Cloud Field

by A M Russell

  We rolled up the banking with a sober anticipation of what lay ahead. The Land Rover reached the peak on the lip of the hill, and then tipped downwards. We were next. I twisted round in my seat to see the big wheeled terrain buggy grip the nobbled edge and lean further and further over until I felt it would be falling and rolling towards us.

  'How steep is it?' I hoped my voice sounded level and curious rather than worried.

  Jared straightening the wheel flashed a grin at me.

  'Joe! Pass Davey the other map!'

  The other man dropped it into my hand. I spread it out on the shelf in front of me.

  'Just keep an eye on the altimeter.' Jared turned smoothly, 'If anyone starts to feel dizzy take a snort from the mask. If you wanna chuck we stop! Ok!'

  'Yes Boss!' It was one of the others travelling with us. A skinny grinning undergrad called Curly Pete. He kept his hair short so he could hide at parties. Women existed who would pay serious money for curls like that. A least that's what I'd been told. I remembered Janey's hair was quite straight with a hint of curve to stop it being too severe. I shook my head and stared hard at the map. This was like going down into the sea bed but with no water in it. I calculated that it was about 1 in 4 feet on average. This was the kind of hill where you checked your brakes before descending. Some bits looked steeper. Some even steeper still: like the pitch of a roof on a Victorian terrace. Those we circled round, carefully taking a route that avoided tangled bushes and sudden sharp drops. I realised what it reminded me of - the grassy banking that descended below cliffs to near the sea shore, but without the sound of waves and gulls, and breezy freshness mingling seaweed, salt and fish. Come to think of it, it didn't seem like it at all. We went over a bump. Joe swore and Jared fought with the gears. He got us moving again. Momentarily I had seen the buggy's wheel through our back window. We began to traverse diagonally to take the drop more safely. I wished I was in either the front or back of the three not sandwiched here in the middle. In the jam whatever happened. Jared must have seen my face.

  'Davey snap to it. Reading!' I read the mark on the dial; and then the second electronic one. They matched. Jared grunted satisfied and glanced at his watch. I breathed in slowly to calm myself again. This wasn't going to end for a while. I concentrated on the dials and gave Jared the reading every five minutes. Suddenly we stopped. Just ahead and to the left was an overhang that jutted out into space like an undercut worn away by the tide. I was warm in my gear but my breath had started to mist in the air of the cab.

  'Get the heaters going girls' said Jared casually. Joe and Curly Pete passed Jared's mask over as warmer air began to circulate. Jared went outside and stood forward of us with the other driver and Hanson. I couldn't tell whether this was an unexpected hitch or not. There was a lot of pointing and turning around and gesticulating going on. I could just spy Janey's red snowsuit in the front seat. She was very still. Then she moved. I could see her tracing a finger across the map. Jared got back in the driver’s seat bringing a momentary rush of refrigerated air into our now warm transport. It was not actually as warm as all that. Just enough to compensate for us sitting still inside the vehicle: - and to stop the windows icing up.

  'Ok we're going to arrive later.' Jared didn't sound surprised. 'We won't fit.' he added looked at me as we stared at the overhang. I was getting used to jolts of various sorts today and didn't react. Actually the prospect of rolling in late with camp already set up and dinner on the go made me feel quite cheered. I was in some ways relieved that I didn't have to watch the painful pavane played out as Marcia tried to get Hanson to be alone with her after a whole day of separation. I began to think that after all it was Janey who really commanded his attention. That was nonsense I knew. Or was it? Hanson had always reacted with an overreaching normalcy around Janey. I began to wonder if after all it was my own imagination that there had ever been anything between them. My attention was engaged then for the next hour and a half with a set of manoeuvres only made possible by Jared's ability apparently to do things that could be considered impossible: starting with a neatly executed three point turn with almost no extra room to allow clearance for our huge quadruped. The small buggy backed up a way to allow us to pass back up the hill, and then round some more of these damned deceptive bushes. This led to a narrow cut that took us down about 50 feet to the right of the direction we had originally been travelling in. I was relieved to realise that the incline wasn't as steep here. But these deep grooves led us out of the way, so our detour would bring us out five miles away as we reached the shallower slopes that began to flatten out into the ice fields proper. At this stage I began to cheer up. The view was again unencumbered. I saw what we were looking for - a set of rocks that struck upwards like enormous chimney pots or rolls of carpet stacked on their ends leaning slightly into each other. We adjusted course and the lads started to sing silly songs as we bumped and bounced our way towards our land mark. A weak light illuminated the freaky landscape revealing iridescent sparkles on the low spiky bushes and stray rocks. Ice. Frozen for longer than any of us had been alive. Well the stuff in the ground anyway. After five verses of "On Ilkley Moor.” Adam cried out from the back seat. We all fell silent simultaneously. Something had darted across our path. About a hundred yards ahead a figure had crossed from a stack of confused vegetation and run into another channel. One we weren't heading for. Jared slowed but didn't stop. He pressed something and I heard the heavy thunk of central locking. We had the headlights on and I suddenly realised how dark the place had become in the last 10 minutes. The sun was lower in the west and seen through a haze that diffused the evening light. It looked like ground glass and smoke. I began to feel distinctly edgy. We were too low now to see our landmark and had to rely on navigational equipment and Jared's driving skills.

  Then darkness fell. The undimensioned; the heavy drape of a night creating power for whatever was out there. I saw in the arc of our headlights the strangeness of the spiky prickles on outreaching branches that seemed to meet together in front of us. We slowed right down. The rocks grew taller on either side. The scraping rattle of icy branches ground and creaked down our sides. Adam and the fourth guy Nikolas checked continually the side windows and gave Jared an "Ok" every few seconds. Then we came to a part that was so thickly obscured that I didn't think it possible for us to get through. There was a grinding hideous metallic groan, and then we dropped forward five feet. Jared stopped the engine. We were swaying in space; tipping further forward at each bone chilling creek.

  We were nose down now. I gripped the harness and braced myself. The lights stared into darkness. We were almost at ninety degrees now. I fully expected to fall and be crushed. Abstractly I wondered how much it would hurt. Curiously I wasn't scared now one's expiry seemed utterly inevitable.

  'Davey!' Jared hissed; 'Please press the orange lever.' He was reaching across with one hand, but firmly encased by the five point harness, it was just out of reach from the driver’s side.

  I obeyed. There was a whizzing hiss like a fire work. And sure enough a light dropped from the nose and spiralled down leaving a trail of smoky afterimages. The drop was a good thirty to forty feet. The beam burned brighter as it came to rest. Jared worked the controls on the right side of the centre panel. 'Sixty-five' he said.

  'Is it strong enough Joe?' asked Curly Pete. He sounded quite conversational.

  'Uh? Yea. Should bounce really well.'

  Bounce... I didn't like the sound of that.

  Adam and Nikolas hadn't spoken since we stopped; and Jared now stared silently into the chasm before us. It appeared as if we could hang here indefinitely. That was until a high whining creak was party to a sudden jolt down of a few inches.

  'We need clearance to inflate it.' That was Adam.

  Clearly we were wedged in too tight to do the inflating of the things we were supposed to go space hopping on. At that point I really began to wish I'd bothered to read the transport manual. Dying of ignorance through experiences ou
tside of any possible prediction; would be considerably less humiliating than dying in a state of willed ignorance because I hadn‘t read the stupid instruction book. But it looked like I was about to find out the true meaning of "Pancaked". The fellas thought it very funny. They had laughed even more at the disconnected finger that had been mistaken for another appendage (allegedly). Suddenly, with a brain lurching roll we were upside down and falling. I had the briefest sensation of my stomach being left behind before we met it going back up. Then with a truly vomitus thud we landed. I heard a hissing as shock absorbers let us down the last little bit. I opened my eyes. I was the right way up to judge by the way my tag chain was hanging. There was a cough from the back, and a groaning sound. Jared popped himself out of the front seat harness. He shoved open the door hastily, and tumbled out without a mask. The door swung almost to. What followed was not a pleasant sound. Joe got out with his mask on and took Jared his. A moment later, I could hear them talking. I couldn't hear what they said, but what struck me was the dull interior sound their voices made out there.

  ‘Davey. Hey, come out here.’

  I obeyed. The bitter cold would have stung my throat if I wasn’t wearing the mouth piece. But a wonderful sight met my eyes; a wall that sparkled and glistened with gold and blue lights; metallic, yet liquid with some substance.

  ‘Look at that!’ said Nikolas.

  We all turned and there was the scattering fan tail of phosphorescent colour that swirled down columns of rock. From my point of view there was something even better - a clear route to our destination. From there the bobbing light of a lantern approached us, unmistakably familiar and shining with a piecing yellow-white flame visible in the blue chill of sundown.

  ‘Bloody Hell!’ said Curly Pete looking back up the way we had come. It appeared in the last hint of light that a huge spur of rock had fallen and blocked the gap. All around were scattered great chunks of the spiky plants that had gripped us so menacingly. “Lucky Escape” didn’t really explain it.

  ‘It’s an effing Miracle!’ Adam had unclipped his mask and his breath spread and seemed to hang in heavy clouds and start to drift downwards like a miniature snow shower.

  Jared came and stood next to me as we waited for our lanterned companion to reach us.

  ‘Well, we made it this far.’ he looked at me curiously, ‘you didn’t think..?’

  ‘No.’ I said quickly.

  ‘No. Me neither.’ Jared’s eyes showed he was grinning, ‘but just in case you did think you were going to…’

  ‘Going to?’

  ‘The thing you weren’t thinking.’

  ‘Uh huh?’

  ‘I was thinking it too.’ and still looking at me ‘Get a sample Joe!’

  ‘Ok.’ I said. Jared smacked me on the arm and said to the other who had just approached, ‘A bit unconventional I’ll admit… but we did get here as agreed: before eight.’

  ‘Well after eight there’d be no chocolate left!’ the figure held high the light to reveal a very statuesque Marcia. Her expression was unclear with part of her face covered. I was surprised to see her. At the same time I wasn’t quite ready for Hanson, so it came as quite a relief. Marcia in witty mode meant that things were going well at the first night’s camp.

  ‘Someone to walk with the Lady.’ said Jared.

  ‘Uh. I will.’ I said and joined her in front of the now softly resting long truck. I looked at the sides with puzzlement as the others got in. Not a scratch.

  ‘There’s a lot of space technology built into this baby.’ said Marcia, ‘It will take a lot more than one small drop to put a mark on the shell.’

  ‘Have you seen that before?’ I indicated the phosphorescent stuff as we started to walk ahead and Jared followed in first gear.

  ‘Yes. There’s plenty of it. It’s a kind of fungus. But it normally doesn’t grow so profusely. The other is rock deposits with ice on top.’

  ‘Everything has ice on it.’

  ‘There’s more than just ice. There are minerals out here that would fulfil the avarice of most ambitious Men.’

  ‘You mean Gold?’

  ‘I mean that all this has to be for more than the adventure… the exploration for the sake of it. Investors need a good return.’

  ‘Are we taking any back?’

  ‘No. Thank God! We are a purely scientific mission. The problem is not the abundance of things like that…. it’s rather the danger of local interference in any umm… digging.’

  ‘You mean People?’ I was dying to know more.

  Marcia looked at me with a new expression in her hazel eyes. Pity? Or Concern? ‘You really shouldn’t be so naïve Davey. It’s all about the Cash in the end. You know that.’

  She was right. I did. I felt hypocritical. Greed, as Alex had always told me was the fuel for the advertising industry. Out here I thought the rules had changed. Perhaps they had, but we weren’t far enough away from civilisation yet for them to become irrelevant. Chastened I resolved not to enquire about the exact basis on which we had been supported in this Science trip. Bizarrely, I felt if I didn’t know I could keep my motives pure. Float in a high minded way above such things. It was nonsense. But I didn’t want the magic of raw near death experience that had so scrubbed me clean of a desire for self-aggrandisement, to be dissolved back into the mental landscape of dull capitalism just yet. Not until I’d had a chance to process it and learn something I could tell people back home. Once this feeling was forgotten I needed to construct its substitute so I could keep it alive in essence. Like a bottled fig plunged into booze.

  ‘Are you Ok?’ Marcia nudged me.

  I realise my mind had been wandering. But now I thought of rest and warmth. Actually I was ravenously hungry.

  ‘Is there anything I have to do before we eat?’

  ‘Not really.’ said Marcia as we came to the cave entrance, ‘Do you like Chilli?

  *****

  Three

  We were scrubbed clean with success. All previous failings wiped out. We had reached First Camp. I told myself this boded well as we were preparing for new adventures in the brisk bitter morning light. The sun hung low and pale in a cloudless sky. I was outside with some of Janey's coffee, and turning my face to catch the early rays of light. It felt warm. Hanson bent over a map with Marcia's driver Oliver: a quiet serious sort whose voice lilted with a hint of Welsh. I was just completing my tasks; temperature readings from last night. The steel spike that held the thermometer was proving difficult to remove. I stopped for a breather. Jared came up behind me and gave it a sharp twist. It slid out easily.

  'I think you made an impression on Marcia.' he said and carried on.

  'Hello Davey,' Marcia was smiling, but her eyes looked tired, 'Did you like breakfast?'

  'It was fantastic Marcia! How did you do the eggs that way?'

  'Ah! Well it's all in the wrist.' and in response to my blank look, 'I beat the hell out of them before I put them in the pan. Gets it all light and fluffy.'

  'So what now?' I indicated Hanson and Oliver still bent over the map.

  'Oh. Don't worry about them. It's just a Macho thing they do. To get a lot of us thinking it all depends on them.'