Beyond Ever Blue Skies

by Clive S. Johnson

  “So, if we had hit it—”

  “The sphere would most likely have shattered and probably come off its rail.”

  “Leaving us to fall all the way back down to that sky up there…” and her eyes narrowed yet further still at the illusion of stars above.

  “But we did stop in time, Steph. There’s no point in dwelling on what could have happened. It didn’t, so stop worrying. Oh, and by the way, there is something you can do for me tomorrow.”

  She finally lowered her gaze and looked at him, a glint of interest glistening in her eyes.

  “You can check if your sickly plants are any better.”

  “My plants? Why? What’s happened?”

  “It’s only a suspicion I have, but I reckon you might find they’re beginning to improve.”

  “You mean that?” and her old animation had clearly returned. “What makes you think so?” but he only promised to tell her more if her previously ailing plants were indeed to prove him right.

  “I’ll go in first thing tomorrow and let you know.”

  For the rest of the evening Stephanie steadily seemed to get back to her old self, showing the kind of interest he’d initially expected, asking him this and that about his progress and whether his forehead still hurt. When they came to leave, Morgan offered to walk her home but she’d have none of it.

  “You’ve been really busy these last couple of days, Morgan. You must be knackered,” and she insisted he get off home to bed.

  As they went out into the alley, Morgan asked, “Will I see you tomorrow, then? I’ve a free day, don’t forget.”

  She suggested he contact her in the morning, but then corrected herself: “Better make it the afternoon. There’s something I need to do after I’ve been in to work,” at which her eyes briefly clouded. “After which…” and the old glint came back. “After which, I’m all yours for the rest of the day. And then… Well, maybe then I can be yours for…for the rest of our lives together,” and her features softened as a tentative smile grew on her face.

  At first, Morgan’s mouth dropped open, but then he soon gathered it into a smile of his own, a stumbling answer forming on his lips. She leant forward, though, and kissed him goodnight, long and hard. Finally, she gave him one last smile before striding off into the starlit night, not another word passing her own now strangely resolute lips.

  20 An Unconscionable Realisation

  “How did you do it, Morgan?” Stephanie enthused as soon as he answered her call.

  “I take it your plants are recovering,” he said as he hung up his handtowel and went back into his bedroom to get dressed.

  “New growth; healthy new growth. Everyone here’s so relieved. But, come on, how did you do it?”

  “Not me, Steph. Look, can we leave it until I see you?”

  “Yeah, sure, but why can’t you—”

  “So, where do you suggest?”

  “Eh? Oh, er, well… I tell you what, how about if I show you something interesting at the same time?”

  “Hmm, that sounds…well, sounds like something I can’t refuse.”

  “I didn’t mean that, Morgan, although… Well, maybe later, but for now there’s something else you might reckon’s worth seeing.”

  When Morgan asked what it was, she told him to meet her outside Agri-Prod at two, and to make sure he had his tools with him, at which she sniggered.

  When the time came, he arrived there a good ten minutes early, but Stephanie was already waiting, a bag strung across her shoulder. She greeted him with a broad grin and a kiss.

  “We’re not going in, are we?” Morgan said, glancing in through the glass doors.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve told them you wanted to double-check your circuits when I happened to mention to you that our plants were recovering, to see if there’s any change that might explain it.”

  They were soon through to where Morgan had first met her, when he’d been pleasantly surprised and intrigued by her un-muscled appearance. She led him down the path along which she’d then pushed the wheelbarrow, but when they came to the gap in the bushes this time, she directed him through.

  Morgan once again had to stop, to marvel at the open view, whilst Stephanie waited a little way along the path.

  “Where are we going, Steph?”

  She retraced her steps and spoke quietly. “I want to show you the tower,” and he gazed at its imposing but featureless rise in the middle-distance. “There’s a nice quiet spot in an orchard just beside its base—”

  One of the other Agri-Prod workers came out from between rows of plants that grew along wooden trellises to one side. The man smiled and nodded at Stephanie as he passed by but said nothing.

  “Come on,” she urged. “Best not draw too much attention,” and she pulled at his sleeve to hurry him along.

  They walked for some way, between regimented beds of growth that Morgan had no hope of identifying, between patches of tall-stemmed plants out of which grew strange feathery, elongated lumps, and beneath overhanging fruit trees. And all the while, the tower seemed no nearer.

  “What’s it for?” he asked Stephanie, keeping his voice low.

  “For?” she cast over her shoulder.

  “Yeah; what do you keep in it?”

  She stopped and raised her gaze to it but at first said nothing. Only when she’d turned to him did she say, “Maybe it’s what it keeps out,” but then she just strode on, Morgan having to hurry to catch up.

  Somehow, the tower didn’t seem quite as tall when they eventually came nearer its base. Even close to, its curved wall appeared just as featureless: a smooth round rise of bright white wall. It seemed to finish abruptly at what must have been a flat top, although Morgan couldn’t be sure at the angle.

  “In here,” Stephanie called, and he turned to see her slip beneath the low hanging branches of what were, even to him, clearly plum trees.

  Although a small orchard, it offered enough seclusion for Morgan to feel more relaxed, that they were no longer open to hidden scrutiny. When he joined her at a small bench set at its centre, Stephanie was already throwing off her bag. From it she took a cloth and a selection of food, then two bottles of beer which she set on the cloth now spread out on the middle of the bench.

  “Oh, wow, Steph. Great idea,” and he sat down on the seat beside it. Stephanie triumphantly sat at the other side.

  After Morgan had taken a bite or two, and washed it down with a swig of beer, he again asked about the tower.

  “First, you tell me how you knew our plants were recovering and then I’ll tell you about the tower.” Morgan looked up through the overarching, fruit laden trees at what little could now be seen of the structure that had partly brought them here.

  “Okay, but you’ve got to understand that everything I’m going to say is pure guesswork; I don’t know it for certain.” He leant back and took another swig, and Stephanie nodded.

  “Well, it was bumping into one of my old schoolmates again that made me think,” and he told her about his last meeting with Ellie Fawshrop.

  “If you like, she’s turned out to be a kind of air quality meter.”

  “Meter?”

  “Well, maybe not quite a meter, but a way of getting an idea of the proportion of oxygen in the air—her times, do you see?”

  Stephanie clearly looked lost.

  “Just when you noticed your plants were ailing, her times were getting noticeably worse, then yesterday, when I bumped into her again, I found out they were suddenly getting better.”

  “So how does that tell you how it’s happened, or who’s responsible? From what little you said earlier I got the impression you’d a good idea who it might be.”

  “It’s the timing,” and he grinned at her.

  “Timing of what?”

  “Just think about it, Steph: shortly after Ken’s got his instructions to me, the air starts going back to normal. And then there was something I accidentally came across the other day when I was in Atmos.”


  “You were in Atmos? When? You never said.”

  “I’ll tell you more later, but for now, the important thing is that I discovered its control system had been remotely rebooted, about the time I’d had my fingerprint sampled. You remember, when we were on our way to Caelum and our discovery of the glass sphere?”

  She nodded, although her brow remained furrowed.

  “I told you I can’t be sure, but I think I know who was behind both those things, someone who’s had no other option but to find inventive roundabout ways of repairing the unfortunate results of some damage.”

  Stephanie’s eyes grew wide, her mouth slowly opening. “You don’t mean…”

  “I do.”

  “Ken?”

  “The very same. I reckon he staged the air’s deterioration in order to get a lecy-eng involved in an agri problem. He must’ve known where the poor air would have shown up first—amongst your most sensitive plants, the very ones dependent on a small lecy circuit. I’m also assuming he’d be the only one likely to have enough remote access to Atmos to do a reboot.”

  “Well, I can see why he’d need a lecy-eng involved, but why not just report it as a fault, like everyone else does?”

  “Because he couldn’t. Because he can’t make any calls. It’s not just his audio and video comms with Erebus that’ve been disrupted, but them all; bar a few obscure data-only links like the one to Atmos. But it’s through those few, Steph, that I reckon he’s finally been able to wangle a way to get in contact and pass me his tasks.”

  Stephanie narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips in the silence that followed, until she abruptly smiled at Morgan. “I’m glad it was you Lecy sent, then, and not one of their pricks.”

  Morgan laughed. “So am I, Steph; real glad. But you know, it could only have been me. Anyone else would have washed their hands of the whole problem once they’d found out it wasn’t a lecy fault. End of; Ken defeated.”

  “So why didn’t you wash your hands of it, Morgan? Why?”

  “Why? You mean other than your having bewitched me into having to see you again?” She flushed and lowered her face for a moment. “It had to be me because I’m not a true lecy-eng but a promoted flui-eng—a uniquely promoted one. I’m from a totally different background, Steph, with a totally different outlook, and…and a curiosity no trueborn lecy would ever have considered seemly.”

  “Are you saying—”

  “I’m saying it had to be me because Ken must have somehow put me there in the first place, there in Lecy, to be ready and waiting.”

  He snatched up his bottle and downed what was left of his beer in one, then slammed the bottle onto the bench before wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

  “I’ve only now really accepted it, Steph, that in all probability I’m a product of Ken’s scheming. Which is also probably why I’ve always felt so out-of-place. Why I’ve needed to hide away in the Lecy system—until I met you.”

  “But that’s great, isn’t it, that you’ve found me?”

  “Is it? Is it really?”

  “But I…I thought you felt something for me.”

  “That’s just the problem, Steph. I do; a great deal.”

  “Well, then?”

  “If I’m right, then what’s going to happen to me when I’ve finally fulfilled my role? When I connect Ken with Connie-Jay, and you and all the other chosen agris end up swanning off to The Promised Land. Because you will be chosen, Steph; I know you will. And you know well enough that a lecy can’t go along. So, where does that put me? What am I going to be left with then? Eh, Steph? Tell me that.”

  When Morgan pressed his beer bottle to his lips again, he found it empty. Stephanie hadn’t touched hers, and now she only stared down at her hands, nervously folded in her lap.

  “You’ve already thought of this, haven’t you, Steph? Our being separated,” and his gut felt heavy.

  She refused to look up.

  Morgan threw his head back and stared unseeingly through the foliage above. Silence slowly drew out between them until he blew a long breath and slanted a look at her. Her head remained bowed.

  “I suppose…” he softly said and leant forward, putting his head in his hands. “I suppose I had, too, to be honest. I just couldn’t bring myself to face up to it.” He reached for her hand, which she gave freely but limply. It felt cold.

  “What are we going to do, Steph? I couldn’t bear losing you.”

  At last, she raised her head and looked him in the eye. “It might not come to that, Morgan. It might not. If I had my way, I wouldn’t go.”

  “I couldn’t let you do that, Steph, not just for me. I know it means too much to you; I know that.”

  “I’d do it for you, though, Morgan. I would. I couldn’t imagine a life without you.”

  “But to pass up on The Promised Land… No, you can’t mean it, Steph, and I certainly couldn’t live with the guilt. It’d always be there, you know it would, threatening to come between us.”

  “I meant it, though, when I said ‘It might not come to that’.”

  “What? Losing you?”

  She nodded but looked away. “There might be a way of you going along. There has to be, because you…you can’t be left here, not knowing what you do.”

  “Not left here?” then Morgan slumped in his seat. “Edsel! That’s why he’s been keeping such a close eye on me. What you’re really saying is that I can’t be left here alive. That’s it, isn’t it, Steph?”

  A tear glinted on her cheek and she wiped it away, straightening more as she sniffed and again looked him in the eye. “Can you trust me, Morgan? Can you? With your life.”

  He stared at the woman he now knew he loved with all his heart, but could he bring himself to love her with his head, he wondered, for that now screamed frantic warnings. But then Stephanie’s eyes began to cloud, her mouth to firm, and he felt her slipping from his grasp.

  “Yes,” he barely whispered, then “Yes,” more firmly. “I trust you, trust you with my life, for it’s already yours, always will be,” and they kissed, tentatively at first, then with growing passion, as though clinging to each other’s dear lives.

  The bench was hard beneath Morgan’s back, the still air sweet with Stephanie’s urgency as it mingled with the smell of spilt beer and spoiled food. But his own urgency impelled him, sought to be quenched at the heart of their now entwined bodies, beneath the growing disarray of clothes. And all the time, the tower shone white and pristine through the tracery of leaves and branches above, patient in its lofty remove.

  21 The “Great Shake”

  The sound of someone passing by on the path beside the orchard interrupted them as Morgan sleepily stroked Stephanie’s hair. They scrambled to their feet, hastily rearranging their clothes, then sat innocently on the bench. As the footsteps diminished into the distance, they both began giggling.

  “I never thought I’d end up doing it here, Morgan…not at work!”

  He smiled. “It’ll give you something to remember when you’re picking these plums,” and he nodded up at the purple pendant fruit.

  She giggled again as, down the neck of her T-shirt, she adjusted her underwear. Morgan watched, enrapt, remembering, his hand still feeling a pliant firmness, a leer growing on his face. She stopped and stared at him, a look of approbation fighting her remnant grin.

  Morgan turned his gaze back to the plum trees. The glimpses he got through them of the white tower seemed to carry a cold entreaty, so much so he soon lowered a serious face to Stephanie.

  “Did you really mean it, Steph…that I might be able to go along with you…to The Promised Land?”

  “I’m working on it, Morgan. Trust me, like you said you would…remember?” and after a moment’s pause, he nodded, then she wagged her finger at him. “You just get on with Ken’s tasks and leave me to sort it out. I’m pretty sure I know what to do now.”

  Morgan dearly wanted to press her for more, but the hardening of her features put paid to that. He returned his ga
ze to the tower once more and wondered.

  “Well, Steph, I’ve now fulfilled my side of the bargain,” but when he glanced at her, she looked none the wiser. “I’ve told you how I knew your plants were getting better, so—”

  “Oh, the tower. Right. But I don’t know if it means anything. It’s just something that made me think the other day, then an opportunity to follow it up came along.”

  She stood and smoothed out her clothes, scraping food stains from the hem of her skirt and wiping her knees with the cloth.

  “There’s a patch on the underside of your right breast,” he said and reached out to help, but she swatted his hand away. Grinning, he dragged his gaze up through the trees once more. “So, what’s so interesting about this tower of yours?”

  “It’s a bit odd, really. From time to time I’ve overheard some of the older workers talking about when it wasn’t here, or at least the stories they’d heard along those lines.”

  “Not here?” Morgan found it hard to imagine anything in Rundkern not having been here forever.

  “You’re not the only one who can put two and two together, you know,” Stephanie said as she folded the dirtied cloth and put it back in her bag. “You remember Connie-Jay telling us about the night before she lost contact with Ken? When she said something momentous seemed to have happened but that left no evidence behind.”

  “Yeah; vaguely. Something about when she was in her early twenties, sixty years ago I think she said.”

  “Well, I reckon it did leave something behind, something she either didn’t know about or didn’t want to mention,” and Stephanie too now peered up through the foliage.

  “What? You mean this tower?” and he got up and wandered to the edge of the orchard to get a better view.

  “There’s no one from that time working here anymore,” she called after him before getting up and following. “But there is someone still alive from those days,” she added, now standing beside him. “Brenda, who does my off-shifts, told me about her grandmother who worked here when it happened. She lives in an agri care unit now; has done for years. She’s in her late nineties, apparently.”