Cloud Field

by A M Russell

  ‘Right…’ Adam pulled his binoculars away, but he still watched the way we had come from behind the shelter of the prickly branches.

  I looked upwards to the opposite curving top of one of the giant ovoids. There was a streak of green marbling on its misty cream swirled surface. I wondered if anyone had ever got to the top of them. Then a thought occurred to me, ‘What’s underneath the eggs?’

  ‘The rocks?’ Jared stared absently, ‘More of the same I believe. Somebody did some digging near them on an expedition. They hit more solid rock about six feet down.’

  ‘How did they dig through the ground?’ asked Curly Pete, ‘It’s frozen solid.’

  ‘There is a very short time. That’s almost impossible to predict when everything melts.’ Jared smiled, ‘I’m glad you asked. I was on that expedition. We did quite a bit of sampling. Tree roots. Leaves. Flowers.’

  ‘Flowers?’ Curly Pete had a look of envy that glowed from every pore of the true scientist.

  ‘No… before you ask it wasn’t a trip with Janey. She’s not been told about it. They said we shouldn’t say.’

  ‘Who did?’ I asked quite loudly. They all looked at me. My cup was empty. I gave it back to Jared, ‘Who did?’ I asked again quietly.

  ‘Shall we make camp?’ Jared said to us all while looking at me.

  ‘I think so.’ said Adam.

  ‘It’s time.’ said Curly Pete looking at the sky, ‘Let’s radio in bad weather. Tell Hanson we’d rather walk back tomorrow.’

  ‘Marcia will be pleased.’ said Jared sarcastically, ‘ok. Let’s pick a good spot.’

  ‘Eeny, meany miney mo! Which cave entrance is first to show!’ Pete went a short distance and pointed. ‘Hey guys! I think this is our boudoir for tonight.’

  ‘Yes. That’s good. Well done Peter.’

  ‘Ok… but I’m not on pudding duty tonight.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Jared grinned.

  Twenty minutes later we had camped in a firm, decisive, and rather cheery manner. Jared’s decision seemed to have perked our small group back into good humour. It turned out to be a bloody good decision too. Within an hour it had started to snow extremely heavily.

  ‘Flakes like flipping pancakes outside.’ Pete was going to set a spike.

  ‘Just forget it.’ said Jared, ‘we didn’t have time for that today....’

  ‘Huh? Oh… right.’ Pete came back from the cave entrance.

  ‘So is it short edited highlights for starters, or the whole bloody thing?’ Jared looked hard at me, then said ‘Adam and Curly, you’re doing dinner. Adam: the pudding.’

  ‘What is it?’ Adam made a face.

  ‘Some fruit thing. It’s in that pack.’

  ‘I think I’ll have the short version.’ I said.

  ‘Good choice. Would sir like sauce with that? Or perhaps a little sprinkling of hyperbole?’

  ‘Just the short version will do.’

  ‘It really is very short.’ Jared rolled his eyes jokily.

  ‘Alright.’ I said.

  ‘Just tell us!’ said Adam.

  ‘Even the sceptic! Now my life is complete.’ Jared stopped laughing, ‘Seriously. The truth is so ridiculously simple that you might not believe what I’m saying.’

  ‘Try me.’ said Adam.

  Jared looked at me. ‘Davey?’

  ‘Tell me.’ I shrugged.

  Jared turned round. He picked up a set of camping knife, fork and spoon. He laid them in a line.

  ‘When we travelled to the edge of the rocks we went through a lot of different environments right.’ he pointed to the spoon, fork and knife laid end to end.

  ‘Ok.’ I said.

  ‘What if I told you that we are not as far away from Main Base, or anywhere else than it first appears?’ he folded them into a zigzag. Then next to each other. Then clipped them back together as one.

  ‘What?’ said Adam, ‘Are you saying? I mean really?’

  ‘I think he means that there is some anomalous distortion of the space time continuum.’ said Curly Pete.

  ‘No.’ Jared shook his head. I was thinking, hard. For once I needed to be cleverer than the scientist. Than all of them. I needed to see it. Before Jared did the reveal. Something simple. Something elegant. Something only an idiot would see….

  I was perfectly qualified.

  ‘We never left Main Base.’ I said.

  *****

  Nine

  Adam had made custard. He said that it was the one constant that could be relied upon to be truly satisfying. I had the peculiar feeling of asking myself if I was having a crisis or not.

  It turned out that my answer, although not exactly, in technical terms could be described as being correct. Was, in fact an inversion of the real explanation.

  We were, to all intents and purposes in an anomalous distortion, just as Curly said. But....the fact of being here didn’t mean that we had ever actually come here.

  Science is said to be by some, to be the describing of things observed: a way of categorising in concrete terms something already in existence but not understandable.

  I knew who I was. I knew I was Davey. I had applied and I had been accepted. But why?

  ‘You were already here.’ said Jared. ‘This place collects people. The University recruits the real people to go find the things that the “shadow” people cannot bring back. We are the experiment. But you need to remember. I mean you really need to remember, that in all possible worlds, if you die; then you are really dead.’

  ‘So I was picked because I was here. Already.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So does that mean that I’m on my way to base right now to sign in… to get my first briefing… that sort of thing?’

  ‘Yes. That is the most likely. You’re a first trip guy right?’

  ‘So this isn’t real?’

  ‘Of course it is. If you decide to do this; it’s real. You’re here miles from anywhere.’

  ‘And if I don’t decide it’s real?’

  ‘You can go out. Go past the next rock and find yourself watching the convoy leave without you on it: by the gate of Main Base.’

  ‘I could do that right now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why don’t we all just do that?’

  ‘Because the others will be lost without us; because we want to stick together. Every time someone leaves it changes everyone’s timeline. It undoes what has been done. It literally reorganises itself around you. You change things for others because everyone’s life has an effect on everyone else’s.’

  ‘So…’ I spoke slowly, ‘we all have a choice. But if I make a choice that affects other people adversely, they might not end up so well?’

  Jared stared at me for a long moment before answering; then spoke softly while he seemed to be looking beyond to something I could not see, ‘You are… I suppose living out a future you have yet to decide to choose. Everyone who comes here is given the power of a god… but we simply don’t know what to do with it. So we just act as if nothing is really weird. That it’s all normal. It’s all just a trip into the unknown.’

  ‘I can see why the University people want this power....’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Janey.’

  ‘Janey is….’ Jared fished around for the right words, ‘Janey is a person who hasn’t arrived yet.’

  ‘You mean. There, on the outside, she hasn’t signed up for this thing?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right. They are getting worried. People don’t do that many trips before they appear and visit Base. I mean it’s practically unheard of.’

  ‘What about you Jared?’

  ‘Oh I’m Really Here. I mean actually, in truth. I was the first to sign up along with Aiden. They’ve killed me off so many times that I can’t explain it. But I always come back. But this time it’s for real. I only ever had one life. If Janey is on the outside still, then I’m not. I’m not at Base anymore either. I hold on because I want to find my friend. I want
to find Aiden. He saved me. He told me what he knew. All of it. And I keep volunteering because if you let people like Hanson have their way, then eventually they’ll be nothing left.’

  ‘So who is the real bad guy?’ I was aching to know, so when I got back I could kick him where it hurt.

  ‘Why do you need to know that?’ asked Jared; ‘Did they tell you to ask me that?’

  ‘Who? I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘The people from the University.’

  ‘But I didn’t meet them; only their PA Jean, and then Hanson when I signed up.’

  ‘So who do you work for?’

  ‘I’m not a spy!’ I said indignantly.

  ‘I know that.’ said Jared patiently, ‘I mean who do you work for in your job?’

  ‘My job? What has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘It’s the only question that matters. Not everyone is recruited out of the eager graduate brood. Or from the ever shrinking knot of knarled old adventurers looking for new sponsorship.’

  ‘I work for “Blue Sky Designs”. They have a big building in the city. I’m on the second floor.’

  ‘And who do you work for?’

  ‘You mean, who’s my boss?’

  ‘Yes. Or line manager. Or both.’

  ‘Well… It’s Grey. My immediate boss…’

  ‘Mr or Ms or what?’

  ‘Definitely Mr, and the top boss is Mr Rice.’

  ‘As in the foodstuff?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right.’

  Jared looked thoughtful. ‘It’s not getting me anywhere. He may be nothing to do with it.’

  ‘I hope so. I do want to at least have a job when I do get back!’

  ‘Good call.’ Jared said to all of us then: ‘I want to get home and stop Janey from ever setting out. I have to get back. And we have to do this the old fashioned way.’

  ‘Long road home?’ said Adam, ‘If you’re really here then I definitely am too. I know it.’

  ‘And what about you Curly?’ I asked.

  ‘Well…,’ he mused, hand on his chin, ‘I can assume from all the available evidence that I am actually here. But unlike Davey I don’t have the benefit of Ms Amber’s charming discussion.’

  ‘Who…?’ I hadn’t a clue,

  But Curly carried on: ‘I haven’t any reason to suppose I’m suffering from any delusions, or visionary things. On the other hand I don’t have any evidence to prove it the other way either. So the jury must be out on this one.’

  ‘What we need to defeat the whole thing, is someone who can get out. But unlike Aiden doesn’t have any unfinished business, with anyone here.’ -Jared again.

  ‘So that’s why simply walking away from your team doesn’t erase that part of the time line.’ I said.

  ‘Yes. That’s it.’ Jared said again. ‘What we need to do from here on, is concentrate on getting home. If only one person can get back he or she could find a way of stopping all of this from ever happening at all.’

  Something occurred to me, ‘What about the metal knife?’

  ‘We simply don’t know.’ said Curly Pete, still in thoughtful mood.

  I waited until the other two had fallen asleep before I asked the question that had popped in there earlier. ‘How do we defeat said Bad Guy, save all our friends, and get home?’

  ‘I think we would have to trick them into travelling into the land itself. They visit Base. But that’s not enough if you haven’t been there often. They need a day trip to the edge of the slope just as it starts to drop.’ Jared rubbed his finger along the edge of the small fork form his camping set.

  ‘What would that do?’ I whispered.

  ‘Short circuit. Feedback loop.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘We just wait. Carry on as normal.’

  ‘So that’s it?’

  ‘I hope it is. It’s one thing to trap others in this thing, but dreams and visions tell us something else is going to happen.’ he clipped it back into the set and put them down.

  ‘You’ve been dreaming?’

  ‘Yes,’ He gave me one sharp look, ‘I see the sea....and sometimes a mountain and there is mist.... do you see anything?’

  So I told him about the rose garden, and the frozen mini lavender bushes in little well clipped hedges. I left out the emotional aspects of the dream and stuck to the facts as I saw them.

  ‘Mmm…. Could it be?’

  ‘Could it be what?’ I resolved that if I did get out of here I would take Alex up on his offer of taking it easy on some boat moored in warm water. I was able to swim, which might account for my reluctance at the outset as I didn’t want to get roped into any dangerous and energetic activity. I now felt sure that it would be relaxing and fun; just the thing after this, to help dissolve current events into the background.

  ‘I’m sorry for not answering your earlier question,’ Jared said, ‘you wanted to know who said we shouldn’t tell Janey about the brief summer. Well that was George. He said we should try to stop her going back again. He has this theory, it’s something like this: If one person can be prevented from ever applying for the expeditions; If they can be persuaded… against everything they would ever want to do. He believes that the whole thing will unravel. We can stop the ones behind this… and before you ask; I don’t know who they are. None of us ever do. And about your dream… your sympathy for Janey may be clouding your judgement,’ here he smiled, ‘ but your ability to frame things in some sort of mythological way may be a key to how we get out of here.’

  ‘Dream interpretation? Are you crazy?’ I kept my voice low.

  Jared wriggled into his sleeping bag. ‘Crazy? Any more than anything else here is crazy… are you kidding. The subconscious has the ability to see things the conscious mind cannot. You dream in order to communicate that to yourself.’

  ‘Ok. So what does it mean?’

  ‘It was before we got to the ice lake right?’

  ‘Yes definitely.’

  ‘I think that there may be a chance you were dreaming of what you had experienced on the outside, or at Base only… maybe.’ Jared looked very thoughtful, ‘George has tried to calculate the distance between the real world and the future possible worlds. But he doesn’t seem to be able to find any pattern. We’ve tried and tried. It just doesn’t match. But everyone has dreams; even the ones who don’t see anything while they are awake. But most don’t tell…’ Jared looked down.

  ‘Because it’s just a dream.’ I said.

  ‘Of course. But that is the only real thing. Even in that muddle of personal symbolism is something we’ve overlooked. We have the radio here. If we find anything we tell George. He makes a record and looks for a pattern.’

  ‘Well there was one thing,’ I said, ‘that struck me as odd… I mean it was all odd, but a different kind of odd.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘In the dream Janey’s hair was a lot longer. It just seemed like part of it you know… princess in a garden and all that. But it was something that didn’t mean anything… there was no reason for it to be longer. Except maybe it really is.’

  ‘Yes. Yes of course. So we are looking for Janey with long hair. Janey before she comes here. Do you think?’

  ‘Yes! So what can I do?’ I looked expectantly at Jared.

  ‘We need to get you to George; to get you out of here. You have to go back. You have to find her. Stop her cutting her hair.’

  ‘But that’s just daft. Why me?’

  ‘Because you can get back. You have only gone a short distance in. Once you are to the edge of the slope it gets harder. Once you get to the ice field it’s impossible. That is until all possible permutations of events have been played out. That’s why they keep sending new people.’

  ‘You mean to keep it in a constant state of flux?’ I asked trying to should clever.

  ‘Yes. That’s right. How did you know?’ Jared looked serious.

  ‘Honestly I don’t have a clue. Lucky guess?’
>
  Jared seemed pleased, ‘You really are full of surprises. You’ll be telling me next that you’re not in love with Janey.’

  ‘I’m not in love with Janey.’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ Jared’s eyes gleamed brightly as he turned the lamp down to leave just a faint reddish circle of illumination that stopped the blackness from overwhelming me. I stared upwards. I felt a bit braver. And not as useless. To the thing I wanted to do… that was the thing to do. If I saw her what would I say? I mean… she was an intelligent woman. Not an airhead. I knew what Alex said about woman with brains. “To Be Avoided.” How could I find her? And if I did find her… that was assuming I got back. How would I persuade her that the thing that she hadn’t done yet; was the thing she must not, under any circumstances try to do? She’d think I was a crazy person. Only supposing I got anywhere near to her in the first place.

  At least now I had a plan. Save Janey. I hoped to hell I wasn’t being tricked. If I got home and discovered that this whole experience was part of a psychotic break with reality I think I’d be relieved. I could Imagine Alex visiting me in hospital and saying something witty and cutting about boys trying to be men. Janey’s question came back then: “What kind of Man are you Davey?” She never supposed I was anything else. She just wanted to know what sort. The memory of her warm scent stung me. And the fact I had dismissed her warning so casually. Who was the Judas? Who was in the team now who wasn’t working for our “side”? It came to me all of a sudden. Who was here when Aiden was here? Who betrayed him? I fished around for answers in the dark. But I knew little enough about each of these people to be certain if any of them were even capable of such an act. Then I realised that it wasn’t like that. That in this world of possible outcomes. Nothing was fixed. That feeling of déjà vu. It was a real indication of what we all were. Just possible things. If I forgot, I felt something else; there was a break. A moment that seemed unrecoverable. Or was it? That was the key! I needed to remember how many times things could obviously have diverted from the path it was on. How many changes of tack. Alex said that a sailing boat has to use the wind. It has to take the tack to fill its sails. It will slow and drift without the air in the sails. It depends which way you turn. Janey was right in one sense and wrong in another. Passion, anger, it gave a temporary push. But it did not change the direction of the movement. Not like… the Ice Lake, when Hanson was talking. Something there… something about his voice. Something persuasive. It wasn’t every time. It was only when he talked about what he thought others should do. It was like being hypnotised. I supposed; I’d never been controlled in that way myself. Who didn’t see anything? Adam, Nikolas (most of the time), Curly Pete, Hanson (but according to Janey that was not the case). Did those people make it harder to escape or easier? I rubbed my head with my fingertips. It was important. What did I not see? I shut my eyes. Maybe I could be back at home… no, back at Base if I wanted to be. I wasn’t someone on whom the whole thing depended. I would be not missed….