Beyond Ever Blue Skies

by Clive S. Johnson

  “Oh, shit,” he gasped, and then barked, “Rosie?”

  “Yes, Morgan?”

  “Show me the maintenance network.”

  It appeared before his vision, the whole of J-section laid bare. There was their own pod, dropping towards its station, but there also was Caelum’s, flashing its status as “Access in Progress”.

  “Shit, Steph. I can’t believe you’ve really… I just can’t believe it.” Now lost for words, he glanced at the air gauge—almost into the red—then saw they were fast approaching the sharp turn into the descent to the sky below. He slowed the pod just enough for the turn then sent them down at breakneck speed, only slowing again for the turn to run along the sky. When Morgan finally brought the pod softly against the docking station, the gauge showed nothing but red.

  Once the hatch had been released and air hissed in, Morgan requested the network diagram again. Edsel’s pod now carried the tag “Powered”.

  “Damn. We’re too late. He’ll no longer have a comms connection, not now he’s on his way up. On his way to his death, for crying out loud. I can’t let it happen. It’s not right, Steph. Just because he wants to take over from Connie-Jay doesn’t mean he deserves this.”

  Lost for how to stop it, all he could do was watch the air gauge steadily creep up towards green as he wracked his brain for ideas. A quick check of the network and Morgan saw that Edsel was now climbing towards the roof.

  He peered across at where he guessed Edsel would be in the gloom, then noticed the air gauge showed full. He stabbed “POWER”, the hatch resealed and he again sent them hurtling along the sky’s surface.

  “What’re you doing, Morgan?” but he wasn’t sure himself, only that something at the back of his mind now hinted that there was indeed a way to save Edsel.

  Yet again they rose rapidly towards the shaft, but this time the cavern was quickly sinking into darkness, only a faint hint of wan blue light from far, far above. Morgan strove to prise out that germ of an idea he’d glimpsed from where it still lurked at the back of his mind. But it just wouldn’t come.

  “Shit,” he hissed in exasperation, then again checked Edsel’s progress. Meanwhile, Stephanie said nothing, her body between his arms seeming to harden by the minute.

  Finally, he shook his head in desperation, only for it to strike the cowl beside it, jolting his memory and lending a little more substance to his obdurate idea. And then it dawned on him.

  “Rosie?”

  “Yes, Morgan?”

  “Have you got access to the maintenance comms system, and if so, can you patch me in?”

  As Rosie was telling him she’d have to check, Stephanie broke out of her silence: “What’re you up to, Morgan?”

  “Ken spoke to me through a cowl like this,” he said, tapping it with his free hand. “A cowl that’s part of the maintenance system, a system I now have access to thanks to Rosie, my new perscom. If I can do what Ken did for us, we’ve a chance of saving your uncle.”

  She stiffened against his arm. “No, Morgan. No, don’t do it; you don’t understand.”

  “I understand well enough, Steph: murder is murder, whatever its noble cause, and I won’t be a part—”

  “Shit, Morgan. Shit, shit, shit!” He felt her swivel round, her voice then close to his face. “If he lives, Morgan, he will kill you, he will, as sure as damn it. Is that what you want? ‘cos there’ll be no reasoning with him, especially when he finds out he’s been tricked…when he finds out I’ve tricked him. Then that’ll be it for the both of us, Morgan; end of.”

  “Both of us?”

  “And you know what, Morgan? I’d like there to be another white tower. I really would. An impregnable white tower walling off that bastard’s remains.” He realised he could now dimly see her as she turned her back on him and firmly crossed her arms.

  “If I may?” Rosie’s cautiously asked.

  Morgan hardly heard her at first, too stunned by Stephanie’s outburst, but then automatically answered “Go ahead, Rosie”.

  “I now have access to M-POD-COMMS. I can link you through, whenever. I just need to know which pod you wish to speak with.”

  “Er, yeah, Rosie. Thanks,” and without really thinking, he said, “Caelum’s if you would.”

  “Do you wish me to connect you now?”

  Morgan couldn’t get his thoughts together, then noticed that the darkness had lifted a little more, his gaze drifting up to see a new sliver of yellow light striking the shaft. Then some way below it, in its reflected glow and below the barely visible blue-tinged hole, a glint of speeding glass drew his gaze: Edsel’s pod fast approaching the hole.

  Edsel, he thought as his mind began to clear, the man he at last accepted would surely kill them both—more urgently, who would surely kill Stephanie!

  “Rosie?” he said, intending to tell her to disconnect from the comms network, but Stephanie must have feared the worst, for her voice came out low and deliberate.

  “Do you really want to know everything, Morgan? Why he’s a nasty piece of shit that doesn’t deserve saving? Do you? Really? Well, I’ll tell you. That…that monster raped me. Do you know that? When I was just a mere lass of twelve. And too many times since to ever want to remember.”

  Morgan stared at her, lost for words, but she seemed to have read his eyes for she then lowered her head and sobbed into the silence that now hung between them. She must have felt his continued stare, though, for she sniffed, tossed her head and wiped her face before looking him straight in the eye.

  “So,” she said in an even smaller voice, “there you have it, Morgan. Now you know the shame that’s driven me to pounce on this one chance of getting revenge.” This time she lowered her head to her hands.

  The pain that had marred her face turned his gaze away, out from the sphere and across at where he expected Edsel’s pod to be—but time had somehow got ahead.

  Fragments of metal and who knew what were already silently ballooning out from the lower edge of the hole, glittering blue as they tumbled in a growing wave across it. By now their own pod had drawn level, and Morgan slowed them to a halt as a familiar glass sphere emerged from the cloud of debris.

  It spun as it crossed the hole, striking the upper edge and shattering into a fast expanding ball of myriad glittering blue shards. From this mute puff of glass a chair appeared, a figure slumped over its handlebars.

  Morgan watched Edsel and his chair follow a flat arc across the shaft towards them. From him streamed faintly coloured vapour, jets of blood-reds and bile-blacks, of gut-whites and browns, all hanging as an expanding and ever-thinning pall about his body, about the severed chair.

  Edsel inexorably drew nearer, still astride the seat, as though steering a final retribution upon their own fragile sphere. But the curve of his path had taken him off to one side by the time Morgan could see the whites of his eyes, straining from their sockets like bleached and bulging tongues. His now naked, blotched and mottled skin seemed ruptured somehow, making him more of the monster Stephanie had so fervently described.

  The more so when he drifted into the sharp and full glare of yellow light. A glare that shone in through the gaping maw of the huge hole that Morgan now realised was but a short distance away. Edsel seemed almost drawn to it, so unerring his line, so smooth his flight, so bright he shone as he silently passed through it, and out of their lives forever.

  27 Asunder

  How long Morgan had stared obliquely at the hole, at its surprisingly short distance around the wall from their pod, he’d no idea. He’d blindly taken in the filigree of severed cables adorning its rim, the bent and twisted beams and the curled and stretched panels. He’d also noticed the way the yellow light snaked its reflections from the shiny metal where it bulged out, away from the shaft and into… Into what, exactly?

  But something about what he’d just witnessed failed to make sense, although he was damned if he could pinpoint what. And all the while, what really occupied his mind, other than Stephanie’s revel
ation, was the persistent image of Edsel’s silent departure.

  When his tongue scraped against the dry walls of his mouth, Morgan realised he’d left it wide open. But it wouldn’t close, just as his mind refused to step beyond the horror it kept replaying in all its gory detail. His body seemed numb somehow, lost to his senses, almost forgotten. And now, all that moved was the blood coursing through his ears, deafening him until his name whispered above its rumble.

  His name came again, tentative, quiet, the hint of it having been a question clinging to its tail. Then a third time “Morgan?” quivered against his hearing from beside him.

  “Why… Why are you so still, Morgan? Why aren’t you warning my—”

  “Too late,” was all his cracked voice conveyed.

  “What’s happened, Morgan? What are you staring at? Where’s my…”

  He turned to look upon her face. Even in the wan yellow light it appeared white, puffy around the eyes, heavy upon its cheeks, pinched about its thin-drawn lips. Those eyes, though, held so much more, so much in check: horror maybe, or fear, guilt certainly, and—and a loneliness.

  It was the loneliness that stayed with him when his mind at last mercifully held back the image of Edsel—the loneliness of his own rejection, he feared.

  He looked away and blinked as he stared across the shaft towards the far hole, as though it would somehow change what had happened.

  It didn’t.

  “But you…” he said. “You must have seen how your uncle…” then, as he realised she must have kept her head in her hands thoughout, a glint of tumbling debris drew his gaze. It seemed to bounce ever so slowly down the furthest wall of the shaft, towards the cavern below. He thought it was the scale of the place that seemed to lend it such sluggishness, and maybe why Edsel and his chair had…

  “How he what, Morgan?” Stephanie guardedly asked.

  “I was too late, Steph,” and a great relief washed over him. “Fortunately, too late, and in the end not foolish enough to save him.”

  Stephanie clamped her lips together and looked away, then forced unconvincing vigour into her voice. “The gauge is dropping. Not much of the green left. Do you think…” Her anxious gaze now darted about his features. “I think we should be getting ourselves back down.”

  Against the dark outline of her back she’d now turned to him, Morgan saw another replay of Edsel’s smooth passage through the hole, and he froze.

  “Do you want me to do it? You know, take us back down?” When Morgan only grunted, his stomach went light as the shaft appeared to rise about them. He didn’t remember much of the journey down, for his mind was too busy grappling with all he’d learnt, with all that had happened. Neither did Stephanie’s rather exuberant speed through the turns and her cack-handed docking greatly impinge.

  Only his own name finally dragged him from his maelstrom of thoughts, and he found Stephanie staring at him.

  “Hmm? What?”

  “How do we get out, Morgan?”

  “Out?”

  “Of the sphere?”

  “Oh,” and he gazed about him. “Just a minute. Just let me get my thoughts together.”

  “You can get us out, can’t you? You weren’t just—”

  “Of course I can,” at which he took a deep breath before commanding, “Rosie?”

  “Yes, Morgan?”

  “Would you please load the control desk?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t recognise the term ‘Control desk’. Can you be more specific?”

  “Eh?” he said, at which Stephanie frowned. He quickly blinked up Ken’s tasks and went straight to the last one. “Ah, of course,” and relief flooded through him. “Rosie, I want you to load the ‘Virtual Control Console’, please.”

  A facsimile of the desk filled his vision, although it had an entirely different first panel. When he directed his gaze to click the only virtual bar sticking out from below it, the faint sound of a real klaxon shrieked out for a short while in the station below. He soon had them standing, the chair swivelled out of the way and themselves waiting on the platform before he went through the remaining steps to get them down.

  When they came to step out of the glass column and into the control room, Rosie reported she’d lost her connection. For Morgan it somehow seemed to mark a passing, the leaving behind of the nightmares of another world. But when he caught an unguarded glimpse of Stephanie, it seemed she’d not been as fortunate. Her eyes remained haunted, her demeanour stilted, her fingers nervously entwining as she slowly and absently rubbed her hands together.

  He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know if he wished to do anything, and so turned his mind to more practical things, keeping his gaze averted.

  “We’ve plenty of time,” he announced, having just blinked up its display. “It’s not yet midnight.”

  “Morgan?”

  “Yes?” he said, cautiously, still avoiding her eyes.

  “Do you think you can still—”

  “What I think…is that we should get ourselves to Erebus, although I could do with a drink right now; I’m parched. And some food wouldn’t go amiss. How about you?”

  “Er, yes. Yes, I could do with a drink myself. There’s a night outlet a couple of alleys away. We could go that way and pick something up.”

  He could feel her gaze against the side of his face but busied himself making sure everything was in order. Before long he’d opened the door, finding himself waiting beside it for Stephanie.

  She didn’t move for a while, but Morgan only stared at the door as he continued to wait. Then she slipped past him into the corridor and he closed the door behind them. As he followed her to the one at the far end, she stopped before it and turned so abruptly he found himself up close, staring into her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” was all she said before opening the door and stepping out into the alley. This time a more familiar starlight glistened from the teardrops now clearly staining her pallid cheeks.

  28 Erebus

  As Morgan closed the outer door, Stephanie ambled ahead down the deserted alley, but her last words preyed on his mind. Before stepping out to catch her up he noticed how slumped her shoulders appeared.

  “Steph? Please. Wait,” he quietly called, and she stopped but kept her back to him.

  When he came up behind her, he quietly said, “It’s not you who should be sorry, Steph. It’s… It’s me.”

  She didn’t move, just kept looking straight ahead.

  “I’m sorry for being a prick,” and now she slowly turned to face him. “It’s just… Well, I suppose I’ve lived a pretty sheltered life, and…”

  She took a step towards him and reached out to touch his hands with her fingertips, delicate, almost wistful touches.

  “I’m not used to… It’s all been a bit…” and he again faltered.

  She seemed to be searching for something amongst his features, her eyes flicking this way and that about his face, her voice soft and quiet when it came.

  “It’s what drew me to you, Morgan. Do you know that? What made you different. Your simple view of life. Uncomplicated. And your…your kindness. How gentle you were.”

  “But I just never imagined your life could have…could have been so hard, Steph. I’m sorry. I really am, but I…I honestly don’t think I can…” at which point her mouth firmed. “Don’t think I can bear to lose you.”

  She let out a short, sharp breath, but her brows furrowed as she took hold of his hands, firmly in her own. “Do you really mean that, Morgan? Even knowing what I’ve done, what you now know about my past, about my—”

  He pressed his lips to hers, but they felt hard and thin and cold at first, and his heart sank. But then they warmed, soon softening against his own. That kiss became the most tender they’d ever shared, a tenderness brought of understanding and genuine love. Her hurt had become his, her revenge his own. Somehow, despite his previous qualms, Edsel’s death now seemed right, seemed just. And all he was left with wanting to do was to wipe away t
he memory of that man, of that monster, from Stephanie’s mind.

  The tears he saw this time on her cheeks clearly came from relief and a growing joy, and he kissed her again, but more urgently now. Only the pressure of time then came between them, and so reluctantly they drank in one final lingering look at each other before stepping out down the alley, now hand in hand.

  Having picked up something to eat and drink on the way, Morgan eventually led Stephanie down the steps into Erebus. It no longer felt strange, this going below sub-floor level. But even before they reached the bottom and turned to look into its barely-lit chamber, he knew by its feel that the place was deserted.

  The empty chair sat facing the seemingly forever-blank screen as their footsteps rang out from the hard metal floor, echoing off the glass-lined walls. Morgan read “01:22” when he blinked up the time and before offering Stephanie the only seat.

  She seemed reluctant at first, but when Morgan lay on the floor she tentatively sat down, easing herself into the well-padded chair. She didn’t look at all comfortable, though, and the floor proved cold against Morgan’s back. He placed his hands behind his head and stared up at the featureless ceiling, feeling the returned joy of their hearts once more beating as one.

  But an overriding worry quickly welled up through his contentment, threatening to sour that joy. How long would they have together before The Promised Land wrenched her from his grasp? Yes, he told himself, she had said she would stay behind for him, but he knew he couldn’t let her. It just wouldn’t work. Resentment would eventually colour her thoughts and come between them, he was sure.

  Although he doubted she’d know, he wondered about asking when she thought her departure would come. But when he shifted his gaze to the chair, he found her head now lolled to one side, her chest slowly rising and falling in her sleep.

  He must have eventually dozed off himself, for a seemingly loud click startled him awake, his back by now cold and stiff. He’d pushed himself groggily to his feet and was gently shaking Stephanie’s shoulder when he clearly heard footsteps coming down the stairs.