Beyond Ever Blue Skies

by Clive S. Johnson

  A burly-looking man appeared and stood to one side at the foot of them, his arm outstretched. Then Connie-Jay’s stark shape stepped past him into the dim glow of the chamber, another stout chap in her wake. That Edsel had clearly passed on his message came as both a surprise and a relief to Morgan, then he heard the outer door being closed.

  “Good evening. Or should I say ‘Good morning’?” Connie-Jay injected into the chamber’s stillness. “I’m reliably informed you’ve been successful, my clever lecy-eng… Oh, no, don’t get up, my dear,” she directed at Stephanie, who hadn’t long leapt from the chair. “I’m sure you need the rest more than I do. After all, I’ve only just come from my bed, but you two were so busy yesterday.”

  Stephanie, however, remained standing.

  “So,” Connie-Jay said, now holding Morgan unwaveringly in her gaze, “sometime during the early hours, I believe.”

  Morgan slowly nodded. When she let her gaze then wander from one to the other of all those present, for the first time he wondered whether they should mention Edsel.

  Now, though, her gaze had turned to the lifeless screen, the beginnings of a grin cracking the thin line of her lips.

  “After so long,” she quietly marvelled. “So long a time I’ve forgotten what he looked like. But then, well, we’ll have both aged somewhat by now.”

  “Please,” Stephanie said. “Please have your seat. I didn’t mean to—” but the old woman only waved her apology away before leisurely sitting down, once more looking around the chamber.

  “I am surprised, though,” she directed at no one in particular. “I did think your uncle would have joined us,” she then tossed Stephanie’s way. “But of course, he does have so much with which to occupy himself. Does he not?” She darted a look at Morgan. “I’m so glad you’re here, though, Lecy-eng Morgan Travis; so very glad. It’ll makes things a whole lot easier, you see.”

  Despite himself, Morgan couldn’t help but frown and narrow his eyes at Connie-Jay.

  “For then it means,” she went on in a lighter tone, “I may, hopefully, at least be able to thank you the sooner for all your hard work. You’ve been of such great service, and not just to our agri-eng needs. No, but also to…well, to me personally, it would seem.”

  Morgan glanced at the man who’d followed her in, now standing close by his side. His face showed nothing more than studied indifference.

  “Have you both had a chance to eat?” Connie-Jay asked, lightening her tone immeasurably, to which Morgan said they had, on their way here.

  “Not good waiting on an empty stomach,” she asserted. “It makes the pangs worse,” and she settled herself in the chair and stared up at the screen, her fingers steepled against her long and narrow nose.

  Blinking up the time, Morgan was surprised to see it was already a-quarter-to-four. Not long now, he thought, and realised just how nervous he felt. He hoped Ken had got his instructions right, for Morgan knew he’d carried them out to the letter. But who would believe him if the link should fail to work?

  A flicker of light caught his eye and he snapped round to see a blank expanse of blue now filling the screen. He darted a look at Connie-Jay.

  Her mouth hung open, eyes wide, staring over her steepled fingers. Then she gasped, and Morgan held his breath as he followed her gaze back to the screen.

  29 Succession

  “J-Section Colonus, I presume,” the mellow but somehow sexless voice of the tranquil face on-screen spilled into the chamber, a benevolent smile suffusing its androgynous lips. Morgan slowly let out his held breath and Connie-Jay hesitated.

  “I… I am,” but the uncertainty in her voice drew Morgan’s gaze. She looked puzzled.

  “You are long overdue your replacement, Colonus. You’re now eighty-three according to my records. This will have to be sorted out immediately. There is, I must impress upon you, little time left and much to do. Rundkern can’t be held indefinitely.”

  Connie-Jay’s eyes brightened, her back a little straighter. “As you wish, er…Ken. Although I can’t deny it’ll be a welcome release, but so…so thrilling to know the time will soon be upon us, after all these years of… But who will you be assigning as my successor?”

  “Ah, well, there, I am afraid, we have a slight problem, my dear current Colonus.”

  “A…a problem?”

  “Having had no access to Agri records for the last sixty years, and there being so little time left to sort through them, I am afraid the choice will have to be yours.”

  “Mine?” but then Morgan noticed a sparkle appear in her eyes as they narrowed, a smile flickering at the corners of her mouth.

  “Yes, Colonus, your own. A little irregular, I know, but needs must. Someone you can trust to have a clear head and a steady hand. A female, of course, as you and I know it must always be.”

  “I have…just the one to put forward,” she softly told him as her gaze swung past Morgan. He swivelled round to catch Stephanie’s rapidly widening eyes staring back at the woman.

  “And her name? not forgetting that she must qualify in all respects for The Promised Land.”

  “Stephanie Chandry,” Connie-Jay announced and beckoned the stunned girl nearer. “She just happens to be here now, Ken. Come over here, my dear, where Ken can see you,” but she had to urge Stephanie to unfreeze her legs before she could move.

  Stiltedly, Stephanie stepped forward, a look of bewilderment thrown at Morgan as she passed, her head slowly shaking from side to side. “But” was all she could voice when she came to stand unsteadily beside Connie-Jay.

  The old woman motioned Stephanie to move in a little and face the screen, which she then did as she closed her mouth, swallowed hard and stared into Ken’s emotionless eyes.

  “Stephanie Chandry?” Ken intoned, and she nodded uncertainly. “I have now inspected your records and found you to meet all requirements for travelling to The Promised Land. As you have—under these rather unusual circumstances—been proposed by your current colonus to be her successor, I now declare such succession as both confirmed and effective forthwith. I suppose congratulations are in order.”

  Stephanie stumbled against the arm of Connie-Jay’s chair, the woman herself shooting a hand out to steady her. “But…” was still all their new colonus could say, until she took a deep breath and held herself straight. Even then she only managed, “But I’m not sure I’m…”

  Connie-Jay smiled up at her. “I will be here to help you, Stephanie. You’ve no need to worry. You’re well up to it, I assure you; certainly from what I’ve recently learned.”

  “Be that as it may,” Ken said, “but you will have to arrange your handover for later. For now there is another rather urgent matter in need of attention; one lecy-eng, in fact. One I’ve unavoidably had to engineer into place and who will therefore now know far too much to be left at large.”

  Morgan gasped and stiffened as Connie-Jay barely breathed, “Ah, yes, our lecy-eng.” She flicked a look at him as Stephanie frowned and flicked her own between the two.

  “I take it he is known to you?” Ken asked, and Connie-Jay was quick to assure him he was. “Morgan Travis,” she told him and nodded sharply at the burly man beside him.

  Before Morgan could even think, pain seared through his arm as it was sharply thrust up his back, almost lifting him off the floor until a strong arm clamped him around his neck. His blood sang in his ears as he stared in horror at Stephanie. But all she did was stare numbly back at his fast reddening face and bulging eyes as he fought to breathe.

  “Keep in mind that whoever you assign to remove this risk must also qualify for The Promised Land,” Ken was by now saying through the hiss of blood fast rising in Morgan’s ears. “You cannot afford to leave behind a disgruntled assassin.”

  Stephanie stepped between Connie-Jay and Ken, a grim set to her face. “Don’t worry,” she said, addressing Ken’s image before swinging what to Morgan looked like a calm and collected look at him. “As the new Colonus, I have just the ma
n for the job. Someone who’ll fit the bill nicely.”

  Through the pounding roar now filling Morgan’s ears, as his sight quickly dimmed to blackness, his last question of himself was whether or not he really could have heard Stephanie correctly.

  30 What’s in a Name?

  A subdued hubbub drifted into Morgan’s consciousness. He couldn’t quite place it at first, nor the press of something firm at his back, firm but pliant when he tried to move. Then a rawness took his throat, threatening a cough he tried hard to fight back. When it became irresistible, the first quickly led to a whole bout, pain then searing into his chest.

  A hand lifted his head, the lip of a glass soon at his own. He remembered Stephanie explaining about the bees as a warm, honeyed drink trickled into his mouth. The little he was allowed lessened his throat’s soreness, and his head was lowered.

  When he came to open his eyes properly, he found dim light filtering in to a moderately sized room. He felt sure he would have recognised it had he not been staring up from one corner of its floor. Windows along the opposite wall had their blinds drawn against the daylight.

  One of the two men who’d accompanied Connie-Jay into Erebus now sat on an upright chair above him and a few feet away. He didn’t quite look at Morgan but clearly watched over him. There was that studied indifference again. Morgan found his eyes closing against the returning pain in his throat. But then a click came, the hubbub briefly becoming louder. It died down the moment a door closed.

  “Has he not come-to yet?” a male voice asked, but no more was said. The creak of a chair a little further away suggested he’d sat down.

  As a distraction from the recurring pain, Morgan concentrated on the muffled hubbub. The odd raised voice and what sounded like the chink of glasses suggested a bar or the like.

  The first man then whispered, “When?”

  “A couple o’ minutes ago,” the second told him.

  “I’ll let ‘er know.”

  As the first man began speaking to his perscom, the honey wore off and Morgan found himself coughing again. Another mouthful of proffered reprieve slipped between his lips, although he continued to splutter. By the time he’d exhausted himself, the two men were once again silent.

  Then he remembered the untroubled look on Stephanie’s face, the assured words she’d used. Why was he still alive? he asked himself. And why here, in what he now recognised as the back room of The Pi-Eyed? The room where he’d first met Connie-Jay, the colonus Stephanie had now supplanted, and the thought rankled.

  Had he been so easy to manipulate? Had he really been that naïve, that easily taken in? He didn’t suppose he’d get to see Stephanie again and find out, but then wondered if he really wanted to. Something told him that if they did meet again it wouldn’t bode well.

  Between bouts of coughing and more administered honey, Morgan lay for some time on what his fingertips eventually told him were the cushions of a chair placed on the floor, until the door once more clicked open. He sneaked a look and his heart sank—Stephanie stood in the doorway, motioning the two men to leave.

  “You sure, Colonus?” one asked as he paused in the doorway. She nodded, and the man closed the door over behind him. Stephanie firmly pushed it shut.

  “I know you’re awake, Morgan. I caught you peeping,” she said.

  He opened his eyes again but more coughing took him when his throat constricted at the sight of her. She seemed even more beautiful than ever.

  By the time he’d finished coughing, she’d sat in the nearest chair, now pulled up close beside him. Through the tears of straining and the nagging pain it left, and the regret he felt for what he reckoned he’d lost but never really had, he looked up at her surprisingly relieved face. He tried to get up but felt too weak.

  “Don’t overdo it, Morgan,” she said, and the beginnings of a smile softened her face.

  “Why…” but the word only brought on yet more coughing.

  “You’re best not talking, Morgan. Your throat’s going to be really sore. I’m sorry, but I was caught on the hop.”

  He finally forced himself to stop then frowned up at her.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” she quietly said. “Better than I feared. I really thought you were… Well, that the worst had happened.”

  Just furrowing his brow brought on the threat of more coughing, but even then he opened his mouth to speak.

  “I told you,” she said more sternly. “No talking. It’ll only make your recovery slower.” She bent forward in her chair and reached for his hand, but he withdrew it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It must have been awful.”

  After glancing towards the door then looking back at Morgan she sighed. “I do love you, you know. I do,” but doubt must have been written across his face. She sat back and looked up at the ceiling, as though for inspiration.

  “Just listen to me. Morgan. Let me explain, then maybe you’ll give me the answer I most dearly hope to hear, although I’ve precious little time to sugar-coat its question.”

  He stared at her for a moment, his eyes slowly clearing, then nodded and rested his head back.

  “I suppose you’ll want to know what you’re doing here and why. Well, when Gareth started throttling you—”

  “Gareth?” Morgan feebly croaked.

  “The oddjobber of Connie-Jay’s who was sitting here with you. Well, my oddjobber now, I suppose, now that… But I told you: no speaking. Do y’hear?”

  He nodded again, but even that scoured his throat and he winced.

  Narrowing her eyes, she peered at his forehead and grinned. “At least that bruise of yours has just about gone.”

  Morgan went to feel it but stopped, his hand then lingering by Stephanie’s leg. She reached out and gently held it before he could let it drop.

  “You have to realise how…how stunned I was, Morgan. Suddenly having Connie-Jay’s position almost thrust upon me. I suppose I was in a bit of a daze, really. But I didn’t know she was going to have you killed there and then. Not so soon. I honestly didn’t, Morgan.”

  “But you knew,” Morgan whispered, pulling his hand from hers. “Knew it had to come sooner or later,” and again he hacked away noisily. She must have seen the glass of honeyed-water and lifted it from the floor to his lips. Gratefully, he sipped at the little she let slip in, but then grabbed her hand to take a bigger gulp.

  Settled again, he quietly rasped, “Even if you do love me, you’re the colonus now. You can’t let me live. Ken won’t allow it.”

  “There is a way, Morgan,” and she put down the glass before placing her hand on his, where it now lay on his chest. “I asked you to trust me, remember?” He said nothing. “I told you I’d come up with a way to save you, and I did. Made all the easier now I’m colonus.”

  This time she’d got his interest, that decidedly non-lecy curiosity that had led him all the way to this. He stared up at her. “Go on,” he said but wheezed a little.

  “I’d meant to talk Connie-Jay into going along with me at some point, but your being there when Ken brought you up as a problem screwed that up. She obviously had to act quickly, before you could break the link with Ken; as you’d threatened to do, remember? I told you you’d have no chance to do it, didn’t I?”

  “I never even thought to.”

  “And I couldn’t intervene when she ordered Gareth to throttle you because I was right there in Ken’s gaze. He’d have realised you were there. By the time I’d managed to casually slip out of his sight and quietly get Gareth’s attention, to stop him from strangling you, you’d already passed out.”

  Her haunted look made Morgan wonder, even more so when a tear coursed down her cheek. Had this been the reason she’d looked so unconcerned, as though condoning what was being done to him? Could she have acted so coolly if she really loved him? He couldn’t be sure.

  “It’s a good job Gareth acknowledged my authority. Even then, Connie-Jay protested, tried to convince me you had to be killed straight away; all done in
whispers, of course, so Ken wouldn’t hear. But I was colonus by then—Ken’s new colonus—and thank goodness for that, because I couldn’t have borne losing you.”

  “So, Stephanie,” Morgan whispered, enough strength in him now to take a gulp of what was left of his honey, “what was it you had to keep from Ken and convince Connie-Jay of? How am I supposed to be saved from Ken’s immutable death sentence?”

  Stephanie lowered her head and toyed with her fingers that lay in her lap before quietly saying, “You can’t stay here in Rundkern, not knowing what you do, that’s indisputable, so the only way you can live is to go with us to The Promised Land.”

  “But I’m a lecy-eng, Steph. Ken’ll never let that happen.”

  “Unless… Unless you’re Edsel Chandry, my uncle, a well enough qualified agri-eng. The Edsel Chandry who, as far as Ken and all the bureaucracy’s concerned, has now done Ken and me a great service by killing the lecy-eng Morgan Travis.”

  “Eh?” but Morgan went into a fit of coughing. When it settled enough, he said, “So why should Connie-Jay go along with it, condone you deceiving Ken?”

  “Because I convinced her we still need you.”

  “Need me? Need a lecy-eng?”

  “I told her about the damage above the sky, Morgan. The holes in the shaft. That the way to The Promised Land might not be as clear as Ken thinks it is. That for the sake of hiding one lecy-eng amongst us it’s worth having you along. Someone with an unusually flexible outlook and access to the lecy systems.”

  Morgan looked up, as though seeing through the ceiling. “I suppose there is that. We don’t know the exact route to The Promised Land. There may still be stuff to sort out.”

  “The only problem is…” she quietly said.

  “There’s always a problem,” he wheezed. “Isn’t there, Steph? They seem to come thick and fast where you’re concerned. So? What’s this one going to be?”