 29,000 feet!? How do you propose I do that, Richard, with plastic wrap? Do you realize there’s a jet stream up here? The wind is thin, to be sure, but at 100 miles and hour or more, any plastic wrap is gonna have a hard time staying in place, don’t you think?” Lattimer listens to Treinwood’s response. “Listen, Richard... when PR involves getting more men killed, I don’t call that good PR, do you?” Lattimer continues listening. “I think you need to call a meeting and discuss this with the other investors. If you want, I’ll hold off doing any aerial work until I hear from you, ok? You can reach me on my pager or cell phone when you decide what you want to do. In the meantime, I’ll plan on doing aerial work tomorrow.” Suddenly a “light bulb” turns on in Lattimer’s head and he almost jumps out of his chair. “Hey, I’ve got it! Tell me what you think about this idea, Richard!”

“How is the curing going, Craig?” asks Jose. Both men are wearing space suits, talking to each other through microphones. It is nightfall on Mount Everest and the temperature is rapidly falling.

“As far as we can tell, the heat from curing and the protective cap are working,” Randolph says. “However, we won’t be 100% sure of the mooring’s integrity until it can be stress-tested, and the only sure fire way of doing that is to weld a few tower leg sections together, say 100 feet or so.”

“How are the tower leg subassemblies coming along?” asks Jose.

“They’re ready for welding,” Randolph says. “But again, we can’t be sure they’re safe either until on-site stress tests can be evaluated.”

“I know, I know,” sighs Jose. “So many untested variables, so much uncertainty!”

“Your friend, Dr. Lattimer, has some mighty big kahunas, taking on a project of this magnitude!” says Randolph.

“I know he does,” says Jose, “but if anybody can pull this off, Dr. Lattimer can!”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” says Randolph. An awful lot of men have died up here already. I don’t want one of my men to be next.”

Jose wishes he could respond to Randolph with words of reassurance, but he realizes just how hollow and patronizing they would sound at this point. Randolph was right. Too many men had died already.

“Boss, boss are you all right?” Jose has walked into Tubicle One to find Lattimer, arms crossed, lying face down on the desk console. Jose shakes him. “Boss, boss you ok?”

Lattimer mumbles and rises up slowly. Eyes glazed and half-open he looks around the room and finally focuses on Jose. He begins to stretch and yawn.

“What time is it, Jose?”

“It’s almost eight o’clock! Man, are you at it again, boss? Don’t you remember what happened the last time you did this kind of stuff?”

“Yeah, I know, Jose, I know,” he yawns. “But this is the only way I’m ever gonna get this thing built!” Jose shakes his head in disbelief.

“You won’t get this thing built if you land yourself in the looney bin!”

“Why don’ you do something useful and fix us some coffee, ok? I have to go online in 10 minutes,” mumbles Lattimer.

“Ok, boss, ok, coming right up.” Jose fusses, like a mother trying to deal with a wayward teenager.

Lattimer stumbles into the bathroom and splashes water on his face. He looks into the mirror at his bloodshot, swollen eyes and the stubble on his face. He lowers his head in disgust.

“I got to do something about this!” he says under his breath. He dries his face and begins shaving with an electric razor.

“Boss, boss where are you?” asks Jose.

“In the bathroom!” says Lattimer.

“Boss! You don’t have time to shave, you go on in just a few minutes! Here, give me that coffee, thanks,” says Lattimer. “Listen Jose, run interference for me, ok? I’ll be presentable and coherent in about five minutes.”

“Ok, boss,” Jose, sighs, dropping his hands to his sides in exasperation as he walks away towards the main computer terminal. At 8:00 A.M. on the dot, Jose turns the viewing screen from one-way to two-way viewing, allowing anyone else online to see him. The blank rectangles on the screen begin filling up quickly with the faces of the employees. After all, no one wants to pay a late fee when all they have to do is simply show up. Jose looks at his watch.

“We have some people who are going to be late,” he chirps melodically. A few moments later all the rectangles are filled with faces, some of which are less than happy. Several rectangles become highlighted in red. Jose clicks on one with his computer mouse.

“Yes Mr. Simons, what is it today?” asks Jose.

“Where is Dr. Lattimer?” Simons asks. “How come it’s all right for him to be late to these meetings?” A number of the faces nod in agreement.

Jose just shrugs and smiles, “Dr. Lattimer is a very busy man, Señor. You know, he works day and night on this project. In fact, he was up again all last night. Were you up all night last night, Mr. Simons?” Simons, already frowning, squints his eyes. “I didn’t think so,” says Jose.

Lattimer walks briskly into the room and whispers, “Thank you, Jose for keeping everybody in line for me.”

Jose smiles and nods at Lattimer, then, gets up to let him sit down. He takes a chair next to him, just out of range of the viewing screen, and casually begins drinking his coffee.

“I have an announcement for you today!” Lattimer says cheerily, speaking directly to the people on the screen. “We’re getting ready to have a “top-of-the-summit” party!” Everyone is stunned, completely caught off guard by this comment. Soon the red highlights begin popping up all over the screen. Lattimer holds his hand up like a policemen directing traffic. “Whoa! Hold up with the questions! Give me a chance to explain, ok? I talked with Richard Treinwood yesterday and we both decided that it was time for another shot of PR. So, we’re going to have another press conference, this time on top of the mountain.” Most of the red lights go off, but several others come on. Lattimer clicks on one of them. “Yes, Mr. Jenkins?”

“Just what are you gonna show them they don’t already know about? Those holes in the mountain?”

Lattimer turns to Jose and chuckles slightly. “Believe it or not, that is exactly what Richard asked me yesterday. I finally agreed with him. We’ve got to show them more than just holes. So here’s what we’re gonna do folks...”

It has been one week since Lattimer’s “top of the summit” announcement. He could have gone aerial the very next day but Treinwood insisted on waiting a week to give reporters and V.I.P’s an opportunity to witness the event on site. The sun is just beginning to rise, casting a pinkish iridescent glow over the northern face of Everest.

“I’m having trouble getting a good signal down here,” says Calvin Malone at the pressurized boarding station of the tram leading to Lower New Everest.

“Turn up your gain a little more,” says the voice on the other end.

Irritated, Malone snaps, “Well, whatever you snot-nosed kids are calling it these days, just fix it ok? Blasted kids!” Malone snorts to his associate at upper New Everest, “Yeah, that’s a little better. Wait, you overshot, bring it back just a little. That’s better. STOP! Got it!” Calvin sighs. “I wish I could be up there right now.”

“Hey, you shot off all your ammunition a long time ago, Cal!” says his cameraman, Brad Collins.

“Yeah, I know,” Calvin lights his pipe and takes a few puffs while looking up at the mountain. “What I don’t understand is what’s up there, anyway? Our satellite shows very little architecture to justify all the activity that’s been going on up there. If you ask me this is just some kind of media ploy to renew interest in a moribund project. They’re just looking for suckers to pour still more money into that rat hole up there. Trouble is, when government gets involved, it’s our money that gets poured!”

“I know what you mean, Calvin. That’s why we’re here, you know? To expose these guys for what they really are.”

Calvin continues eyeing the mountain.

“Yeah,” says Calvin, “but how do you do that when they’re up there and we’re stuck down here? Wait a minute!” He cocks his head, clasping his headset and turns to look at his partner. “We’re getting some kind of activity up there!”

Brad looks alarmed. “What kind of activity, Cal?”

Cal holds up his hand to interrupt Brad and looking down, begins listenly more intently to the kid on the other end of the line.

“You say WHAT!” Cal gets excited and starts pointing his finger at Brad, then, at an equipment bag. “We got a pair of binoculars somewhere in there... get em out, right now!” he hisses. “Quick, hurry!”

Brad, eyes wide open, turns and stumbles as he hurries to open the bag. He unzips it and begins fumbling through the equipment, looking for binoculars.

“Hurry! Hurry!” Cal says, waving his free hand toward himself. Brad finds the binoculars. As he hurries back, he suddenly stops dead in his tracks and drops his arms, dumbfounded at what he is seeing on the news monitor sitting next to Cal. “Hurry up, give me those binocs, now!”

Brad suddenly awakes from his trance and hands Cal the binocs. Then he goes back to viewing the monitor, mouth agape in complete astonishment. What he is seeing is nothing short of unbelievable! As if by magic, a slender black cylindrical column is slowly rising out of the top of Mount Everest! He turns to look directly at the mountain. The column is large enough to see it clearly, even without the monitor! Cal realizes this and slowly lowers the binoculars, gazing directly at the fantastic spectacle that is unfolding before his very eyes. The pipe drops from his mouth. For once in his life, he is speechless. He cranes forward, squinting his eyes in disbelief, then, blinks them open again. The two men turn to look at each other. They cannot believe what they are seeing. Cal turns some more to see the general reaction of the other people on the ground next to him. They are all spellbound, transfixed by the awesome sight. The cylinder, roughly 30 feet in diameter, is rising up at a rate of 10 feet/second. In just five seconds, a 50-foot tall cylinder has elevated itself above the tallest mountain in the world! Then, the men receive an even greater shock. Two incredibly massive cylinders, 100 feet in diameter begin rising right after it, equally spaced apart from the smaller cylinder but at a slightly lower altitude. One is coming out of the northeast ridge and the other is coming out of the west ridge. Out of the field of vision, a third column has also risen out of the southeast ridge. A flurry of activity begins to take place within the tram depot.

“Call in a helicopter,” says Cal. “See if you can get a better fix on all those columns up there. Are there any more? What about the other side of the mountain?” Cal removes his headset. “What in the hey is going on up there, anyhow?” Suddenly he remembers what the young guard had said about a tower. “Why three towers?” he asks himself.

The reporters are practically frothing at the mouth trying to get a handle on just what all of this means. The lack of answers, coupled with the mysterious columns is just what the PR doctor ordered. But it wasn’t over yet. After just one hour had passed, the columns began to move again at the same rate as before! Brad taps the dozing Cal on the shoulder who instinctively turns around to look at the mountain again.

“What the hey, they’re doing it again!” says Cal. But this time, the view is even more spectacular! The upper column sections (curing tubicles) were moving away from lower, hidden sections, revealing a smooth, polished column composed of an intricate lattice network that reflects sunlight like a million tiny mirrors. The visual display is a photojournalist’s dream come true. The gigantic tripodal legs of the tower continue growing out from each of the ridges, 250 feet away from the summit, 10 feet per second, until they are equal in height to the central column, which is now 100 feet above the summit.

“What’s that coming off of them?” asks Brad.

Cal raises his binoculars and stares intently at the top of the columns.

“Incredible!” he whispers, and turns to share the information with Brad. “They just unrolled decorative banners from the tops of each column!” Cal shakes his head in resignation, like a vanquished warrior forced to give his conqueror his due. “I have to hand it to these guys... they’ve got style!” He shakes his head again and smiles. “Incredible! Absolutely incredible!”

“So what do we do now, Cal?” asks Brad.

Cal just smiles at him, “What we always do, Brad. Watch history in the making!”

What Cal Malone and the others had just witnessed was an incredible feat of engineering. The first thing they saw were the curing tubicles crawling over the first fifty-foot legs of the columns that were embedded in the ridges or hidden beneath the summit. The motorized pinion gears used by the tubicles to crawl over the outer gear racks also had cowls attached to them to create a ratcheting action. The curing tubicles could travel up, but never back down. The next set of subassemblies were then placed into the tubicles and allowed to cure. This process took at least one hour. More curing time would have been better, but Lattimer and company had a show to put on, so up they went! The second, more spectacular section of columns that shown brilliantly down on the spectators over 7 miles away were the second, fifty-foot sections of the actual tower and summit columns. These columns had a computer-generated, “flow-thru” lattice-like texture that reduced wind resistance to less than 20% of that expected from a solid, hollow wall. In fact, the wind that passed into the core of each column was redirected back against the incoming wind, producing eddies and turbulence that actually provided additional support to the columns!

The crews waste no time securing the gigantic columns together, beginning with a temporary cable mooring at 50 feet above the summit. The “can” elevators crawl up the interior of each structure, carrying a crew of men with them. They climb down the exterior of the columns using ladder rungs formed within an indentation on the outside of each structure, secure themselves to the rungs via a safety rope, and lower themselves down as needed.

In the future, the 30-foot diameter utility shaft would house five alloy composite-embedded space elevator shafts, each 10 feet in diameter, beginning at Upper New Everest with a stop-off at Everest Heights. Someday, these pressurized, heated elevators would carry passengers all the way to the top of the tower so they could enter spaceships bound for Terra I or perhaps even the moon itself! But for now, it is all the men can do just to lash the four columns together before any ensuing weather can tear them apart.

Ideally, the outer legs would have been telescoped out much more slowly; stopping to lash them together every 50 feet once “line of sight” was established between them. But Lattimer and Treinwood could not afford to be conservative at this point. They needed to put on a show to impress would-be investors… and what a show it was! Lattimer had picked a day to unveil his tower when the wind was not blowing. But the weather was unpredictable, and he knew the sooner they got everything secured, the better off they would be.

“How’s it going up there, Jose?” Lattimer says through his microphone, standing in an airlock in Tubicle One with only an oxygen mask on, shivering, looking up at the bottom of the utility elevator, well over 100 feet above his head.

Jose, fully suited up, is standing on the utility elevator three feet from the top of the newly elongated central column.

“The wind’s starting to pick up out here, boss. It’s kicking up a lot of snow, making it hard to see. We got one cable secured. They missed the second cable shot so we’re retrieving it right now,” says Jose.

“Don’t worry about retrieving anything right now, Jose. Just have them shoot another one across. We’ve got to get this thing secured as soon as possible!”

“OK, boss, will do!” shouts Jose.

Lattimer slips back into the airlock attached to Tubicle One, motivated by the knowledge that a 1000 pound elevator car is sitting 100 feet above his head and a roughly 4,000 foot vertical drop-off is just inches away. He enters Tubicle One after pressurizing the airlock and sits down at the computer console to monitor the cable mooring activities. He cups his hands and blows on them, then, rubs them vigorously together to warm them up.

“Get a grip, Lattimer!” he says to himself, shivering. “Why risk your neck talking to Jose in an elevator shaft when you can do the same thing right here at the monitor?” He crosses his legs, swivels his chair, and begins using his computer mouse to open up a variety of video cam windows on the monitor. Almost surreptiously, he clicks on one inactive window to monitor a recording of the “goings-on” at the tram depot. As he casually flips from one cam to the next, his interest suddenly piques when he spies Calvin Malone talking to Brad Collins. He suddenly remembers how this man had publicly humiliated him on the mountain. He stops the cam, rewinds the scene and turns up the volume to eavesdrop on the two men.

He hears Calvin saying, “I have to hand it to these guys... they’ve got style! Incredible! Absolutely incredible!”

“So what do we do now, Cal?”

“What we always do, Brad. Watch history in the making!” Lattimer smiles and inactivates the window.

“And so you shall, Mr. Malone, so you shall!” Lattimer was tired. But then again, Lattimer was always tired. He got his sleep wherever he could find it. Before he knew it, he had dozed off at the console, his head drooping forward...

The incessant beeping sound became gradually louder, drawing Lattimer out of his hard-earned slumber. He pops his head up, opens his eyes and finds that a previously inactive video cam window has become highlighted with a blinking red square, indicating an emergency was at hand. Lattimer jumps up from his chair and quickly clicks his mouse on the window. It is Jose, and he looks frightened.

“Dr. Lattimer, Dr. Lattimer can you read me!?”

“Yes, I can read you Jose, what’s the matter?”

“Dr. Lattimer, can you hear me? Please pick up!” Lattimer, realizing he had turned off the two-way communications during his surveillance of Malone, quickly turns the system back on.

“Jose, can you hear me now?”

“Boss, it’s getting really bad out here. The wind is picking up and the men are having trouble getting the cables across.”

“How many cables are secured now?” asks Lattimer.

“We managed to get the outer columns secured and we got cables from two of the outer columns attached to the central column... but the wind is throwing the cable line off course before it can reach the third mooring.”

“We’ve got to get that third line secured, Jose. That wind could break the central column apart!”

“What are we gonna do, boss?”

Lattimer covers his mouth with his hand, trying hard not to panic himself or Jose.

“Listen, Jose, we’re gonna have to send a man out there to take it across by hand.”

“Who are you gonna find that would be crazy enough to do that, boss?”

“I’ll find somebody, Jose even if I have to do it myself.”

“Good luck with that, boss.”

“Listen, is the third cable still connected to the central column?”

“Yea, boss, but it ain’t connected to anything else.”

“Come on down and watch the monitor for me. When you get down here, tell all those guys out there to get back inside, pronto!”

“Where are you going, boss?”

“To fix a mooring, Jose.”

“You gotta be crazy, boss. Don’t come out here now...”

Lattimer clicks the window shut, and begins donning a space suit. The elevator quickly comes back down and Jose opens the airlock and hops in. After it recompresses, he opens the airlock door to Tubicle One, jerks off his helmet, and stumbles around, looking for Lattimer. He finds him in the locker room putting on a helmet. He grabs Lattimer’s arm with both hands.

“Boss, I can’t let you go out there alone! Let me go with you, OK?”

“It’s too dangerous, Jose,” Lattimer says, mumbling through the helmet. “Enough men have died out there already. I can’t ask anybody else to go out there now... not for any amount of money!”

Jose becomes more frantic, squeezing Lattimer’s arms until he winces from the pain. Lattimer, surprised by the grip of the smaller man, looks at him in alarm.

“Señor, I will not let you go out there alone! It is suicide! I go with you... or nobody goes! Comprendes?!”

Lattimer looks at Jose in complete amazement. For once, Jose is the boss. And there will be no dissuading him. Lattimer slowly nods his head in agreement.

“Si!” says Jose and puts his helmet back on.

Craig Randolph rushes into the room.

“We need to get my men back in...” his voice trails off when he sees what Lattimer and Jose are about to do.

Lattimer turns on his transmitter, “Can you hear me ok, Jose?”

“Yes boss, I hear you just fine.”

“Randolph,” says Lattimer, “get on the monitor and have those guys get back in here, right now!”

“Yes sir!” says Randolph, his voice a whisper.The fury of everest

Lattimer yells through the microphone in his helmet. “What’s the wind speed now, Jose?”

“Last time I got a reading boss, it was pushing 50 miles an hour.”

“It’s a good thing we’re tethered to this column,” says Lattimer. “As long as it doesn’t go anywhere, neither will we.”

“Keep thinking that boss, keep thinking that!”

“How are things holding up in there, Randolph?” asks Lattimer.

“Hey, we’re warm and cozy in here, man. You’re the ones with the problem.”

“You can say that again!” returns Lattimer. The two men, tethered together by a rope, drop to the summit. Jose hammers a piton into the ice and threads it with the end of the rope. “Keep a low profile, Jose. If you blow away, so do I.”

“I’m so close to the ground now I feel like a mole!” Jose responds.

Lattimer and Jose are literally crawling their way down the west ridge toward mooring three. They must cover roughly 350 feet of steeply sloping ground to get to it. This “ground” is comprised of a rocky ridge laced with ice and snow pack. Whiteouts can be very disorienting. Snow pack can come loose at any time, sending the hapless victim over the faces of the mountain into abysses on either side of the ridge. Close to the summit, the faces drop down 10,000 feet! It is indeed a suicide mission, but Lattimer and Jose have a little more technology on their side than the average mountain climber. Their spacesuits keep them warm, even in the 50 mph winds. And there is no problem with altitude sickness, as long as their space suits do not get torn and they get back in time before the oxygen runs out. Over-sized pitons have been drilled into the rock to insure good anchorage for the ropes that are already there. After all, they aren’t up there just for the thrill and challenge of mountain climbing. They have work to do!

“Radar indicates the third tower leg is less than 25 feet away,” says Lattimer who can hardly see 10 feet in front of his face at this point.

“And almost 350 feet straight up,” returns Jose.

“There’s is no way we can get the cable straight across in this weather,” says Lattimer. “We’re running out of time. Our best bet is to hit the first rung at the 50-foot level and tie the columns together that way. I think we can hit it from here with the cable gun, no sweat.”

“Go for it, boss.” says Jose as he hands Lattimer the cable gun.

Lattimer takes the gun and aims it high up on the leg, trying to get as close as possible to the cable mooring rung at the 50-foot mark on the ladder. “I sure hope this works the first time, Jose!” says Lattimer. “We may not get too many chances at this!” He squeezes the trigger and the gun rebounds as the harpoon shoots forward, whistling as it carries a thin metal wire along with it. They hear the harpoon clang as it strikes the tower at about 50 feet and bounces off, hitting the ground thirty feet from the men. “CRAP!” says Lattimer. “Grab the wire and pull it back in, Jose.”

“I’m on it now, boss!” Jose quickly retrieves the harpoon while Lattimer reloads another cartridge into the gun.

“Let’s try this again, Jose,” he says, reloading the slightly bent harpoon.

“Boy, your alloy composite is really good stuff, boss! Look at what it did to that harpoon!”

Lattimer sighs, “Yeah, looks like I’m being hoisted on my own petard!”

“Huh?” says Jose.

“Never mind, Jose, let’s try this again.” Jose grabs Lattimer’s shoulder. “Let me try, boss. I used to shoot coyotes as a boy when I lived on our farm back in Mexico. I got pretty good shooting at night.”

Lattimer looks at Jose thoughtfully, then, hands him the gun.

“Well, it’s pretty dark out here right now.” He pats Jose on the shoulder, as if he had just loaded his bazooka for him with a rocket and was signaling for him to fire.

As Jose squints and takes aim, he begins to talk to himself. “Just like back home, Jose, just like back home.” He can barely see the outline of the ladder at the 50-foot level because of the blowing snow. He squeezes the trigger ever so slowly. The gun fires and knocks Jose backwards onto the ground. The men can hear the harpoon whistling through the wind. This time, instead of a clang they hear a muffled sound, followed by the whistling of the approaching harpoon.

“Look out!” Lattimer yells as he reaches for Jose. The harpoon hits the ground two feet from Jose’s head and bounces up. Lattimer catches it in mid-bounce just as it is about to come straight down onto Jose’s helmet. The two men look at each other in frozen alarm. Lattimer starts to put the battered harpoon back into the gun when he feels the line go taunt. He pulls on it and it begins to pull the heavier cable attached to it up to the tower.

“How did you do that, Jose?” asks Lattimer, astonished.

“I don’t know, boss. I thought the harpoon would stay up there!”

“So did I,” Lattimer says as he begins reeling more of the cable up to the tower. He pulls faster and faster as Jose pulls more of the cable up on the ridge to give him slack. “I sure hope it stays up there, Jose. No telling what we have up there.” “I know boss,” Jose says. “Just say a prayer, ok?”

“Good idea, Jose.” Suddenly the cable jams and refuses to budge. “Must be stuck on something. Whip the cable up and down Jose... try to break it loose.” The cable makes a whipping sound as they throw waves into it. Suddenly it breaks free and they begin reeling it back down. “Keep on reeling, Jose, we’re almost home free.” Suddenly the cable on the ground jumps up, working its way skyward toward the tower leg. The two men jump up and down in ecstasy, hugging each other like football players who just made a touchdown.

“We did it Jose, we did it!”

“Carumba, boss we did it!” shouts Jose through his headset.

Randolph breaks in. “Congratulations, gentlemen! Just in the nick of time, I might add!”

Lattimer detaches the harpoon from the cable loop and connects the loop to a simple “come-along” hand wench, which he hooks onto a rung near the bottom of the column. As he cranks the wench, it slowly pulls in the slack until the cable is as tight as possible. At the 50-foot level, the cable works its way up the steep west ridge of Everest, barely missing rocks in more than just a few places.

“Are we stable yet, Randolph?” Lattimer asks.

“Column four is now stable, sir, you may come on in now.”

The two men work their way back to the central column, clinging to the anchor rope for dear life. The power that keeps their suits warm is beginning to expire because of the excessive wind-chill, and this same power is used to recirculate the used air for removing carbon dioxide, which minimizes oxygen consumption. Exhaustion is finally setting in. At the summit, they crawl up the 100-foot column as best they can, all the while being whipped around by winds approaching 80 mph. When they finally reach the top, both men enter the central manhole cover, drop down a few feet into the elevator car, give each other the “thumbs up” salute, shut the cover, and begin their descent to the airlocks at Tubicle One. They slog their way towards the entrance to the airlock with what little strength they have left. Once the airlock light turns green, the door slides open and the two men enter Tubicle One with their helmets off, gasping for breath and completely exhausted. They look for the most convenient chairs to collapse down in and quickly do so.

Randolph turns to look at them, a thin smile on his face. “That was some job you two did out there. Yes sir, some job!”

Jose, panting, sprawled out in the chair looks at him, fatigue rapidly setting in. “How... how much time did we have left?” He asks, out of breath. Randolph just shakes his head. “That much?” Jose says with a slight chuckle.

Randolph gets up and begins slowly pacing the floor. “The stress indicators were in the red zone. The central column may need some repairs. A few more minutes, gentlemen, and it would have been all over.”

Jose and Lattimer look at each other incredulously.

Randolph continues, “We dodged a bullet today. And I can’t say it was for the best of reasons, either.” Randolph walks over to Lattimer and glares at him. “No more foolishness, Dr. Lattimer. No more taking unnecessary risks. I know you need to impress people to keep this project going, but no project is worth all this!” He turns and walks over to the shaft, pointing to it, an accusing look on his face as he shakes his finger at it. “If that shaft had failed today, it could have ruptured Tubicle One. Everyone up here could have died! And the compression wave could have destroyed the elevator shaft and shot debris clear down to Upper New Everest! You have no right to put so many people’s lives in jeopardy this way, Dr. Lattimer, I don’t care what you’re trying to prove!”

Lattimer looks at Randolph with remorse on his face.

“You’re right, Mr. Randolph. I was being irresponsible today. I raised the legs too high. It will never happen again.”

Randolph is unfazed. He walks briskly back to Lattimer and points his finger at him like it was a gun.

“You damn right it will never happen again, sir! Because if it ever does, I’ll throw you off this stinkin’ mountain with my own bare hands! And I don’t care what Mr. Treinwood thinks about it! You GOT that!?”

Lattimer looks at Randolph like a schoolboy being reprimanded by the principal. He lowers his head and nods slowly in agreement. Randolph continues glaring at him, then, turns and stomps out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Jose and Lattimer turn to look at each other. Tired smiles cross their faces as they shake their heads in resignation.

Whenever there was a break in the weather, the men would rush out and secure more cables onto the legs and central column of the tower. Jose’s shot had been a stroke of luck. Perhaps an angel had been looking out for him because the harpoon had indeed entered the rung, but somehow, the turbulence within the tower leg spun the harpoon around and back through, allowing it to fall to the ground. Sometimes, truth could be stranger than fiction.

“We’ve got it secured, Dr. Lattimer.”

Lattimer, sitting at the console lets out a sigh of relief. “Finally!” he says.

“So where do we go from here, Dr. Lattimer?” Asks the face on the web cam terminal.

“The next thing we’re gonna do is build the permanent scaffolding at the 50 and 100-foot levels,” Lattimer responds. “No more close calls with the weather. We don’t need to prove anything else at this point. We have more than enough financial reserves to see this project to completion. So we’re gonna build it, and we’re gonna build it right!”

“Sounds good to me, sir!” says the worker on the third tower leg.

“Once we get this thing tightly secured at the base, we’ll glue on another 50-foot section of tubing and permanently secure the column before we go any higher. Once we get above the jet stream, we’ll start pushing through 100-foot sections.”

“Roger wilko,” says the voice. The man does a brisk salute and signs off.

Lattimer wheels his chair around so his back is facing the console. Hands in his lap, his raises his two thumbs in a salute, squints his eyes shut and with a tight smile on his face hisses out loud,

“Yees!”

The first temporary moorings were established the “old fashioned way.” Men traveled up and down the ridges, meeting halfway, using the central column as a high point to keep the wires and cables from hanging up on the mountain. They connected the wires between two legs together at the central column, pulling them tight and away from the central column so they established a “line of site” between the two legs. Once the line was secured between the two legs, it was used to draw across a thicker wire, which was then used to draw a one-inch thick steel cable across the abyss between them. In a similar fashion, the central column has been stabilized by attaching 247-foot cables from each leg to the central shaft. The cable Jose had connected during the storm was much thinner and connected at a steep angle from 50 feet off the west ridge mooring, following the ridge and attaching to the central column at the 100-foot level. This line was removed and raised to the 347-foot level on the leg, establishing a line-of-sight between the top of the central column and the west ridge mooring. The cables between the central column and the three legs were used to draw thicker one-inch cables across, providing more secure connections between the central column and its moorings. As the four curing tubicles rose in height, these cables rose right along with them, helping to maintain stability until the first permanent platform could be built 50 feet beneath them.

The three outer vertical columns would be eventually stabilized by three, thirty-foot diameter horizontal columns of alloy composite that connected all three of the legs together into a huge triangle at the first “line-of-sight” between them, 50 feet above the summit. The legs of this huge equilateral triangle were 428 feet in length, almost one and one-half times the length of a football field! The center of the legs of this triangle would be bound to the tips of another smaller triangle composed of 20-foot diameter columns. This smaller triangle would be one-half the size of the larger outer triangle with legs that were 214 feet in length. This triangle within a triangle would create three additional inner triangles of identical dimension around it. All four of these smaller triangles would be filled with triangles half their size made of 15-foot diameter columns with legs that were 107 feet in length. These four, third-level triangles would create an additional 12 triangles around them, all of which would be filled in with fourth-level triangles made of 10-foot diameter tubes, all with legs that were 53.5 feet in length. The smallest central triangle would be connected to the central column to stabilize it. Lattimer believed this triangle within a triangle structure would be extremely strong and stable, yet “light” enough to be lifted up into a permanent support position on the tower. Triangulated platforms would be placed every 50 feet on the tower legs to stabilize them against the jet stream. Once above the jet stream, platforms would be placed every 100 feet.

The central column (the utility elevator shaft that ran all the way to Upper New Everest) would eventually be embedded with pressurized, heated passenger elevator shafts that would travel all the way to the top of the tower. There would even be enough room to allow for seating. The elevators would be comprised of 10 -foot diameter shafts arranged in a pentagon within the central shaft. A smaller 7-foot diameter central column would be used as a common utility ladder from which access could be gained from all five of the passenger shafts. All of the dead space surrounding these columns would be embedded with alloy composite to further strengthen the central column.

At any given time, two of the passenger elevators could be going up as two were coming down. There would be passenger stops at Upper New Everest and Everest Heights. The fifth elevator would be reserved for staff and would make an additional stop at Space Station Everest. The elevators would be capable of obtaining a maximum speed of 60 mph. Even so, it would take over an hour to reach the top of the completed tower from Upper New Everest when acceleration, deceleration, and braking were taken into account.

The Third factory

It was one thing to state that the tower legs and central column would be connected together by triangles of horizontal columns. It would be quite another thing to actually do it. Or as they say, “the devil’s in the details.” After all, the 30-foot diameter horizontal columns connecting the legs would be 428 feet in length!

The alloy composite Lattimer made for all the cities, the hub, and the first 100 feet of the tower legs and column was prefabricated into subsections at factories either in Snyderville or Upper New Everest, transported to each city and glued together with liquid alloy composite to complete the tubular cities, shafts and legs. At best, this had been a slow, awkward process. Early on, this had no impact on customer inconvenience because Lower New Everest was almost completely finished before any space was rented out. The tram tunnel gondola that Snyder used to visit Upper New Everest was not even installed until all of the bulky alloy composite tunnel casings and accessories had been installed. However, Everest Heights, the construction hub, and the initial tower legs had been another matter. Most of the transport work was done at night to minimize the inconvenience to the customers. Even so, the work was noisy, the pieces were bulky, ugly, obtrusive, and detracted from the ambience and experience Lattimer, Treinwood, and the investors had wanted for their paying customers.

When it came time to build the actual tower, Lattimer had had enough. The tower would require more alloy composite to finish it than had been used in all the cities he had put together, combined! In fact, he would need more than 750 times as much of it to get the job done! There was no way he could haul everything up the trams and through the elevator shafts without driving his customers, his men, and himself crazy. He needed to come up with a more efficient, streamlined way of doing it. He decided to build a pipeline to transport liquid alloy composite from the factory at Snyderville directly to the summit where a third factory would be built to prefabricate tower parts that would never see the light of day in any of his trams or crown jewel cities. He would take advantage of still another virtue of uncured alloy composite: it had enough of a petroleum base that it could be piped in a thick, liquid form. The fluid viscosity, like petroleum, was very much dependent upon the temperature. All pipes buried below ground or rocks would need to be fitted at regular intervals with alloy composite rings, perforated for airflow. These rings would be slightly smaller in diameter than five feet so the three-foot pipe could be inserted into a five-foot pipe without touching the interior of the outside pipe. A continuous flow of air would be pushed through the five-foot diameter pipe on an “as-needed” basis, depending upon the temperature of the exterior of the internal pipe. Thermal monitors located at strategic points on the outside pipeline would automatically adjust both the temperature and the flow rate of the air circulating around the inner pipe, insuring that the temperature would drop no lower than -20 degrees Farenheight.

Beginning at the factory located near Snyderville, this pipeline would be buried 10 feet deep into ground or rock to insulate it as much as possible and to avoid ground-shifting problems or impacts from falling debris once it was sitting on the edge of a steep slope. This meant that any snow and/or ice sitting above the ground would have to be removed first. Obviously, this task would be initiated during the summer months when the snowfall was minimum and temperatures were at a maximum.

The pipeline would travel in a southern direction, parallel to the tram towers, swinging east at the fourth tram tower to avoid traversing the Rongbuk glacier. It would continue to skirt the eastern lower edge of Chantgse, winding around until it met up with Mount Everest. From there, it continued back west until it was directly beneath the Lower New Everest tram depot. It traveled 100 feet straight up through a tunnel burrowed 10 feet into the face of the mountain until it exited into the floor of the tram depot. At that point, the five-foot diameter pipe ended, providing an exit point for airflow from the pipe. The three-foot diameter pipe continued its journey under the flooring in the tram depot, working its way over to the tram tunnel where it traveled underneath the tunnel flooring to the Upper New Everest depot and continued its journey toward the central utility shaft at Upper New Everest. It entered a four-foot diameter heating tube, which passed into the central shaft and attached to the interior of the shaft wall, halfway between two sets of vertical gear racks. A four-foot diameter notch had to be cut into the edge of the elevator “can” to accommodate the pipe so the latter could travel the entire length of the shaft to the summit. Cutting alloy composite required using uncured alloy composite as a kind of “cutting torch” to dissolve a slit into the can, forming the necessary notch. A 10-foot high semi-circular tube was welded in the same fashion into the notch to protect the occupants from touching the pipe during high-speed travel. Once all this was completed, a continuous flow of raw alloy composite could be directed on demand to all of the various extrusion dies at the summit factory required to make the subassemblies and components necessary for the completion of the tower.

The summit factory that Lattimer had to build must first be supported by a huge permanent scaffolding built into the ridges and faces of the mountain wherever an anchor point could be established. The poles of this scaffolding continued up until a “line-of-sight” was established between the central column and all three tower legs. The height of these poles varied from “zero feet” at the summit to hundreds of feet high at the tower legs. The scaffolding was built to be incredibly strong because it would support an almost solid horizontal surface for the summit factory. This factory would be permanently attached to all four vertical tower columns as a triangle, equivalent in size to the largest triangle found in the horizontal platforms that would be constructed from it.

Using the raw alloy composite piped up from the factory near Snyderville, the summit factory would be used to generate incredibly strong, horizontal platforms of alloy composite made up of four size levels of tubular triangles. It would also be used to make the subassemblies used in each of the tower legs and the central column, avoiding a lot of mixing between construction traffic and customers down at the elevator shafts in Upper New Everest.

On any given day, the work crew from the construction hub would enter the central elevator shaft, travel to the summit, exit through an airlock, and begin their workday at the summit factory. The subassemblies for the tower legs and central shaft would be taken through a 30-foot airlock at the summit and either moved straight up the central column to continue its growth or down to one of the three horizontal shafts where they were loaded onto flat cars for transporting to a leg mooring and into an elevator “can” to be taken up to a curing tubicle.

Three extrusion tubicles at each corner of the factory would release continuous 30 -foot diameter tubes of alloy composite that would travel over stationary rollers from one corner of the factory to the next. When a tube reached the required length of 428 feet, it would be rolled off and maneuvered until the ends were adjacent to the ends of the other two tubes, which had been made in a similar fashion, creating a gigantic tubular triangle. These ends would be welded to a plate of alloy composite with a motorized pinion gear as part of the plate. This pinion gear would fit into the innermost gear rack previously used by the curing tubicle to climb the tube section. Like the curing tubicles, cowls were attached to these gears to assure that the movement was always up, never back down.

The extrusion tubicles were fitted with adaptors to reduce the size of the next set of tubes down to 20 feet in diameter. These were extruded onto the same set of rollers used to move the 30-foot diameter tubes. Each end of the tubes was picked up by cranes attached to the platform and maneuvered to the center part of the platform where they were lowered down and adjusted to form the shape of a triangle half the size of the larger triangle, lying directly within the middle of the large triangle. The workers welded the corners of the inner triangle to the midpoints of each of the larger tubes, creating three additional triangles around the central one.

A second set of adaptors were added to the first set, reducing the extrusion tubicles down so they would generate tubes that were only 15 feet in diameter. These tubes were picked up, strategically placed around the platform, and welded into place, creating the third level of 16 triangles.

A third set of adaptors were placed within the last set of adaptors so the extrusion tubicles could generate the fourth set of tubes, each 10 feet in diameter. These tubes were welded together as smaller triangles into the middle of each of the 16 larger triangles, resulting in a total of 64 smaller triangles. The midpoint of each of the legs of the smallest central triangle had three pinion gears and cowls welded into them. All three pinion gear-sets connected to the three gear racks that had been previously used by the curing tubicle to climb the central column.

Each completed platform would use the electrically charged motorized rack and pinion technology to crawl their way up all three tower legs and the central column at the same time. These incredibly strong but relatively light horizontal platforms were designed to stabilize the tower as it continued its inexorable climb toward the edge of space!