Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23 The Hillary Step was a fifty-five-foot cliff in the sky— Mount Everest's last cruel joke on its exhausted, breathless, hypothermic climbers. At a lower altitude, it would have presented a minor obstacle to a seasoned mountaineer. But at nearly 29,000 feet— well above the summit of K-2, the world's second-highest peak— each tiny movement was a guided tour through a world of pain. The three bone-weary Holts watched in dismay as Ian Kabra's Sherpa team dragged their Lucian rival up the Step, literally carrying him as they ascended the tangle of fixed ropes left over from decades of expeditions. "No fair!" bawled Hamilton. What would normally have been a bellow barely made it past the plastic of his oxygen mask. "Lucian cheater!" panted Reagan.

第23章希拉里台阶是一座55英尺高的空中悬崖——这是珠穆朗玛峰对那些精疲力竭、气喘吁吁、体温过低的登山者们开的最后一个残酷的玩笑。 在海拔较低的地方，对于经验丰富的登山者来说，这只是一个小小的障碍。 但在将近29,000英尺的地方——远高于世界第二高峰K-2的顶峰——每一个微小的移动都是一次在导游的带领下穿越痛苦世界的旅行。 三个精疲力竭的霍尔特人沮丧地看着伊恩·卡布拉（Ian Kabra）的夏尔巴人团队拖着他们的卢西安对手爬上台阶，实际上是背着他爬上几十年探险留下的纠结的固定绳索。 “不公平！"汉密尔顿嚷道。 正常情况下，风箱只能勉强穿过他的塑料氧气面罩。 “卢西恩骗子！”里根喘着气说。

Their Tomas strength had enabled the Holts to acclimatize for the Himalayan ascent in a fraction of the usual time. Yet they were still subject to Everest's merciless ravages. The three were exhausted, freezing, dehydrated, and oxygen starved. Ian, by contrast, was warm and comfortable in his space suit. And thanks to his Sherpa bearers, he probably wasn't even very tired. The summit ridge was blanketed in waist-deep snow from the recent blizzards. The Holts were swimming the mountain as much as climbing it. Reagan was now thinking enviously of her sister's hospital bed. She knew she couldn't go much farther. Eisenhower Holt let out a howl of pure emotion that started a small avalanche on the Step. They were not going to lose to those Kabras again! When he spoke, the focus of a champion athlete was unmistakable behind his crushing fatigue. "Kids, we don't get much respect from the rest of the family. But we're part of a great tradition, stretching back five hundred years to Thomas Cahill himself. Ham, stay with your sister. I'm

他们的托马斯力量使霍尔特夫妇在平时的一小部分时间内适应了喜马拉雅山的上升。 然而，他们仍然受到珠穆朗玛峰无情的蹂躏。 三个人都筋疲力尽，冻僵了，脱水了，缺氧了。 相比之下，伊恩穿着太空服感到温暖和舒适。 多亏了夏尔巴人的看护，他可能根本就不累。 由于最近的暴风雪，山顶山脊被齐腰深的积雪覆盖着。 霍尔特一家在爬山的同时也在游泳。 此刻，里根羡慕地想着妹妹躺在病床上的情景。 她知道她不能再往前走了。 艾森豪威尔·霍尔特发出一声纯粹感情的嚎叫，在台阶上引起了一场小小的雪崩。 他们不会再输给卡布拉家族了！当他说话时，在极度疲劳的背后，一个冠军运动员的专注是显而易见的。 “孩子们，我们没有得到家里其他人的尊重。 但我们是伟大传统的一部分，可以追溯到五百年前托马斯·卡希尔本人。 哈姆，和你妹妹待在一起。 我

going to show the world what the Tomas can do!" He took off through the deep snowdrifts, a study in determination and raw power. He hit the ropes of the Hillary Step, climbing hand over hand without pausing for rest. Any mountaineer would have claimed it was physically impossible. There were no such words in the Holt vocabulary. At the top, he disappeared into the blowing snow, but they heard his booming voice: "Eat my dust, Kabra!" "He's ahead!" Reagan croaked. Hamilton nodded in admiration and pride. He'd spent most of his life thinking of his father as kind of a boob. But here on Mount Everest, Eisenhower Holt was the boob you wanted on your side. "No one can beat him to the summit now!" The Ecureuil/A-Star 350 climbed higher and higher into the thin air, soaring past altitudes far beyond the ceiling of any other helicopter in the world. For Amy and Dan, who had been through some

要向世界展示托马斯家族的能耐！”他在厚厚的雪堆中起飞，这是对决心和原始力量的研究。 他撞上了希拉里台阶的绳索，双手交替着往上爬，没有停下来休息。 任何登山者都会说这在物理上是不可能的。 霍尔特家的词汇里没有这样的词。 到了山顶，他消失在飞雪中，但他们听到他洪亮的声音：“吃我的尘土，卡布拉！”“他吧!”里根呱呱的声音。 汉密尔顿钦佩而自豪地点点头。 他一生中大部分时间都认为他的父亲是个笨蛋。 但在珠峰上，艾森豪威尔·霍尔特（Eisenhower Holt）是你想要的胸部。 “现在没人能比他先登顶了！”Ecureuil/A-Star 350在稀薄的空气中爬升得越来越高，飞越的高度远远超过了世界上任何其他直升机的天花板。 为了艾米和丹，他们经历了一些

pretty terrifying experiences, this was the ultimate terror. The A-Star was so tiny and insubstantial that they felt completely unprotected, as if this were some demented theme park ride, out in the open, six miles above sea level. The brutal Himalayan winds buffeted the ultralight craft, tossing it around like a Ping-Pong ball in a hurricane. Amy and Dan clutched at each other because there was literally nothing else to hold on to. The closer they got to the mountain, the more defined Everest became from its neighbors— higher, massive, with a distinctive white plume streaming from its peak. "Is that a cloud?" Dan asked, shouting to get the words past his breathing apparatus. Their pilot provided the answer. "The top of Everest reaches into the jet stream," he called back. "What you see are millions of ice crystals blowing off the summit. I told you this was no sightseeing tour. Prepare for what you Americans call a bumpy ride." It was no exaggeration. The closer they got to

非常恐怖的经历，这是终极恐怖。 A-Star是如此的小和渺小，他们觉得完全没有保护，就好像这是一个疯狂的主题公园，在海平面以上六英里的开阔地带。 喜马拉雅的狂风猛烈地冲击着这艘超轻型飞船，把它像飓风中的乒乓球一样甩来甩去。 艾米和丹紧紧地抓在一起，因为真的没有别的东西可以抓住了。 他们离珠峰越近，周围的珠穆朗玛峰就越清晰——更高、更大，峰顶有一股独特的白色羽流。 “那是一朵云吗？”丹问，大叫着让他的呼吸器喘不过气来。 他们的飞行员给出了答案。 “珠穆朗玛峰的顶端一直延伸到急流里，”他回叫道。 “你看到的是数以百万计的冰晶从山顶吹下来。 我告诉过你这不是观光旅游。 准备好迎接你们美国人所说的颠簸之旅吧。” 这一点也不夸张。他们越接近

the summit, the more ferocious the gyrations of the A-Star became. "How are we going to land?" Amy shrilled in a panic. "We'll crash into the mountain!" The pilot's upper body shook, as if the controls were manipulating him rather than the other way around. Except for the turbulence, they were barely moving now, trying to hover over the peak. Suddenly, the world disappeared as they passed through the ice plume. They were flying blind at the very edge of the atmosphere. A sudden drop and bump drew screams from both Cahills. "What happened?" Dan wailed. "You wanted the summit; you are there," the pilot informed them. He indicated the altimeter: 29,035 feet. There could be no higher reading. Not on earth. "We— we made it?" Amy stammered. She had fully expected to be smashed to pieces far below. "Vite! Hurry!" he ordered. "We have five minutes at the most! I cannot shut down the engine for fear it will not restart!" With a pop, he

峰顶越高，A-Star的旋转就越剧烈。 “我们怎么降落呢？”艾米惊恐地尖叫起来。 “我们会撞到山上的！”飞行员的上半身颤抖着，好像是控制装置在操纵他，而不是相反。 除了乱流，他们现在几乎不动了，试图在山顶上空盘旋。 突然，当他们穿过冰柱时，世界消失了。 他们在大气层的边缘盲目飞行。 突然的跌落和碰撞引起了卡希尔父子的尖叫。 “发生什么事了?”丹恸哭。 “你想要峰会；你们在那里，”飞行员告诉他们。 他指了指高度表：两万零零三十五英尺。 没有比这更高的读数了。 地球上没有。“我们——我们成功了？”艾米结结巴巴地说。 她完全料到自己会被摔得粉碎。 “急速地!快点！”他命令道。 “我们最多只有五分钟！”我不能关掉发动机，因为我怕它不能重新启动！”砰的一声，他

opened the bubble. Amy and Dan wasted precious seconds unclipping their belts and struggling out of the A-Star. They'd had a zero percent expectation of making it this far, so there was no concrete plan of what to do now. The search for the 39 Clues had brought them to some amazing places, but the summit of Mount Everest literally topped them all. The cold was indescribable, the wind an unrelenting onslaught. They had to crawl away from the chopper to get clear of the rotor blades. Even with supplemental oxygen from their masks, the effort left them gasping for air that simply wasn't there. Yet nothing could move Amy's mind from the magnificence of this spot. "Everything's down!" she exclaimed in wonder. "There's no up anymore! Even the clouds are below us!" The world's pinnacle! No amount of research could have prepared her for this spectacular place. Gargantuan peaks rose all around, but their perch was the highest of all, dominating the planet's loftiest neighborhood. Lhotse, at nearly twenty

打开了泡泡。艾米和丹浪费了宝贵的时间解开腰带，挣扎着走出了a星。 他们对能走到这一步的期望为零，所以现在没有具体的计划。 寻找39条线索的过程把他们带到了一些令人惊叹的地方，但珠穆朗玛峰的顶峰确实超越了这些地方。 冷得难以形容，风无情地刮着。 他们不得不爬离直升机以避开旋翼叶片。 即使面罩上有补充氧气，他们的努力也让他们喘不过气来，根本没有空气。 然而，没有什么能使艾美的心离开这个地方的壮丽。 “一切都完蛋了！”她惊奇地叫道。 “再也没有了！”连云都在我们下面！”世界的顶峰！再多的研究也无法让她为这个壮观的地方做好准备。 四周耸立着巨大的山峰，但它们的落脚点是最高的，主宰着地球上最高的地区。 Lhotse，快20岁了