by A M Russell
CLOUD FIELD
By Anne Russell
Published by Anne Russell at Smashwords
Copyright 2016 Anne Russell
Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes
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*****
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Twenty Four
Twenty Five
Twenty Six
Twenty Seven
Twenty Eight
The End
*****
One
The expedition was to be like no other Hanson explained. He looked up at me, all outdoorsy and confident nimbly lacing rope on the top of the pack.
'Here! Catch!'
Reflexively I caught the other coiled length of supple striped cord. Following his example I used it to fasten the tent pack to a large rucksack.
'Who's is this?'
'That's yours.' Hanson bright eyed and expectant regarded me with undue patience. I couldn't quite shake the image of him and Marcia together on the bright green sofa engaged in a loudly flamboyant session... I was horrified when Janey and I accidentally walked in on them. Janey backed out flushing crimson with a gagging sob that I could still hear. Curiously I watched, wondering what Janey found so compelling about the bloke. Perhaps it was envy on my part. I shrugged and concentrated on the knot.
'Nearly done?' it was Marcia, resplendent in flame clingy jumper thingy. She looked tired close up though and picked at a nail distractedly.
'Just about.' Hanson responded looking at me.
'Oh. Right.' I took the hint.
In the kitchen Janey was jangling tea cups. She smiled cautiously.
'I think maybe I should quit the study Davey.' she picked up a carton of milk.
'Uh.... You mean you're not going on the expedition with the group? But I thought it's what you dreamed of?'
'You don't know Hanson.' she seemed almost amused, 'a week ago you were pushing pencils for a living. What do you know about it? About any of us?'
She was right. I worked in advertising. My decision to make some self-improvement wasn't working out quite as I'd expected. Janey confused me. Did she want to don the full cold kit and tramp across the ice bound wastes or not? I opened my mouth then shut it again. I did have a few sensible friends who advised not pointing things like that out to a lady you really didn't know.
'I'm sorry.' I stuttered feeling my colour rise... Something I was desperate to avoid from my first teen years. But Janey helped that awkward feeling resurface.
'Do you think we'll see any tribes people?' she asked and handed me a coffee.
'I suppose it's possible. Isn't that what this whole thing is about?'
'Yes. I guess.' she grinned, 'I think it's going to be fun.' she barged back to the corridor that led to Hanson's stacked boxes. I sipped. There must be a reason for the sudden change of heart. Her previous association with Hanson was clear even to me. I didn't have a girlfriend. I hoped fervently that I could keep it that way. It was all too intense for me at the moment. It made my teeth ache... But that could be in anticipation of our setting out tomorrow, or maybe the coffee I was drinking.
The next morning I was on my way to work. I had shared a delightful evening with Hanson and some more of the group. It involved vast amounts of tequila and a lot of cheap reminiscences. The weather had turned and the start day had been put off. Next week seemed a long way off. I flexed a bicep. Not a moment of note, hardly worth the trouble of comparing it. "Athletic" is the word for a build like mine, a euphemism for Skinny as I took it. But I could, as they say: Pull My Weight. Got it where it counted. I realised that Hanson with his easy leonine physique and rugged facial hair out-classed me in every way that mattered to the ego. He didn't seem to notice the other guys like George, Jared, and Aiden change position when he entered the room. As if they tried to match his broad beam and height by rolling back their shoulders and standing up a lot straighter. He had the self-assured manner of one who knows even among the strong he is to them a giant.
I tapped politely on the secretary's door when I went in. She beckoned me with an orange talon and smiled sweetly when she told me all was well. I didn't need to see the boss. I went down the secluded aisles to my work station. Most people said “hello” popping heads above the vegetation like monkeys in a jungle.
'I thought you were away this week?' my colleague Alex sprawled on an office chair chewing gum and throwing a yoyo at me.
'Yea.' I ducked.
'Is a woman involved?' Alex always thought there was a woman involved. He thought that the boss giving Alex the day off when he wanted to go diving meant that some woman had made the boss soften up. Alex pissed people off. But he could be utterly brilliant at spotting the only thing to convince a client to "Do the Right Thing". Alex was into doing the right thing; except when he really wanted to annoy someone. I had earned his fledgling support by being unfazed by any insult or mad trick he could pull. That was why I felt I could do the expedition. I needed to graduate to another level. And since getting wet didn't appeal; I felt that the advert from the University, calling for places on this thing was the sort of manly adventure I could learn something from that gave me a bit of extra interest. An investment in self-advancement was what the boss approved of; that, and physical exercise. I thought I had it cracked.
'You look like shit you know.' Straight to the point as ever Alex lobbed a paper aeroplane at me. 'Memo.' he said, 'You better read it.'
'What does it say?'
'Am I your mama? Read it dork brain.'
I tried to think of something clever to say back, but Alex was called away by her of the orange garden rake ends about an assignment later today.
He had got a point. I made a mental note to avoid Tequila in future, and pulled the sheet out flat. A general memo to all staff: we were to be summoned to the Golf Club by the boss on a particular day as yet undecided: advance warning of an epic kind. It was not optional. In fact I suspected that refusal might prejudice future job prospects.
'It's illegal of course.' It was Alex come back smirking, 'But you'll be the party piece. Back from your trip. Tanned, and with stories of near death escapes to tell the old wind bags....' and on seeing my face; '....The chair of the Golf Club, and his ageing stalagmites.'
'There's not much sun. I'm going north.'
Alex picked up a rubber and threw it at me. He was always throwing things when he couldn't think of a smart answer. On the plus side it did mean I was never short of office supplies.
Things got quiet after that, I spent most of the day correcting colours on a design. There would be time for more stimulating activity when the local meeting hole braced for incoming. Later I felt the surge of gently opening doors and a decibel level to blot out the nagging sense of insignificance of everyone's day.
I drank cider. Not because I liked it but because it was truly 300 per cent less terrib
le than the watered down sink dribble they called beer. But the snacks were the best. And if an executive got caught in here it was with coffee that sent you into orbit. I never got over drinking one. That and the sheer humiliation of paper parasols kept me off the cocktails.
An hour later I went home and composed a cheery letter to my mother. She couldn't stand computers. And I liked the whole ritual of putting things in envelopes and sticking stamps on. I would cast in into the sea of a mystical journey to the environs of the postal system. I wanted to be that letter: to go into dark and unknown places. To perhaps get lost or redirected, and then emerge into a pristine morning and softly land in a cool hall. There she would lift me up looking so expectant, so pleased I'd arrived. And of that journey I would tell her; every difficult moment, every uncertainty; until at last I arrived safely in this fortress of peace and solace. Mum liked me writing. She was proud of me and talked about me to everyone. If I got sick I could go back on the train and go home to safety; and the kettle would be on in an instant. I hated this Being A Man stuff. I wanted so badly to eat all the biscuits in the tin, and then a huge pile of Pasta and then Mum's misshapen chocolate buns blurring into each other like friendly play doh.
*****
Two
I walked in on Marcia. This time the embarrassment was all hers. She was crying. Darkish smudges pooled under her eyes, and she looked blotchy. She immediately pretended to be doing something with plates and saucers and wedges of cheese. I could see from the way her jaw was working that she hadn't really finished her cry properly.
'Do you want me to?' I pointed lamely at the door.
'What? No! Of course not you're not in the way.’ she turned away letting her hair fall in a curling sheet.
‘Is it tomorrow when we set off?’
‘Yes.’ she put biscuits on a tray.
I turned away and went to find Hanson. He was in the same place I had last seen him. Strangely he was tying the top of another pack. I looked around quickly with a feeling of déjâ vu.
‘You are worried about what you will have to carry?’ he grinned at me and stood up.
‘Yes.’
‘It feels light if it rests right on your shoulders.’
‘Why do we need so much?’
‘I think that is obvious…’ Hanson shook his head and produced a black cigarillo; ‘I mean we do need to survive out there.’
‘For how long?’
‘Well…’ he lit the short cigar with a battered metal Zippo, ‘I think we can estimate say three weeks travel....’
‘All together?’
‘No!’ he laughed and puffed out a fragrant cloud, ‘that’s travel outwards... Plus an extra weeks contingency, in case we’re slowed up; or something else happens. Then we need to camp at the edge of the borderlands and take all the readings necessary. The science bit of it all. So that adds up to five weeks. Then travel back.... plus extra allowance in case of storms or accidents. We’ve got all the stuff packed now for 12 weeks out there.’
‘So we come back with supplies to spare.’
‘That’s the idea. Am I scaring you?’
‘No. Of course not.’ I lied quite well I thought.
‘Ok. Just got to get the torches and check all the cylinders.’ Hanson ambled away counting on his fingers. He seemed completely at ease now that the moment was imminent and all the waiting was over. He scared the Hell out of me. I was sure that the contract was for only 4 weeks. 12 weeks! But I thought about it and took some deep breaths and realised that this was the absolute max if everything went wrong. Calculating on nothing fouling up it was still seven. Which I felt sure was more than I had really expected.
I started to walk really quickly to the little cupboard they called a private room. I found the letter. It was clear. 3 to 4 weeks. That was it. I was angry in a sour whingey way. I knew perfectly well that out there it didn’t matter what the damn paper said. If I chickened out; or if I got fussy at his stage there were others waiting to take my place. Two of them were here already. They’d helped me sort out the various layers of clothing that would keep me from freezing. Or as George put it rather crudely “It will stop your dick from snapping off.”
An hour later my state of mind was utterly reversed. We’d toasted out maiden voyage with champagne, which I wasn’t used to. And Janey was sitting next to me on the blue sofa. The whole group was gathered. The brave, the strong, and in my case: the stupid. But now I didn’t care. It was amazing what a bit of bravado and booze could amount to. And Janey’s bosom heaving every time she laughed made me feel like one of the gang. No one was miserable, and everyone got up and shook hands and decided to get some sleep in a harmonious way that meant we all felt united in purpose. I saw Marcia smile too. I was feeling just a little bit too expansive and smiled at her. She blinked and turned away. But by then we were all moving out of the door to find our bunks and mentally prepare for the hearty breakfast later in the morning.
It was getting on and Janey didn’t seem to be anywhere about. I thought I had seen her talking to Hanson just before we turned in for the night. Marcia was in efficient mode and hadn’t seemed moved by her absence at the breakfast table. I was getting worried. I was just starting to imagine what 12 weeks would be like without her. It felt wrong. Marcia was better company when she wasn’t screwing Hanson. But Janey was a real scientist. She knew all about rocks and ice and earth quake readings. Some of the studies they would be running at the boundary edges were her whole plan. She was the operator, and the other stuff that was hitching a ride from the science bods too old to make the journey would be carried out by her. I’d thought she was depressive. Then she walked across the yard, in such a state of upbeat excitement that I didn’t quite believe it was the same person. She looked like a girl who’d been up all night, but not because of insomnia. The fresh light made her skin glow. The red snow suit clashed joyfully with her vivid pink hair band.
'You're late.' said George brusquely.
'No.' Janey gazed at her watch: which she wore on her right wrist; the other slender hand arching above what I now noticed as naturally shapely eyebrows.
'Ok people!' Hanson yanked our attention back to himself. 'You three finish loading that truck. Then I want everyone in Base for assignment allocation task coding.'
I didn't understand why Hanson was being so apparently pompous. We all knew about the "Dog Tags". Each had our role and status programmed in, plus a chip that could be picked up by satellite. The theory was, if you got lost or separated from the group you could be found. There was also a pull pin that set off an electronic beacon in an emergency. It transmitted continuously on two prearranged frequencies your position and identity. The batteries would last for months. "So if you're dead they still have time to get your body back before it's eaten" George again with Aiden sniggering madly. Aiden was only kept at Base because he knew the equipment inside out. He'd lost most of what normal people would regard as sanity on a previous ill-fated mission. The end of his little finger on his right hand was missing from frostbite. But Aiden was to George what an encyclopaedia is to a librarian. Without him no fact could be checked. George was smart. Smarter I suspected than Hanson, but he took the role of base command because that way "I told you so" wasn't quite as confrontational as out there. Hanson unnerved me. I felt more confidence in George and even Aiden because they could send help if it all went to hell.
George held the bunch of tags. As each name was called we went forward. George fastened them round your neck as if he was bestowing an Olympic medal. From his expression I read a serious concern. Perhaps it was concentrated focus, or even a sense of annoyance that these pieces of technology might just be the souvenirs of an uneventful trip. I fervently hoped so.
'It's time to say your last goodbyes.' Jared nudged me. We all merged in the middle of the room and the ones who were going laboriously shook hands with the ones who were staying. This stilted ritual did nothing to alleviate the settled nausea that pooled in my gut. It was the acknowledg
ement of a course that no power could divert us from. The last few moments after that were horrible. The ten minutes of checking and rechecking before the vehicles moved in a smooth line out of the compound.
I was in the second cab of the bigger truck. It gave one an excellent view of the landscape. Jared was driving. I was nominally the direction finder. Hanson was driving the first Landy with Janey navigating. Two others were in the back. Neither was Marcia. She was in the third much smaller tough terrain car. She was to be the group's Chef in charge. They also carried the larger Med. packs and rescue gear. I guessed rightly that Hanson wanted to keep distractions out of his mind over that first rough and tricky twenty miles or so. We began to drop down and moved diagonally over ribbed hill spurs. Some of them were bouncing the suspension in slow sickening jerky movements. I tried to keep my eyes on the middle distance and not give way to groaning. Jared was a superb driver and kept us moving steadily onwards. After about twenty minutes of this the landscape gave way to rolling folds that we had to traverse like the curves on a chocolate flake. It wasn't as bad for the stomach but it was frustrating when I looked back and it seemed we'd hardly made any progress. Within another forty minutes we came to a short grassy incline that created a near horizon. This was what I was waiting for. The smudging clouds began to give way to some brighter patches as we climbed up and up this grassy treeless banking. It was further up than it appeared and as we seemed to get to the top it opened out temporarily into a flat tableland about two miles across. Where it ended there was another banking shorter than the first. I remembered it now and realised I had been anticipating the view like some corpulent tourist.
A short while later we stopped at the bottom of the second incline. Everyone got out of the transport to un-crease legs and arms. Janey stretched like a cat: unselfconscious and luxuriant. I was in the first stages of obsession watching her. I now felt oddly elated. The air here was colder and bracing. The flasks of hot milky coffee that seemed so unappealing when Marcia and James prepared them in the steel kitchen at Main Base became the taste I would forever associate with this place; in that time before I saw it - before the landscape unfolded into rolls of turf and bushes, and strange low heathery plants. When I finally saw it; that immense incline at the angle of a child's slide that just kept going and going... We had walked up the second shorter hill with our cameras and reached the lipped edge. From that high point the land angled down for miles and miles before it reached those strange plains. The land which yawned on to the horizon was criss-crossed with channels seemingly manmade. They were natural in fact and a larger scale version of the bone rattling land we had passed earlier. It was for me a baptism of sorts. That first chill of seeing a view that so many had talked about with awed wonder. You couldn’t see it all at once as the whole place was subject to bouts of dense mist. It danced like a drunk at a party. Like an unseen guest, it exhaled a breath of colder air that seemed to stir up into glassy columns the frigid mist of these undulating plains. It was wonderful and terrifying by turns. The anticipation of being drenched in the presence of these chilling clouds once we passed into the endless fields sent a prickle of exquisite fear that seemed to reach the ends of my hair. The long slope to the fields was a lot further than it looked. The perspective in this land distorted and foreshortened this craggy slide. Janey had told me as we drank coffee that it would take two hours to get there- to the "Cloud Fields" as she called them. She told me these things with a hushed reverence that no one else could possibly overhear. I was far too preoccupied with my own self-preservation at that moment to take in the meaning that dripped from the soft stroke of every word. But now I saw what she meant. This was better than another planet. No... It was another planet. Only then did I realise that for all of her science Janey held what was for me, a darker side. The visceral, perhaps even the spiritual desire to pit oneself against the vast, bleak open country that would soon be lost in the intimacy of silver linings aplenty. We remembered the mundane self-discipline then to contact base, and strolled chatting back to our vehicles. Even from the radio transmission George sounded disappointed that we hadn't already made it further today. He urged haste to get to the first night’s camping spot. It was a rocky entrance to a deep cave that provided shelter from the weather. We went back to our convoy. Everyone checked their gloves and goggles and the oxygen link for the masks. We most likely wouldn't need it until much further across this ice field but it was reassuring in a comfort blanket kind of way.