Cloud Field

by A M Russell

  'And does it?' I asked stupidly.

  'Depends what you want to believe... But George plotted all the routes to the edge of the boundary weeks ago.'

  'Oh.' I watched Marcia watching them. She was haunted by something... I felt that same curling in my insides from that moment in the corridor with Hanson. It was like I had seen this before; I had seen Marcia staring at him, she in turn seeming to be suffering that Déjâ Vu that couldn't be escaped. We could stand here to the end of time and all would not change: the others moving in a short loop of time in our peripheral vision.

  I shut my eyes. There was a keen wind and that sun had gone. The coffee was still warm though. I had my eyes open then and was looking at the front of the Land rover. Hanson and Oliver had moved and Marcia was over by the buggy loading a pack back in.

  ‘Time to go Davey!’ Janey shouted and I began to move again taking the equipment with me back to the truck. Minus 20! This was mild, apparently for night time.

  Back in the front seat I took upon myself to be horribly efficient and helpful. I read the altimeter, scrutinised the map. I watched for landmarks through the binoculars. I found the terrain less bothersome today. The fitful sunshine that was so cheering me, seemed to set Joe and Pete on edge. Nikolas and Adam seemed in good spirits but Jared looked at little serious. I supposed that last night might account for that. The team seemed to be of one mind today. Get as much distance covered as possible. We aimed to get to an area with lots of channels that were almost like underground roads as the curving sides left only a narrow aperture above our heads. Find the right one and we would have a sheltered place to spend the night. Their junctions were like large bowls set in to the surface of the plains like the depression made by a giant head of a paper fastener.

  By 2 that afternoon we were no nearer this place, and the weather had shifted. A gradual haze began to build and the sun was seen through tracing paper. I realised why sunlight had been a bad sign. In this weird place it was the herald of icy fog that gathered so imperceptibly and crawled into your heart and brain. The outside temperature tumbled. Jared switched on the intercom and we could hear the electronic version of Hanson who rattled me when he announced that we would “get to shelter by 4 pm or get frostbite by 4 am.”

  ‘Hey Man!’ said Curly Pete, more to us than to the other cars, ‘That is truly the most crappy thing the man is saying! I vote we stay in the car tonight.’

  I turned to Jared. He shook his head. ‘We’re not the ones who would suffer. Hanson’s trying to make sure he can still put his hands where he wants them to go.’ Jared sounded bitter and pissed off. I thought this could be a good time to suggest that someone else took the wheel, but thought better of it. Jared stressing because he couldn’t be where he liked being was more trouble than it was worth. I thought that Marcia’s affair with Hanson could perhaps prove more of a dissenting factor as we travelled deeper in. It seemed as if they were politely avoiding each other. I needed to stop obsessing. I took another reading. Joe handed me the binoculars. ‘Keep lookout.’ he said, ‘we only need to get below ground out of the wind. Dark patches. And we’ll find shelter.’

  ‘What time do we have?’ I asked.

  ‘Not long.’ said Adam peering out of the back window. I turned. It was as if a pearly sandstorm was rolling in. Twisting columns of solid looking cloudy floss lifting hundreds of feet in the sky behind and to our left. Ice cream castles in the air of a particularly deadly kind. It looked like a huge tidal wave that was rolling towards us. The top was spreading out and darkening even as a watched. We started scanning for the dark entrances to the semi underground tunnels that would be our port in a storm. I didn’t want to know what was coming. There was a fizzing on the intercom; Marcia speaking very clearly telling us to turn to the left. We did so. The ground flattened right out and we picked up speed. I could see where we were heading - a whole clutch of entrances dug into the rocky outcropping. We heard Hanson on the open channel disagreeing with Marcia. I couldn’t see the Land rover anywhere. Oliver and Marcia were alongside us. Marcia was pointing, and Oliver accelerated past us. We followed them. Hanson was still trying to persuade us to turn again to the right. Marcia was very calmly telling all of us to keep going as quickly as we could; and gave exact coordinates. She repeated these two minutes later. I could now see where she had been taking us. Into a dip sheltered by those same weird bushes, that was the welcome mat for a rounded cave entrance. It was big enough for our lot to get through.

  ‘Err… guys! I think we better skedaddle sharpish!’ Nikolas had his camera out and was taking pictures of whatever it was that was following us.

  Quite suddenly it went to scary twilight, and a deep low rumble was heard; in the sepia dimness of this false evening something fell slowly. Petals from a white rose. Then from one or two it was a swarm of snowflakes the size of fifty pence pieces. Visibly dropped to almost zero in a matter of seconds. I couldn’t see the buggy even though it was right in front of us. Jared laughed. ‘Magnificent!’ was all he said, and changed gear. We slowed and I heard a hissing crackle on the Radio again. I was Marcia. “You are Ten minutes away Hanson, Janey…. Are you coming? We found it. The cave with no overhead gap… there’s room for all. Hanson?” there was static and the faintest whisper of a response. Janey‘s voice “Still moving……….in…….take……..no choice……… Hanson is……………” it disappeared into more crackle.

  In my head I was trying to fill the gaps of the message. I gave up as we were struggling to keep going. Marcia came over again, this time clearly; “Ten metres Jared! You’re right up our ass.”

  We crawled forward. There was a slight diminution of intensity of the snow and a slightly darker patch in front of us. I could just make out the Orange and black zigzag at the back on their bumper. Suddenly it got a lot darker and the flakes swirled madly. The head lights showed were on now in a road of smooth rock with a hint of phosphorescent lights. We went deeper in. a few minutes later we had reached a wider part. The walls here were of a soft pinkish hue without the valuable sparkle of precious minerals. I found this reassuring. With no obvious temptation in sight it might be a place where no one else might be roaming. Jared stopped the engine. The sudden silence was reverberating inside my head. The moaning of the storm from outside could just be heard. No one got out. The temperature would kill you in a matter of minutes without the right protection. I felt as if I was stranded on a planetoid in the middle of a meteor shower. I didn’t dare allow myself to think about where Hanson and the others had got to. We just had to wait for a while.

  “Tea break Jared!” came Marcia’s voice over the radio; “Are you brewing up too?”

  ‘Will do.’ said Jared. We set about getting a hot drink on the go. I was thankful at last for in car cup holders.

  ‘Ginger Nut?’ asked Curly Pete.

  ‘No. I think you're more of a brunette.’ said Adam.

  ‘Give them here.’ said Nikolas and took two.

  Jared supped the hot tea and looked at our map. ‘Something is missing. This was never marked.’ he said to me.

  ‘The question is,’ I ventured, ‘how did Marcia know it was here?’

  ‘Female intuition? Good eyesight? It wasn’t on our route or anyone else’s. This might have never been mapped.’

  ‘But the rest of this bit is. Look.’ I put my finger next to our position.

  ‘Yes.’ Jared thought for a moment, ‘You are right. I wonder what this means?’

  ‘Perhaps we better ask Hanson?’ I hoped my tone sounded ironic immediately after I’d said it.

  ‘Well yes… there is that approach open in all things.’ It seemed that Jared had taken it the way I had hoped. ‘That’s always supposing that he actually turns up and joins our tea party this afternoon.’

  I bit my lip. I was feeling concerned already even though it had been barely ten minutes since we arrived.

  We would only be getting out when we had sealed ourselves in for the night with special inflatable dome thin
gs. That meant…. And here I had to stop myself asking Jared the “what if” question; that anyone still outside would be out there for the night. That was unless they had found another tunnel nearby. With the reception on the radio down, there was no way of knowing what they had decided to do. I felt confident that Janey could handle it. I just wasn’t sure I could.

  Twenty minutes in, there was no sign of Hanson, Janey and the other two in the souped up Land Rover. Marcia hailed Jared, and requested a reply to the "seal in now" or "wait ten minutes" options.

  'Well guys!' said Jared, 'I am for Now. What's your thought on this?'

  'I'm in serious need of a piss.' said Adam

  'Yes.' said Nikolas 'Definitely. Before the mercury drops out the bulb.'

  'We've waited long enough.' that was Joe.

  'Yeppy dooky!' said Curly.

  'Davey?' Jared turned to me.

  I realised I had been holding my breath and let it out with a heavy sigh. 'Yes. Seal in now.'

  'Ok Marcia we all concur. Let's make camp now.'

  'We hear you. We'll secure the entrance you park further down.

  'Ok Marcia. Confirmed. See you in ten.'

  'Sealing entrance now.'

  I heard a dull thud and a slight hiss and something like a sigh as we edged slowly deeper in to the curve of the tunnel. At the moment we were fully parked up an extendable arm was activated. It came from inside a secure panel in the back of our truck and deposited a special heater with ceramic fins and a radiation panel.

  A little while later we had made a neat and compact camp and the thermometer was reading a bracing but tolerable 5 degrees. We had removed our outer suits. Marcia had assigned Curly Pete to be cooks assistant for the evening, being as James was stuck with Hanson and the others. No one spoke about what could be going on outside. I was relieved, as I was only going to start bombarding anyone in earshot with irrational questions that they couldn't in all conscience answer. I kept my attention instead on the wonderful aroma of a hearty meat stew that Curly was stirring so dutifully. What I found so amazing, as we tucked in, was how little I was thinking about the possible options between comfortable small camp; and bleak icy death for the others. It had meandered so persistently in some spare room of my mind. Now the raw practicality of survival had me consuming my supper with a relish that I would only begin to feel guilty about in my bunk hours later, as I lay warm, contented and replete; and just beginning to drift into dream sleep. Quite suddenly I was wide awake. I lay there staring into darkness listening for something; as I supposed some sound had pulled me back from the deep drift of sleep. Nothing. I just thought I must be giving way to paranoia when I definitely heard something. A softly enunciated sound. Almost, but not quite like a voice... As if someone was blowing a whistle and speaking at the same time. It didn't seem to be coming from any particular direction. I wasn't about to go investigating. That meant getting partly dressed and unzipping my sleeping pod which had got nice and cosy from the containment of my own body heat. In fact, (and here I shifted myself to a more comfortable position), it was probably the wind outside finding some tiny hole round our outer sealed expandable door... It wasn't completely airtight; an uneven patch on the surface it adhered to could create a slight sound of whistling with a breeze in the right direction. I listened again and heard a soft hiss of sound, unmistakeably just the wind intermittently pressing against our cave entrance. I relaxed and forgot my worries.

  I dreamed then... I was in a garden; somewhere high up a hill with an old stone wall around it. There were low hedges made of some aromatic woody plants and there was fine grass like a bowling green, damp with dew. In my dream I was walking slowly along narrow brick paths. Ahead was a doorway in a wall. The door stood open. And beyond was a sunlit place full of roses. And a tall figure in white. They had their back to me. I shouted.... and even though my voice made no sound the person turned around and walked toward their side of the door. I saw that the path in front of me now sparkled with frost and all was in shadow. The person stood at the doorway but did not cross to my side. I was walking towards the door. But it was so cold and I was so tired. "Help me" she said. And I saw it was Janey! I felt I was dying in my dream and fell to my knees. She looked bright and radiant and beautiful. How could she need my help? I was trying to go to her but I couldn't. "Davey! I need you to help me."

  I tried to say her name but only snowflakes fell from my mouth. Then the doorway where she stood got brighter and brighter; and where I was, darker and colder. I was kneeling on black ice and the little hedges were brittle little twigs. I was crying and my tears fell like bright blue marbles which skidded everywhere and glowed like the strange fungus. "Davey! You are the one who is still alive." her voice like gold and sunlight. But I couldn't see her anymore.

  I woke with a sensation of gagging from the cold and found myself warm and safe and definitely not dying of anything. I lay thinking about all sorts of stuff after that. Three am is not a good time to go wandering. At home I would have donned socks and my frayed but clean towelling robe and plodded to the kitchen to make hot chocolate. I wondered in an abstract kind of way if we were doomed. But nearly three days in and already planning my own eulogy seemed ridiculously melodramatic.

  The next morning reasserted a more cheery aspect. After an efficient breakfast we broke camp swiftly. Everyone worked together without complaint. I noticed that Marcia and Jared seemed to be getting on particularly well. She looked lively and strong this morning; not like someone whose lover might be dead in a snow drift. It turned out that she and Jared had already spoken to Hanson on the radio. They had found a smaller cave “two doors down” as it were and with Janey being as bossy as Hell had sealed in and spent an equally comfortable if not as good humoured a night. James had concocted something great with rice and chicken and the other lad Jules had even remembered the thermometer spikes before they closed the entrance.

  ‘Good job they did.’ I said to Marcia who gave me a dirty look and sniffed. She shoved a clipboard in my hand and pointed. I suppose it was better this way; to disappoint her now, rather than later. As I twisted the spike out that she and Oliver had deposited last night, I reflected that nothing bad had happened yet… that is, if you didn’t count dangling off a cliff with the threat of certain death overwhelming you. Alex would be proud of my pessimistic outlook. He thought that being eaten by some large creature with huge teeth was a suitably noble way to go. I sounded a bit too messy to me. I liked the whole thing to be tidy and suitable for 12 year olds to view if it was made into a film. I looked up into the direction of sunrise, and caught the halo of golden curls as Janey came towards me smiling. She had her mask folded neatly to one side.

  ‘Hi!’ I said, ‘Are you ok without your….’

  ‘Oxygen?’ she peered at me, ‘I don’t breathe hard unless I’m running really quickly. Besides it’s better not to depend on it too much. I do exercises to relax. You should try it.’

  ‘I’d like too. Will you show me?’

  ‘Tonight; if we reach our scheduled stop.’

  ‘Tonight.’ I repeated smiling.

  ‘Naturally that is if things do in fact go to plan.’

  ‘How much time have we lost?’

  ‘Not much. A slight detour that proved to be our salvation. We can use this place on the way back. We contacted Base early. George says that there had been a rumour of other good caves. He was slightly put out that he hadn’t discovered these.’

  ‘Did George do a lot of the mapping round here?’ I asked cautiously.

  ‘Some. But it was right up to the Boundary edges that George made his mark. We wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for him.’

  ‘He’s been on a lot of expeditions then?’

  Janey glanced behind before speaking, ‘George is the only one I really trust. Everyone else is just along for the ride, or I don’t know them well enough to comment.’

  ‘Oh.’ I twisted out the spike having recorded the last reading. ‘So you don’t know me yet.
Do you think I’m along for the ride too?’

  ‘No Davey. I think…’ she paused and glanced back again. Someone was coming; ‘…you have a reason to be here. It will be a lot clearer… soon. Listen.’ she stood close to me and gripped my wrist tightly, ‘I want you to be clear about something… I believe that someone here is not what they seem to be. One of us is here to sabotage the expedition… I can’t tell you why I think that; only this, I know that you have no possible connection with the University people. I can tell that you want to learn, and experience new things. The question is: what kind of Man are you Davey?’

  ‘I… I don’t know what you mean.’ The proximity of Janey’s cheek and shapely ears was blasting reason from my mind, ‘Erm…. It would help me if you didn’t stand quite so close… I find it hard to be rational when your err…. hair is tickling my nose.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry about that.’ she straightened up.

  ‘I’m an idiot.’ I said, ‘A bloody fool who thinks that this trip will change me into what my Dad always thought I ought to be.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘I guess that would be a misogynistic bastard who drinks every night, and gambles all the money away.’ I thought for a moment, ‘Or on his good days; a guy who does something for society and saves the world from something deadly.’

  ‘Tough call.’

  ‘Of course. I don’t really aspire to be like him. The good days are just the reflection of a fantasy brought about by playing too many computer games and smoking his mate’s attic cannabis harvest.’

  ‘One hell of a home life it must have been.’ Janey sounded quite intrigued.

  ‘My parents divorced a long time ago. He wasn’t instrumental in the crucial part of my teenage development.’

  ‘So Mum is…?’

  ‘The greatest woman on the planet, and already so proud of me that nothing else is necessary.’

  ‘Now, that is tough!’ Janey grinned