Sphere discussion

The book states that the characters will need 3 days of decompression before being able to breathe normal air. In the 'habitat' they breathe high-levels of helium so how can they survive on the ship? I loved this novel but if this is a plot-hole it's a pretty big one...

If you have some knowledge of scuba diving you'll be able to understand how this in not only possible, but also normal.

If you are in a deep saturation environment as they were, it is not possible to return to the surface without decompression stops; even if you are breathing a mixed gas. Too much of the mix is dissolved into the blood and body tissue.
I think that more to the point is that the sphere has changed them and anything that they want, they are able to make happen by thought.
They want to get up to the surface and so they do.

This seemed problematic to me. When they first enter the space ship, they haven't even found the sphere yet, much less been inside it, so they don't yet have "the power." When they pass through the airlock into the space ship, it doesn't mention if there is a pressure change. Presumably the space ship would be pressurized similarly to space ships today, which is slightly less than 1 atmosphere. This would kill them almost instantly. If, by some random coincidence, the space ship happened to be pressurized the same as the bottom of the ocean (there's no conceivable reason why anyone would do this to a space ship, but let's just say that's what they did) then it would basically be a race to see what debilitating condition would overcome them fastest, nitrogen narcosis or oxygen toxicity. Either way, there's no safe way to enter the space ship as described in the book. They reported the air as being "nitrogen and oxygen. It's earth atmosphere." A couple chapters before this they discussed at length how earth atmosphere is toxic under pressure.

Good point Jared, I don't remember that. I think when all is said and done you must have a certain amount of suspension of disbelief in all books of fiction. One can be too critical in ones analysis and that just spoils a good story Having said that a story with too many blinding errors is just distracting from the story line. Question is where do you draw the line?