The Dizzying Heights - Ross Fitzgerald Grafton Everest

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going one better. We’ve bought eight Airbus 380s and instead of putting a space shuttle on the roof, we’ve put a hatch and a booster rocket. The passengers board the planes at a normal airport, fifty people per plane. But there’s no seats on the planes. There’s cabins like on a ship. And each plane has some special area like a restaurant, a bar, movie theatre, gymnasium … You know where this is going, don’t you?’

      ‘Of course,’ said Grafton, who was actually stumped.

      Wayne grabbed a handful of knives and forks. ‘The planes take off. At 45,000 feet, the boosters fire and they go out of the atmosphere. They navigate to the Asterisk, jettison the boosters and each plane attaches to the end of a spoke making an …’ He arranged the knives and forks into an eight-sided polygon and looked around eagerly.

      ‘Yes! An octagon!’ he cried, confirming the answer no one had actually given. ‘Voila! You have a space wheel, just like the one in 2001 – A Space Odyssey.

      This was another moment when Grafton wished the hell he had seen this iconic movie that people quoted so often but he got the idea: a big octagonal space station – made of planes.

      ‘The wheel starts to rotate, which creates artificial gravity, and the passengers can now move around the ship. They can travel up in elevators to the hub to go from plane to plane, eat in the dining room or go to the movies or just hang out in the observation galleries.’

      Grafton had to admit it sounded incredibly possible.

      ‘We go round the moon, slingshot off its gravity, straight across fifty million miles to Venus – slingshot round again and back home. When we get back, we do it all in reverse. Easier than flying to Europe.’

      ‘Well, that’s very exciting indeed,’ said Janet with just the slightest hint of reservation.

      ‘It’s amazing,’ said Grafton, genuinely impressed that their pole-dancing, clown-oriented daughter was part of a one of the most startling developments in human history.

      ‘But that’s nothing! What about you?’ said Janet, slapping her hand down on top of his. ‘You’re going to be President of Australia!’

      ‘It’s not that big a deal,’ said Grafton without any false modesty. ‘I don’t get to do much. I’ll just be running one department – a kind of Department of National Wellbeing. I don’t even know what it’s going to do yet.’

      ‘I know. Mum said.’ Lee-Anne suddenly looked very intense. ‘That’s what I want to talk to you about. Soon. After we’ve checked into the hotel.’

      ‘Sure,’ said Grafton, wondering what fresh hell this might be.

      ‘Anyway, we better go,’ said Lee-Anne and with that she rose and, as if she were the queen, Wayne and the nanny rose as well and all departed, leaving the caterers to pack up.

      Janet, who always made a point of showing appreciation to skilled people, politely thanked the cooking and serving staff. As the buffet table was being cleared, Grafton too approached the chef and complimented him on creating such a tasty though vegan lunch. The chef glanced up at him and then admitted sotto voce, ‘We put bacon in everything.’ Grafton nodded his approval.

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