I knew through my work, through the meetings I’d had with other engineers and scientists, that everything we’d grown used to was coming to an end. The party was just about over and the bill was about to arrive.
Well it clearly had arrived, and things were very different. People had been cleaning up after the party for two hundred years. So how come people were still partying, albeit partying in a field, digging the dirt?
I went through the narrow gateway in the tall hedge and into the field where I’d landed the previous day. Here I saw another much larger group of people standing in a long row across the middle of the field. They were also laughing and chatting away but they were pulling up oil seed plants and loading them onto the silent tractor and trailer.
I stopped and stared at them for a while. I scratched my head. They were removing growing plants in a long strip across the field. Young oil seed plants, their flowers still yellow. I don’t claim to know much about agriculture, but I knew that oil seed wasn’t generally harvested until the yellow flowers had long gone.
I walked forward. People I passed waved and smiled at me; they all looked so healthy and happy, and most of them I now realised looked slightly tanned, sort of Anglo-Indian or mixed race in some way.
It had occurred to me the night before that I hadn’t seen anyone blonde. Everyone I’d met had fairly dark hair, quite olive skin. If their hair wasn’t dark, it was grey because they were quite ridiculously old. I noticed one young woman wrenching out plants, her long lean arms muscled and taut. When she stood up I almost audibly caught my breath, she was so tall. Must have been near six foot seven, and yet with incredible grace and delicacy.
‘Hello,’ she said, a beautiful smile spread across her face.
‘Hi there,’ I said. I had to look up even though I was standing several metres from her.
‘How is it looking?’ she asked.
I breathed in, which gave me enough time not to say something tacky, something like ‘It’s looking very attractive at the moment darling – I’ll find a step ladder, let’s go and make babies.’
I just nodded and smiled. ‘Good, very good. It’s not harvest time is it?’
‘No,’ said the woman with a chuckle. ‘We’re doing all this for you.’
I felt worried – why were they doing this for me? The old man William showed up and gently held my arm.
‘The sky pilot returns,’ he said with a big grin. ‘How do you like your new take-off track?’
I looked across the field. It was a clear strip of trampled earth at least 500 metres long. At the far end, a low hedge with no trees for at least 50 metres each side, in other words, the perfect light aircraft runway.
‘Blimey,’ I said. ‘Have you seriously done this for me?’
‘We thought it only right,’ said William. ‘In some ways, we’ve done it for selfish reasons – we all want to see this magnificent machine in the air.’
William led me down the runway strip, stamping his feet as he went. I followed, half-heartedly stamping as I went.
‘Who was I just talking to?’ I asked William.
‘Ahh yes, that is Minda,’ said William with a hint of suggestion in his voice. ‘She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?’
‘She is extraordinary, and so tall.’
‘Oh, the young people today, they all grow so tall. Each generation seems to be getting so much taller.’
William continued to stamp as he walked. I glanced behind me again. A large crowd of people were following us, all stamping on the ground, packing down the soft soil as they went.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ I said. ‘You all work together so well – it doesn’t seem like anyone is in charge, like anyone is giving orders.’
‘I suppose that’s because they are not,’ said William. I walked backwards for a while, staring at the small crowd following us, all talking to each other, stamping the ground like happy children.
‘We chatted about it at breakfast this morning,’ said William. ‘To be honest we all have other jobs to do, but this seemed like a popular distraction and we knew it wouldn’t take too long.’
Then I saw the Yuneec turned ready for take-off. I shook my head, turned back and looked at the runway. It was possible; it wasn’t quite an open mowed field or tarmac runway I was used to but it was a slight downhill slope, fairly smooth, with a big wide gap in the trees to give me time to get airborne and pass over.
When we reached the plane I walked around, inspecting it. It all looked fine. William followed me closely.
‘It might be a nice idea to thank everyone for pitching in,’ he said discreetly.
I stopped and stared at William for a moment. His face twitched a little and for some reason I was reminded of Beth. All the times she had criticized me for being so ‘A.D.D.’ as she described it, of being an uncommunicative nerd. I knew it was true; I’d always found human beings and their foibles much harder to comprehend than complex engineering structures or computer algorithms.
‘Yes, okay.’ I glanced behind me. A group of twenty-five or so people stood in a semi-circle around the plane – that was bad enough, but they were all staring at me. I swallowed and started to speak.
‘I don’t really know what to say.’ I scanned the group and my eyes fell on Grace, smiling at me. I rubbed my face nervously with my hands.
‘Thank you for all your help. I feel a bit guilty that you’ve pulled up all these plants. Thank you.’
The group clapped politely. Then there was an awkward silence.
‘Well, are you going to make the machine fly again?’ said Grace. ‘We all want to see it fly. I’ve been telling my friends and most of them don’t believe what I saw yesterday. That’s why we pulled up the plants, Gavin.’
‘Oh, okay,’ I said, feeling a big happy grin spread across my face. ‘Um, okay, now please listen – when I start the motor, please stand well back. It’s not noisy but does create quite a lot of turbulence; it’ll throw up a bit of dust behind the plane. If you stand well to the side you’ll be fine.’
There was a quiet exchange of glances and comments from the crowd, who duly started to move to either side of the plane.
‘Would you like a travelling companion?’ said William. ‘I see the machine is built to take two people.’
‘Well, yes, I can certainly take someone with me.’ As I said this I was staring at Grace, who was grinning at me innocently. William walked up to the plane and stood next to it expectantly.
‘I have to admit, I am very nervous.’
I got the point immediately. No, I wasn’t going to be able to fly off to some fantasy location with the beautiful Grace, I was going to be joined by a jovial man who was so incredibly old it was almost funny.
‘There’s nothing to be nervous about,’ I said. ‘It’s very safe, very reliable, and thanks to your technology I suppose the batteries won’t even run out.’
I opened the cockpit canopy and held it wide open, helping William clamber aboard. William sat in the plane like an obedient child as I got myself seated and fastened my safety harness.
‘Goodness me, does one have to be tied in?’ asked William.
‘It’s just a safety precaution,’ I said. ‘They’re called safety belts; you can undo them here.’ I showed William the catch. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’
Once he was safely strapped in, I pulled the canopy closed, made the prop-turning sign to the gleeful audience and booted up the plane. The cockpit, which was fairly rudimentary, pinged into life.
‘How wonderful,’ said William. ‘Such sophisticated technology; I’m very impressed.’
‘Well, it’s all fairly basic,’ I said, slightly embarrassed. To classify a simple electric aircraft as sophisticated technology when they had created 18 kilometre high solar kites and universal, global in
ductive electrical power distribution was a bit rich.
I explained the various screens on the small dashboard. ‘Wind speed, altitude, orientation, auto pilot, sat nav.’ I stopped there, remembering the sat nav didn’t work. ‘Let’s not worry about that, we’re not going far.’
‘Sat nav?’
‘Yes, short for satellite navigation.’
‘Ah yes, I have read of this system – long gone I’m afraid.’
‘It used to work very well in my day.’
‘How very clever,’ said William. He shifted in his seat a little and pulled out a small packet. He held it in his hand and it gently expanded before my eyes. It was a map, some kind of electronic map that shimmered and adjusted itself.
‘Wow, that is so cool. What is it?’
‘A map. I thought it might help us orient ourselves.’
‘That is fantastic – so it’s a sat nav then.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said William. ‘There are not satellites involved, it’s just a map.’
I looked a little more closely. It didn’t have roads marked on it, just a series of fields and houses from the look of things. In one of the fields marked on the map was a small blue dot that seemed to pulsate a little.
‘Is that us there?’ I asked, pointing to the dot.
‘Yes,’ said William. ‘The dot shows you where you are.’
‘So it is a sat nav then,’ I said with a smile. ‘I mean, how does the map know where we are? It must be communicating with something.’
‘Well, I suppose it’s communicating with the grid; the grid knows where we are.’
‘The grid!’ I said. ‘As in the power grid.’
‘Correct.’
‘Blimey, amazing.’ I stared at the map for a while longer, trying to work out what the communication protocol would be.
‘Shall we take to the air then?’ asked William.
I smiled. ‘Yes, okay, let’s do that.’ I handed William a headset with a microphone. ‘Pop this on; it’ll be easier to hear each other once we’re flying. The wind makes quite a lot of noise.’
I placed my headset on and William copied me.
‘Can you hear me?’ I asked.
William nodded, grinning from ear to ear. He didn’t say anything.
‘The microphone comes on when you talk – you don’t have to do anything.’
‘Oh, right you are. Can you hear me?’
‘Loud and clear.’
I engaged the motor and the propeller slowly started to rotate. The crowd stared in awe as the propeller’s speed slowly increased. The plane shook a little as it reached its maximum revolutions and I gestured to the crowd to stand back. I noticed then that Grace was staring in awe, maybe even a little terror, her hands clasped in front of her. Another slightly older woman put her arm around Grace’s shoulders to comfort her. I glanced behind me – an enormous cloud of dust, stalks and leaves was whipping around the tail of the plane. I could see a few people running to get out of the back draft.
The rest of the crowd to the sides stood well back and when I could see our way was clear I released the wheel brakes. The Yuneec started to bounce slowly along the makeshift runway, gradually increasing speed, and before we were even half way along the cleared strip we were airborne.
Keeping the engine at full throttle I pulled the stick back and we climbed quite steeply. Not something I would normally contemplate as the strain on the batteries would reduce the range, but my eye kept flicking to the battery gauge – it was a habit I’d become used to. I realised then and there that it would be a habit I would have to get over. The battery gauge still read 100 per cent.
‘Oh my goodness, are we aloft?’ asked William.
‘We are,’ I said. I glanced at William – if this really was the first time the old boy had been in the air, I wanted to make sure he was okay. The cockpit was very small; I didn’t want to deal with air-sickness. I glanced at the small cubby pocket by my side. There was an old Tesco bag in there, worth remembering.
‘How are you doing, William?’ I asked after I had levelled out the plane at around 500 metres.
‘I am wondering if my poor old heart can take it. I’ve never known it beat so fast.’
‘If you’re not happy, just tell me and we’ll land right away.’
‘Oh no!’ said William. I could see he was grinning. ‘No, please don’t do that just yet – this is truly wonderful.’
I banked the plane around gently and reduced the altitude a little to fly over the crowd in the field. I admit I wanted to show off – so few people had shown any interest in my plane before, I was really enjoying the attention. We passed over the field at about 100 metres, slowing the plane right down.
‘Will they be able to see me?’ asked William.
‘Oh yes, they can see you fine; you can give them a wave if you like.’
I banked the plane over, glancing past William at the ground below. The small group could clearly be seen waving up at the plane. A few of the younger members of the group ran along the ground waving and jumping.
‘Extraordinary,’ said William, waving furiously. ‘I never thought I’d live to see the day. Utterly extraordinary.’
Once we had circled the field I gained a little altitude and flew over the house.
‘I think I can see our orchards down there. They look so small.’
I looked down to my left; there was the house and barn complex I’d spent the night in. The gardens looked incredibly neat and productive and they were far more extensive than I’d seen. I noticed that a few hundred meters from the house on a south-facing slope was a large complex of glass-houses. They must have covered a few acres. The glass didn’t glint – it was coloured in some way, almost a silver metallic colour, but I could see dense vegetation inside.
I gently banked around so we could pass over again. On my left side I noticed a circular field. It had markings on the grass I didn’t recognise, and there were long strips cut out of the grass in a kind of spoke pattern full of what looked like sand.
‘What’s that field for?’ I asked.
William stared down. ‘Oh goodness, look at that,’ he said with a big grin. ‘That’s the playfield. Well I never.’
‘What, you play football?’
‘Oh no, we play structure.’
‘You play structure? No, I don’t understand,’ I said, as we circled above the field.
‘Of course, you wouldn’t know this, well, let me see, where to start. I suppose the easy way to explain is that when the children are very young they play molecular.’
‘Molecular what?’ I asked.
‘Well, it’s a system, a game. They play molecular when they are small. When they reach something like the age of ten, they start playing atomic. Again at around twenty we start playing sub-atomic, then, when we are ready we start playing particular, then, doddery old men like me quite enjoy a game of string or quark.’
I continued to circle around the playing field. It was utterly baffling. These people seemed to play a game that somehow involved the most obscure aspects of physics.
‘This is wonderful,’ said William. ‘Although I’ve seen this view of Goldacre Hall on a map, it is still an extraordinary experience to see it from the point of view of a bird. Marvellous.’
I turned once more and headed north, climbing gently. ‘I’d love to see what has happened to Kingham,’ I said. ‘Where I lived.’
‘That sounds like an excellent idea,’ said William. ‘Will it take us long?’
‘Well, normally I would fly at the lowest speed I could in order to maximize my range, but it doesn’t matter how fast we go, your wonderful grid keeps my batteries full.’
The throttle was at maximum as it had been for five minutes and the battery gauge still read 100 per cent
.
We skirted around the tether, still glowing bright blue, but possibly not quite as bright as it had been the day before.
‘I’ve just realised something: I didn’t see the tether last night, when it was dark. I would have expected to be able to see it in the night sky.’
‘There is nothing to see at night,’ said William. ‘The kite doesn’t produce power without sunlight. In fact, during the hours of darkness a small amount of energy is going in the opposite direction, powering the control systems.’
I shook my head again. Everything I was hearing was a revelation.
‘Fantastic, I love it,’ I said with a grin.
We continued to head north-west, flying over what seemed to be an endless sea of green trees, broken now and again by the roof of a building, occasional thin strips of cultivated land.
‘Tell me something, William, if you needed to go and see a friend or family member who lived far away, would you walk? I mean if they lived 200 kilometres away.’
I glanced at him. He was looking down at the landscape rolling beneath us.
‘You see that,’ he said, pointing down to his right. I banked over a little. ‘In among the trees down there, a small stone structure.’
I could just about make out something that looked like a shed. ‘Yes, what’s that?’
‘That is an entrance hall, to the track-way, they are just below the surface. I’m sure we’ll use one in good time.’
News from Gardenia Page 8