The long summer of war, part 2

The trip on the boat had been long, and despite the calmness of the sea they had been seasick. It was no place for those who loved the land to be out here on the endless sea. When the boat had at last come close in to the mountains that rose from the twinkling waters, they had been thankful to arrive.

They had come with such high hopes after the bitter news that they were to sit out the war in the barren islands. It was as well to try and make the best of things. But despite the veneer of politeness by those from the company that had met them at the pier, it was clear that these were island folk who did not readily accept the idea of others coming to them to do, as they saw it, their work.

James had seen to it that the first place they would go was to the hotel – if indeed the house they were directed to could be called that. In reality it was little more than a company flop house, more fitting to accommodating the transient workers for the mines than a newly married couple venturing out from civilisation to the frontiers for the first time.

The man from the jetty had shown them up in silence. James had enquired politely about this and that, trying to instigate small talk to ease the tension. The man replied little other than one-word answers, clearly intended to be the end of the conversation.

Inside an inn lady had shown them to their room by flickering lamp light.

“Power’s out again,” she had said gruffly in way of explanation, “The company’s plant keeps browning out the town so it is easier not to bother with the electric.”

Once at their room the inn lady left with barely more than a grunt, taking with her the lamp. James tried the light switch, and of that the lady had at least spoken the truth; it clicked over uselessly without effect.

Scrambling in the semi-dark, they managed to undress and climb into the bed. The blankets were made of scratchy wool, but at least they were clean and warm.

James sensed in the darkness the mood of his wife.

“It’s not forever; just one night, Annie,” he said.

“Things need to get better,” she replied, “I knew we shouldn’t have come.”

He felt his heart sink. Her reaction was becoming what he had feared it would be.

“They will,” he assured her, though he was not so sure of that fact himself.

****

In the morning they had risen with the rising sun; the curtains on the window were thin and it streamed on in to wake them. Despite the scratchy blankets they had slept well, tired from their overseas journey.

Dressing quickly they gathered together their belongings and crept downstairs to the front desk. The inn lady from the night before sat behind it reading a dog-eared paperback that seemed as if it had been read many times before in careless hands.

She looked up and without word held her hand out for return of the door key.

James held back. “What about breakfast? The company said the stay here would include a breakfast for us both.”

He felt sure that he could smell cooked bacon from the kitchen faintly on the air.

The inn lady’s hand never wavered outstretched for the key. “No power for the cooker.”

“No cereal?”

“No.”

He gave up and gave her the key. There was not a word as they both left in silence with empty stomachs, though he felt the inn lady’s probing glare on his back as they went.

****

Annie had not wanted to come. From the very start, James mused, she had been against it. He had told her he had had no choice, and that much was true. The company had insisted and the war department had sanctioned it. You could not argue against that or they would mark you down as a troublemaker, and there would be no career after that anywhere. The company held much power and influence. So it had been the lesser of all evils to accept and come.

The all terrain vehicle bumped up the rough track leaving the town far behind. He had been given a map by the stone-faced company official who had also given him the vehicle. Everything else seemed up to James from the details that he had been given before he had left the mainland.

They knew there was much to mine and refine on the islands. Here, on the biggest, there was certainly that. But the plants were becoming old, and the workforce seemed set in its ways. The islanders did not like to be told what to do, and did things in their own way – that he had already witnessed first hand on their arrival.

Yet here he was, an outsider in their midst telling them what to do. He had six months to turn production around, and he knew from the walls of silence he had continually met that the locals resented him already.

Annie had stayed in the town. After the stony experience of the flophouse, they had not wanted to go back. She had spent her time in the few shops there had been on the main street whilst he had been to find a company vehicle. Eventually he had returned with this, but she had served her ultimatum.

****

“I don’t like it here,” Annie said.

“Neither of us do,” he replied.

She shook her head.

“No. You don’t understand. I didn’t want to come, and since we’ve arrived I’ve hated it even more.”

“We’ll be moving up to the villages out in the mountains soon. We’ll have a place of our own as soon as I can find one, then we can start making a home.”

She waved her hand at him, her voice cracking with the pent-up emotion.

“No. I’ve heard what the villages are like; even worse than the town. The people don’t want us here, and it shows.”

“It’s just for a few months,” he had soothed, “Until I get the company back on its feet here, then we can go home.”

But she had not caved in. Eventually he had had to leave her in the shops whilst he arranged for accommodation there. It was not much, but at least it was a one bedroomed flat above a fish shop. Contrary to the inn lady’s tales, the electricity worked and there was a kitchen and running water.

When he finally took her back there, he was relieved to find her satisfied, for now.

“It will do. I shall stay here and you can come back each night when your work is done. I don’t like the stories I’ve heard of the villagers on the rest of the island. Even the people here call them backward.”

And that had been the way it was, with a two hour drive each way up the valley track that followed the railway closely that brought materials down from the mine in the hills. It was not ideal, but he knew he had to appease her for now or she would go.

The track was rugged and progress was slow. It wound up through the steep-sided valleys alongside a narrow railway line that linked the mines with the docks. Twice before he reached the first buildings of the mines a train passed him. First heading up the valley, then back down heavy with ore. He considered asking at the company if they would let him hitch a lift to and from the town; it would save a great deal of time on hazardous roads.

****

Those at the mine greeted him with the cold politeness of those who have to only because of their job. He rather got the impression that if they had had any choice in the matter they would have happily sent the outsider they saw coming to tell them how to do their jobs packing. But they had no choice.

He was glad to be on his way. There was much he saw wrong with working practices at the mine, and there would be a report sent back to the mainland recommending change. Hopefully that would then be the end of this wretched assignment. But for now he had a job to do.

In the hills above the mines there were further mineral rights to explore. The refining plants were not running as efficiently as they could, nor were they at capacity. The local workers and managers felt happy to adopt a laissez faire attitude, but that was not what the company on the mainland wanted; they wanted expansion and massive increases in capacity.

He was glad to be back in the all terrain vehicle. At least here he did not have to deal with people, just yet. With no-one to look over his shoulder with the wary eye of the islanders watching the outsider, he could get on with enjoying the day and seeing what he could make of it.

At the side of the track the railway extended beyond the mine on a spur for a little way, before trackless earthworks stretched a little further too. He checked paperwork he had brought with him; there had been plans to expand that had never quite been made anything of. Well, maybe it was time to change that.

Eventually the earthworks came to an end, and the rough track wound up high into the hills. He passed first one village, then another. Locals eyed him with deep suspicion, as if anyone not from their village was an outsider. The manager at the mine had warned him of this. It was about the only thing useful that the man had had to say.

At one point the track split in three, each one pointing to a different valley, climbing higher into the desolate mountains of the island. A village that was little more than a cluster of farmsteads sat at the crossroads, and he stopped to get his bearings and to ask the way to the tops.

It was as if he were a leper; none would talk to him. In frustration he was forced to make his own way and choose one of the tracks.

The journey proved fruitless, and soon it became clear that the track was turning to follow a valley back down to the sea. Turning his vehicle around, he returned to the village. This time he did not even bother to stop and ask, but chose another track and headed on up into the mountains.

At the next village he tried to stop and ask, but it was the same reaction as at the other and none would talk, so he headed on. Higher into the morning air of the mountains he went on until the track turned and he spied a girl sat on top of a rock, watching him come up the track.

Almost out of desperation, he stopped and got out to try and ask if he had come the right way. Perhaps she would be less hostile than the other islanders had been?

The long summer of war, part 1

The sun glittered off the mountains in the first of the morning sun. It was a cool start to what would soon be a sweltering summer heat. Soon the sun would rise higher into the sky, bathing the rocky outcrops and barren gorse bushes in a fiery glow that would bake the already dry and cracked ground even harder than cement.

From a rocky seat that protruded from the course and browned grass of the slopes, Jane sat nibbling on the bread and cheese that she had brought with her from the village far below for her breakfast. She had set out long ago up the mountain pass when the sky was still dark and before even the glow of the new day had begun over the dark sea that stretched from the island shores to the horizon. She had climbed up the dust track at walking pace, looking for the sheep that forever seemed to lose themselves to the mountainsides. How was anyone supposed to make a living from this land?

The sheep were always wandering. The stupid beasts; always there would be one that had got itself cragfast on one of the rocky ledges. Why did they always follow their noses looking for the sweet new grass growth and never realise that they would eventually find the end of the ledge with no room for them to turn around? Already the family flock had lost several of their number to falls and starvation by not being found by the helpful shepherdess before it was too late.

A twinkle of light reflecting off something moving far away on the track below caught Jane’s eye, and she found herself drawn back out of her thoughts to the tiny vehicle moving slowly up the hill. It was too far away to hear its engine tone yet, despite the pleasant stillness and tranquillity of the mountain air.

Who might it be, she wondered? Few people ever bothered to head this far from the village. And at any rate, there was no-one she knew who still had a vehicle that worked.

When war had broken out two years before, the men from the towns had come and requisitioned anything that worked.

“For the war effort to protect the islands,” they had said.

They always had a reason, backed up by the threat of government bullying if people did not comply. It had been legalised theft – such an oxymoron of a term – in her mind. Those from the town, grown fat in their living off the taxes of the farms and the industries that clung to the slopes, never knew the hardships of real work. They only saw what they could take and get away with. It had not been anyone from the villages who had had a hand in starting the war.

The vehicle came closer still as she watched. Over the calling of the occasional bird she could now hear the faint chugging of its engine as it struggled for purchase up the gravel of the steep switchback track. Again she wondered why anyone from the towns might want to travel this far. There was nothing up here except the rocks and the occasional sheep. Even the prospectors had dismissed the high ground as holding nothing of value to the industries.

At last it came close and she watched it draw to a halt below her rocky seat. It was one of the faded all-terrain vehicles, like those that had been taken from the protesting farmers years before. There had never been any compensation and the farmers had been left to struggle and do the work of machines by hand instead. There was never any help from the government.

The engine died away to silence and a man climbed from the vehicle. She watched as he shielded his eyes from the sun and looked up to where she sat on the rock.

“Hi there! Can you tell me am I on the right road to the tops?”

She was surprised. He wasn’t an islander. The accent gave him away as some-one from the mainland. From as long ago as Jane could remember, there had been a rule between those farmers on the outlying islands that there was no dealing with outsiders. The most that anyone would tolerate were those from the town, and then only because they had to. Outsiders were different; in times of war especially, they spelt nothing but trouble. They were not welcome here.

Slowly she patted from her lap the crumbs from the bread she had eaten, and stood up.

“Who would be asking?” she said slowly, her accent so much more musical than this man’s had been.

He looked crestfallen. Perhaps he had stopped and asked the same in the village and had got no help there either.

“My name is James Weston,” he replied. His voice was slow and measured as he looked to see her expression.

“What business do you have here?”

He seemed annoyed, though he kept his annoyance in check. She knew then that he had received no help from the villagers.

“I’m with the company,” he said at last, pointing to the side of the all-terrain vehicle.

She followed his outstretched hand and saw under the dust that had stuck to the vehicle in its climb along the track the faded logo of the mining and refining company that had for longer than anyone seemed able to remember provided the main source of wealth for the islands.

At best, the locals regarded those from the company with some suspicion, as those who had sold out to the men that came from over the seas.

Jane felt a sudden pang of guilt. As much as it had been drummed into her throughout her life not to deal with those who were not islanders, it seemed wrong to be so cold and so rude. So she sat down and her shoulders sagged with a sigh.

“These are the tops,” she said at last, indicating with an outstretched hand the rolling mountain slopes that surrounded them.

The man seemed a little surprised.

“You were expecting more?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“No. Well, I don’t know. It just seems an anticlimax to find the place and find it looks little more than nothing. Those in the village would not help me, so I've just driven on and on until I came upon you."” She nodded. “The islanders tend to want to have nothing to do with outsiders.”

“Are you not an islander too?”

His stark question took her aback. She hadn’t expected such a question from the man.

“It seemed so rude to ignore you,” she replied at last.

He nodded again; satisfied it seemed with the reply.

“It is never easy,” he said, “during wartime it is hard for everyone. I came with my family to the islands because I was told to. Those back at the main headquarters in the homeland need the resources. That’s why they sent me out here.”

She thought it was strange how he seemed so eager to tell her much in his forlorn voice. It seemed as though he had not wanted to come. A thought crossed her mind, something that her Father had said to her years ago by the fireside when she was a child. He had said that sometimes during war the hardest job was to choose not to fight, but to stay behind and do the jobs that needed to be done but took none of the glory. In her Father’s case that had been to farm the land and make sure that the food to feed the troops kept on coming.

She looked Mr. Weston up and down. In his case it had been to be shipped to the most outlying territory to do the unsung work that would keep the metals and minerals coming for an ever-hungry war effort.

“You wanted to fight for your country,” she said at last, “But instead they sent you out here to the edge of the World where no-one will acknowledge your efforts for the war.”

He seemed surprised at her words, but she could tell they were the truth.

“Well, I must be getting back,” he said at last taking one last look around the barren hills, “Perhaps I can thank you by giving you a lift? It is a long walk on foot back down to the village.”

Jane shook her head. “No. I have sheep to care for. It is a long day for me before I am ready to return to the village. But thank you for the offer.”

She watched as he got back into the vehicle, and the engine coughed into life. He quickly turned it around and pointed it back in the direction of the valley below. With a wave out the window, the vehicle set off on its way leaving dust rolling in the hot air.

She rose from her seat and watched the twinkle of sunlight reflecting on the vehicle until it was nothing more than a dot moving across the hillside. Then she set off up the hillside towards the bleatings that told her experienced ears that here was the first of the cragfast sheep that would need her help today.

Orb of Arawaan

Revelations

Trees roared and moaned in the gathering winds that swept the valley, swaying drunkenly. Limbs and boughs cracked thunderously in the strain of the worsening storm. The weather was rapidly turning foul from a day that had always seemed on the edge of bad weather

Below, in the deep cleft between the high rocky mountainous foothills, a narrow curving strip of water ran alongside the steeply wooded sides. The dull-grey surface was flecked in puckered white by the whirling winds that whipped it into frenzied motion.

The storm was brewing and the leaden sky promised weather that had been missing all summer. Now the nights were drawing in, and winter was at last ready to take its grip back across the land.

*****

Tomar walked the narrow and perilous rock-strewn path in the overhanging shadows of the tree line moving as far as he dared above the shores of the lakes. Here he could count on some shelter from the trees, even if at the risk of wolverine attacks, though these were mercifully rare.

For an old man pushing on nearly fifty, he could still make light work of the hazards. Indeed, his crooked age-worn staff served as little more than an accustomed comfort to his time-gnarled hand.

Long white wisps of a beard, several seasons old and thinning with age, tussled free of the old man's dark blue hooded velvet cloak and flitted playfully across his face. They forced him to occasionally stop to wipe his vision clear so he could see the path ahead.

He gazed on back down the valley in the direction from which he had come. He noted the rising swell on the lake, and how it was now racing across the narrow pebble shore, justifying his reluctance to use that route as an easier way. Soon there would be rains, he thought. The blackening sky above brought the promise that those rains would be heavy; he would have to hurry if he wished to make it to Palladin before the weather worsened much more.

Agile and in good health for fifty he was. But being caught out in the rains at this time of year was not the wisest of moves for an old man who wished to remain that way! Leaning on his staff, Tomar looked back up the valley, towards the shifting banks of mist rolling down from the mountains of the far-off Geldar forests.

It wasn't a great distance left to go now; Palladin hid in the cool comforts of that mist, rising stark and proud only in times of good weather from this vantage point. He couldn't see the graceful pink towers yet, but he knew they were there. He had travelled this route time and time again and knew the familiar palace to not be far now.

A lone raindrop splattered unexpectedly onto his old wrinkled exposed hand, sending water fragments scattering along the shaft of his staff. Glancing up at the now heavier and darker sky, he realised he had stood resting for long enough. The weather was cycling into the valley faster than anticipated. Soon the rains would arrive, hard, and he would be caught out in them if he did not hurry.

He quickly began picking his footing along the stony path. Around him, each rock was rapidly turning a darker and shinier grey as droplets pattered through the thin forest foliage.

*****

The endless random drumming filled his ears with the frantic sound from the rains. Ahead, the pink sandstone turrets and spires rose from the mists that had enveloped the forest. Already his velvet robe was dark and heavy with moisture and trickles of water scattered steadily from it in rhythm to his walking.

Silently, he cursed himself for wasting so much time in the lower reaches of the valley. He could feel the cold fingers of dampness penetrating down to the tunic beneath; this was not a good state for a man of his advancing years.

Then the heavens finally opened completely, letting loose their most mightiest of torrents and drowning out with them Tomar's last hopes of remaining remotely dry. He quickly reached the towering wooden gates set into the pink spiral towers of the gatehouse through the gathering puddles, stumbling as fast as he dared on the stony path.

Unfurling a wet and wrinkled hand, he summoned up his remaining strength. He reached for the stately looking, if a little tarnished, brass knocker in the shape of a gargoyle's head and heaved it back as far as its weight would allow before letting it fall with a crash against the dampening wood of the door.

The sound echoed harshly, dying away only slowly in the hidden void that lay beyond the door.

Impatiently he waited, his weary mind dragging the seconds out as he wished he could quickly get inside and get warmed in front of an open fire. It was infuriating to be stood here in the rains waiting for signs of life from within.

He was just debating with himself whether to reach for the knocker again when the sound of footsteps echoed closer from beyond the rivet studded oak. Abruptly they stopped, leaving Tomar wondering if he might have imagined them in his haste. His thoughts were arrested as the narrow wicket gate adjacent to the gargoyle's head eased open, releasing a wave of warm incense-laced air from the room beyond. Surely this was an invitation to get out from the grasp of the weather and into the dry; it was an invitation he took.

Shielding the top of his hand to guard against the risk of hitting the low frame, Tomar gratefully ducked through out of the cold into the smoky warmth of the gatehouse.

*****

The darkened room beyond the gate had a friendly heat in its air. Tomar slipped down the damp hood of the cloak and rubbed the driven moisture from his face as he waited for his unaccustomed eyes to grow used to the darkness.

The wicket gate thumped closed behind him, shutting out the steady patter of rain in the forest to nothing more than a distant muffled hum. In the gloom, the figure of a short man moved from the gate, silhouetted in the flickering torchlight.

Though Tomar's eyes were not yet fully adjusted to make the figure out fully, its rugged features were plain enough to him - a Geldnine dwarf. A fierce warrior race, well known throughout the galaxy for their immense loyalty and devotion to duty.

Aardnaar was a distant planet too far off the beaten way to normally find such a creature, let alone here in the royal palace. Idly Tomar wondered the dwarf's reasons for being here. But there was little time; the short man led him off towards the high council chamber without uttering a word.

They passed through an intricate maze of winding passageways and rooms. A newcomer might have found the palace a mysterious and foreboding place, easy to become hopelessly lost in.

But Tomar was no stranger to the palace. Time and time again he had been here on business over the long years of many seasons past. It was almost longer than he could remember to when he had first walked these corridors in awe. He had been just twelve, fresh from the villages beyond the forests, eager to learn the trade of his Father who had been an advisor to the high Priest's guild. It had been a long time ago indeed, a time before many could now recall when the Priest's guild had been powerful and prosperous. It had been a time when Palladin had been alive with people, each busy in their work.

Now the whole planet of Aardnaar was slumped into the slippery slope of decay. It no longer had the thriving economy to support its once great armies that had dwindled to nothing in too short a space of time.

Most of the guild's buildings in the cities had been sold to pay long overdue debts, and the money had flowed away like water. Palladin had somehow survived as the sole remnant of what had been a greater time.

Tomar's mind wandered back from his hazy daydreaming to the dwarf-warrior leading him. He began to mull over just why the high Priest Jono might be now in the habit of hiring off-worlders to work in the royal palace. He scrutinised the creature's features, taking in every contour and every curve, analysing every move.

The dwarf's old gnarled face carried many scars of battles past, making Tomar wonder which parts of the galaxy the warrior had fought in. Moving quick and with great certainty in the poorly illuminated corridors, it was clear that the little man knew his way well around Palladin. Obviously he had been working for the high Priest for some time now.

They turned a corner, to be confronted by the ages old black timber doors that led directly into the throne chambers. From underneath the doors there wavered the flickering light of several slow-burning torches, reflecting on the smoothness of the stone flooring worn to the texture of glass by the passing of much time and many feet.

The dwarf took out an old worn hilt, and tapped the doors once with it to acknowledge their presence to the room that lay beyond. Without waiting for any sort of a reply, he slipped the hilter away back under the folds of his cloak and heaved his weight against the wood to open the doors and let them both through into the room beyond.

Kantimaar

The narrow lift platform creaked and groaned as it eased its way up into the lasting darkness. Orb master Kiiki paid no more than a cursory glance into the gloom where the snaking ropes, worn smooth by decades of tallow application, snaked into the receding gloom chased by the feeble torch light.

His mind rolled in the thoughts that had become so pressing to him over the more recent years. Those thoughts which concerned the rise to power of the High Lords, self-proclaimed Emperors of a million worlds and conqueror of all which lay before them lay foremost in his mind. To be summoned like this to such a force would strike fear into the very depths of any creature’s heart.

Orb master Kiiki had been called to the exalted chambers many, many times. Now even he felt the nerves rising in his throat, ready for the presence of the High Lords.

With a creak and a groan the swaying platform was arrested in its ascent, and a pang of fear ran along Kiiki’s spine. It was not because he feared the aged ropes might part company with the platform structure at any second and send him crashing to annihilation far below. But because he knew the journey was at an end and that he must face his destiny within the High Lords’ chamber.

Stepping gingerly over the edge of the dusty woodwork he eased himself onto the narrow ledge carved high up on what would have appeared to anyone who did not know any wiser a shear rock face. Here there was just enough room to crouch in the tiny niche, to wait for the platform to resume its climb to the next level where it would arrive empty.

For a few seconds more, this time would be his, to spend in worry. They couldn’t take that away from him. But they would always try.

A twang of hemp straining under a mounting load in the semi-gloom signalled the minions above had began to work the treadmill once more. They believed the pause was part of the ritual. To them it was the few seconds when the High Lords would take their people to the other dimension where only the Gods could sustain life, and could turn a man’s body to dry grey ash in the flicker of a heart beat if they so chose.

They could believe all the rubbish they could ever be fed, Kiiki thought as he watched the platform move on up at last, because it was all lies. It had all been dreamt up by a succession of power-mongers to control the people - a heist of the entire culture.

For eight thousand years no-one had dared to challenge the lies, so the house of cards had continued to hold.

The platform and the security it might have offered were gone, though the creaking would continue for some time. Fumbling under his robes he brought out an old tinderbox and a torch faggot. Within moments the sparks from the flint and steel flared the torch enough for him to see his way by.

A tunnel opened up into the heart of the solid stone just below the tiny niche. Hand and footholds carved into the rock gave a way down, smoothed and blackened by the passage of a great many feet over the centuries. All of the hierarchy knew the way that lay ahead, and most would visit many times.

Every visit would begin with the apprehension.

He let the torch rest on the dusty floor of the niche and it cast a shaky, flickering light as he felt with his feet for purchase.

The fall down the shaft, if his grip went for any reason, was more than a hundred feet with nothing to arrest his descent except the hard unforgiving rock of the mountain at the bottom. Whilst it was possible for one of the hierarchy through the ages to have slipped and fallen, he had never heard of such a scenario. More than likely, the two priests who guarded the ways into the lower catacombs were sworn to remove all evidence, so that the record books would never show.

As far as the luckless individual could be assured, the story would be told that the High-Lords had taken their soul from this world for deeds unmentionable. An accident would become an excuse to bury bad news with a convenient scapegoat. It would be an unceremonious end as no more than a defamatory footnote in the scrolls.

The tunnel was just big enough for a man to walk in upright. Kiiki retrieved his torch and cautiously set out into the gloom, counting every twist and turn and comparing it to the mental map which he had been made to learn to perfection long ago in the days of his training.

The maze had a great many blind corners, and a great many hidden turns. Whilst from any direction it only looked like there was a single passageway laid out into the darkness in front, things were rarely what they seemed. Each member of the hierarchy had their own unique way through; no two used the same route.

Even so, there were more than a hundred thousand different ways in the dank tunnels ensuring that those not authorised here would never find their ways through, or back out to be able to tell their tales. So the stories went, many centuries previous when the maze was only just two thousand years old a new trainee had discovered a skeleton on his first trip through. His route had never been used before since the construction, so they said. The body had not been identified, although it was certain it had been there for more than a generation.

The maze had worked and claimed its first victim.

Kiiki’s footsteps echoed hollow and empty in the tunnels of the hand-carved labyrinth as he moved by feel alone to reach his ultimate destination. Although he still carried the torch, it was for comfort only that he needed its light. In the unlikely event that it burnt away to nothing before he emerged at the other end, he could navigate his way through by touch and feel and nothing else. That was the way they had all been taught.

Finally another light, far brighter and stronger, beckoned from ahead, reflecting off the worn grains of sandstone on the walls. At the side of the tunnel, surrounded by soot and long dead embers, a tarnished metal frame set into the wall provided him with a place to put the warm faggot. He tried to ignore the two faggots that were already there; evidence of those who had not fared well in front of the High Lords before?

Then with his fears suppressed in the rigours of all his training that coursed deep through his mind, he stepped out into the light, ready to face anything that might come.

Spending a penny

I always love train travel. Sitting by the window, watching the World slip by without a care. Looking down I see something bright on the floor. What is it? Bending down I spy a penny, shiny and well used. I pick it up and turn it over in my fingers. Gosh! It was minted twenty years ago. As the trees and countryside slip on by, I begin to wonder what travels this penny has had.

I begin to daydream. A fresh new penny straight from the bank. First in a man’s change from a newspaper, then on to his son as pocket money. Treasured for a week it goes out to the shops, and the son agonises over what sweets to buy. I bet it bought a lot back then.

Back to the bank at the end of the week, the penny does not stay there long, onwards out with money withdrawn.

“Got change for ten pence? The machine wants exact change,” says a colleague, and out comes the penny with nine others before being pressed into a slot and swapped for chocolate.

Later on a collection tin, rattling on a street corner takes the penny away. From there it is a short hop to the pocket of a worker, heading back overseas from a stay in the city. What a journey to make; well travelled the penny jets through the night. Jangling in a pocket it meets with dollars and rupees. In a jar in far-flung lands it eventually sits, waiting a time when some-one will take it home. Watching lizards and mosquitoes climbing the glass.

Back on a plane, heading home again now. Via New York and Detroit, listening to the bustle of the big Apple through the fabric of cheap jeans. Then on to Heathrow, and becomes change at long last for a cup of hot coffee.

On familiar ground the penny eventually finds its way to a payphone slot and drops at the pips for a long distance call to be made. Lovers talk, and the penny is on its way.

Back to the bank, several more times. Through pockets of people of all shapes and sizes to be awarded as change when a pound pays for ninety-nine pence, then on again in exact change and away.

Finally back to a ticket window on a station somewhere.

“Return to Swindon.”

And the in the change the penny is away again. Dropped by clumsy hands in the motion from the station, it’s only a penny and it is left on the floor until I come along.

“Anything from the trolley?” asks a voice.

I see a chocolate bar, and with other coins from my pocket the penny is on its way. Spent you.

On the radio

10:00p.m. IRN has started playing, the Lady in London sounding as foxy as ever. Anna the resident beauty puts her head round the door.

"Three minutes then you're go."

Absently I nod, too engrossed to look up from the turntable where I fiddle frantically with the pitch adjust. The first track is a short intro, so it has to be played at the speed of the third to economise on time to guarantee a mix. War of the Worlds disk one; plus six percent on Richard Burton shouldn't sound too chipmunks, but time will tell.

"This is IRN"

The pips follow, notching my heart rate up a step.

"Thirty seconds" purrs Anna through the pre-fade on the headphones. As if I needed to know.

Fragma comes off for Burton to be cued for the last time tonight. Already I can hear on the loopback the advert for tessa accounts from B&B. I’ve heard it so many times before, and know only too well the lines on which it ends. In the last few moments I remember the faders are still down from the pre-fading. Desperately I take them to the top. Made it!

“Cue,” purrs Anna, “You are live”

With a soft click the turntable drive engages on my command, and the voice of Richard Burton fills my headphones. No time to listen – the mix is quick and short. I already know from experience that there is one syllable that I am listening for. Starting ‘gram two at just the right moment will ensure his vocals are matched to the beat as it starts on Fragma. I barely notice Anna peeping round the door into the studio, her hair across her face and looking as gorgeous as ever with that sweetest of sweet smiles. No time to flirt – the syllable comes and ‘gram two starts to spin. Relax: spot on!

I feel some of the pressure drop – a few minutes to spare to get things right. Flipping War of the Worlds into its sleeve, a sixth sense bristles and I turn to see Anna by my side flicking through my record box on the floor.

“Wotcha got for us tonight?” she asks playfully, trying to catch my eye with an infectious smile.

I laugh and brush her out of the way so I can get the next twelve inch from the box.

“A bit of this. A bit of that.” I reply evasively with a wry grin.

She digs me in the ribs, but it’s all for fun here. Space Brothers hits the platter, and the needle moves across as I check the speeds to synch the beat.

I give a glance to ‘gram two – still plenty of groove to go.

Another mix down and I let myself glance to the clock: six minutes past. Cripes! And I’ve got all the way back to the top of the hour to fill.

“It’ll soon pass.” Purrs Anna in my ear. She’s read my mind.

“So do the records,” I say, referring to the two short tracks I know are to come after Space Brothers.

Beat synch perfection! Legacy plays perfectly to the tune of Kawala. So much so I relax to hear thirty seconds of perfect cross-fading magic as I slide the faders back and forth. If only those listening across the airwaves would appreciate the years of practice that went into making this possible! Then it’s no time to be smug. This is the tricky bit I told Anna about. As soon as the faders are to the bottom, the twelve inch is off and handed to unexpected hands.

“Here, make yourself useful: put this back in the sleeve.”

She snaps a salute.

“Ja mein Mädchen!”

Japes all the way. No time to laugh; Verbacocha is already cueing as I press the headphone to my ear for the beat. If this works at least I’ll be impressed, even if the listeners live in apathy.

We’re in. Synth part on cue and the autostarts kick in on my command. Perfect! I couldn’t have done it better in a hundred takes. Anna nods her head in the appreciation of the connoisseur, behind me.

“Nice.”

I turn and wink, then it’s back to the groove. Already Kawala is about to kick back in on the beat – if I let it do so on air it would ruin the web of magic I have woven on the radio. With a careful progressive tweak of the EQ channels I kill it frequency by frequency until it is gone, the platter cleared for the next twelve inch.

“Tea?”

I wave her away.

“Not now.”

A hot drink at a time like this?! My hands are sweaty as it is. Good job the next one is a long one. Chance to get to the canteen and back to flash my fingers under the tap to clear the inevitable stickiness a radio studio brings. Perhaps I should go without telling Anna what I’m doing, just to rattle her cage. In the end I tell her where I’m going if only because I like her too much to do something so cruel. Still, it’s a thought for when Helen is on night shift with me.

Another glance to the clock. Gosh! Anna was right – as always. Time has flown. I look to my record box and realise for the first time tonight that as usual I’ve brought far more than I need. An easy mistake I always make. I’ll get a bad back lugging all these records to every studio I go to; I never learn from experience.

“Told you!” whispers Anna in my ear, reading my mind in one.

We hug close.

“Always right. I owe you a drink for that one.”

She laughs and wriggles under my arm.

“Put it on my tab.”

Last mix. It went quicker in my mind than last week. A sign of having fun. As I lean over the turntables checking speeds for the United States of Dance, Anna calls to me from the door.

“I’ll be in the control room ready.”

I nod absent-minded again, too engrossed in pitch faders to look up. Her head disappears from the door jam and moments later I hear the crackle of static across the loopback as she settles the headphones over her ears.

No time for musings. Cue points revolve past in the mottled groove of the plastic, and the last record starts like a dream. This one’s a chop-and-shop, so no time to ease off yet. There’s my cue! The fader drops like a stone, and we’re in the final home straight. I feel the relief wash over – I like this part of the mix night, when I don’t have to mix any more.

“Time check.” Comes the voice in my ear.

I check the groove and glance to the wall clock before replying,

“We are looking slinky.”

“Good. Standby.”

Static clicks on the line, hissing in my ear. Just as well only Anna and I can hear the loopback – that sounds terrible. Probably a loose connection somewhere. I’ll have to write that in the engineer’s log before we hand over tonight.

This is the synthy tail out on the twelve inch; already I can hear the staccato of the beat changing for the last time. Time for cueing cartridges: the jingles are ready, though not loaded because the blasted Sonifex has been having overheating fits of late. Pushed home, the christmas tree of diagnostic LEDs lights up. Yellow, yellow-green, red. Cued. Funny order to have diagnostics lights flicker in. Then the beat dies, and I hit the green button, and the infinite loop is rolling. Satisfied I hear my personalised ident jingles on the loopback. The ego trip has landed!

“In the mix with JM Peugeot on Pinnacle 89.2, mixed by MD and Ivo.”

Anna’s voice purrs out across the airwaves, then the pips.

“Good evening. The time is 11pm. This is the news from IRN,” calls London down the line. Finally we’re clear, and I can drop the faders for one last time. Putting United States of Dance back into its sleeve, I wonder what the listeners would make of it if they knew that MD and Ivo – in reality me and Anna - were the girls also responsible for the Thursday night rock show, and the Sunday classical hour.

Hell, we only work here. Like we care.

The loneliness of the long distance trucker

My office has ‘Scania’ written on the front. If I don’t like the view out of the lovely big window, I just move my office somewhere new. I bet there are not so many people who could say that about their own boring nine-to-five offices. A place where co-workers mither you in an omnipresent battle over who has all the staples and why is it me who always has to refill the coffee pot.

I never get that. Once I am on the road, that’s it. I am my own Mistress for the day. The cans of Coke on the dash are mine, and mine alone. If I happen to have to step out of my office for a few moments to do something of importance, then hey, that’s not a problem because gosh darn it my Coke stays put and isn’t drunk by that spotty kid from accounts who is new.

A life on the road.

I am the diesel cowgirl; a rig jockey across county borders the country over. I am one of the breed of people who shifts the bits and bobs that make this island nation tick from A to B. Often we call at C through to Z on the way, but that’s business for you. We are controlling your destiny, or at least the supply of staples and coffee to your office.

Imagine having that power at your fingertips. The lure of the open roads. Those shimmering ribbons of tarmac stretching from here to the horizon and beyond, where this nomad race of truckers live and breath as they conquer the jungle that is modern civilisation.

I dream of a day when these shimmering lanes of sun-bleached temples to the Gods of Automotivity will be free and empty as far as the eye can see. Cruise control on, tank full of derv there will be no stopping, no gridlock, no tail-chasing traffic and no queues for the bogs at the service stations.

A four hundred and eighty horsepower turbo-charged fuel-injected Polaris-fecking-missile.

Oh yeah, baby!

Unfortunately everybody else wants the same, and that sort of fecks things up good and proper. No sooner does 8:00am pop up on the dash-clock than the roads inexplicably fill up with hundreds of thousands of people all vying for that same little slice of black tar.

And right now we’ve been fecked over good and proper in the outskirts of Wolverhampton by a whole succession of traffic lights on red. Nothing is moving; I swear I could walk faster than this.

My mind begins to wander, and I think back to the oddest job I ever had.

*****

The coffin run.

It’s delivering coffins to the Undertaker. Nothing more, nothing less, but it’s a skive, and it gets me out of the house. It also enables me to meet a whole host of interesting and enlightening people – it is only a minor formality that most of them are dead.

Dead people are okay, no really. Before I hear the chink of the men in white coats trying to pick the lock, I feel I should explain myself here. Death is just the gateway to the next level, and you can really feel for these people as you see them lying there on the slab. At last they are peaceful and at rest.

It is sad in a way, that this is what it’s all about in the end, but hey, it comes to us all. A lot of these people might have led unhappy lives, especially considering the lot of a pensioner at the end. Sometimes I do shed a tear when I think what some of these people went through.

Many are War veterans; waiting to get their medals pinned to their chests for the final journey. They gave a lot to the rest of us in their own little way, going forth to make up life’s rich tapestry of threads, and doing what they believed in.

Then they retire, and find they are getting screwed into the grave. So many times I’ve heard the stories of what can go on before the body has even got cold.

Families can be just like a biblical plague – a swarm of locusts. They swoop in to pick the corpse of the departed life clean. Furniture, money, trinkets. Everything can be cleaned out. And then the squabbling begins.

To cries of “That ring was always intended to be for me” and “you’ve got X, Y and Z in the will, so it’s only fair I should have this” the fighting and bickering begins.

Who needs enemies when you have relatives? Because the problem is that, in essence, everybody is related to somebody who if they weren’t related to them, they would have punched their lights out and changed the locks a long time ago.

Remember, these people are just like those shits out there on the street who push in front of you in the Post Office queue, or who burgle your house when you are away on holiday.

Why shouldn’t you deal with them in the same way? Because you’re related, that’s why. It conjures up a huge feeling of guilt inside – after all, they’re kin.

Bullshit. Let’s talk brass tacks here. Keep an eye on them, you know who they are, and take the same precautions that you would over some-one who didn’t marry your sister.

The Undertakers aren’t so bad. I rather unfairly liken them to the character ‘Egor’ in most Dracula films. They’re nice people at heart. Kind and caring.

And the get excited by coffins

Very excited.

If you thought you were on the edge of normality by liking the smell of the white board markers, or that new office furniture smell whilst ‘on-the-job’ then be reassured that you have nothing on these guys.

There have been times when I’ve turned up with a fresh load of supplies, and these dudes could almost have been preceded by a hard-on coming round the corner. No kidding, really. It’s like being mobbed by canoes. I suppose it takes all sorts to make a world.

In Rotherham they mob the tailgate as fast as I could get the little trolleys of coffins to the back of the lorry:

“Oh! We’ve got some 19J12-32s!” mutters one Undertaker with delight, as a particular model of coffin is wheeled to the back.

His companions come scurrying from the recesses of the dark building like excited Bees that have found a particularly sweet flower.

“19J12-32! 19J12-32!” they chant in unison. I’m getting a tad scared now.

In that way that other people might fawn over a brand new car, these guys are now nuzzling the lines of coffins as if they were the very latest in trend-setting technology.

One of the Undertakers looks up, sensing the gaze of the worried unbeliever.

“New model,” he winks, “Huge improvement over the old 19J12-30s. So much extra legroom.”

Then they load the coffin onto another trolley, and wheel it away at great speed by six excited Undertakers into the recesses of their coffin store.

I could go and see what they’re doing… but I scare easily, and the smell of embalming fluid close up plays hell with my sinuses. I dread to think what they’re going to make of the upgraded 14Z10-66s I’ve still got for unloading.

In white.

I can see the bushy eyebrows of the Undertakers in my mind’s eye even now, doing their best Roger Moore impressions. Simple pleasures.

It isn’t long before they reappear, eager and chattering about the extra space of the new model. I dread to think how they put it to the test.

They can strip an entire 18 tonner clean in less than twenty minutes. And that includes the time taken to drink the tea. If it were ever possible to get tea poisoning, then this is the job to be.

I can imagine it now: turning up at the pearly gates, and when the queue shuffles you to the front…

“So, er it’s Miss Jones, Right?” asks the Angel, shuffling his halo.

“Yes, that’s me.”

The Angel’s gaze swivels down to the bloated belly and he looks at his notes once more.

“Truck driver?”

“Yes,” I respond, not really knowing what to say.

It had all come on quicker than I had imagined it would. They say that there’s a light in the sky and a tunnel that reaches down to you lined with ethereal forms. It was only one more cup. One mug of the elixir of the road. Milk no sugar.

They’d been wheeling it out all day and it was kind of hard to say no. It was free, and hey! I’m a truck driver. The day I turn down something that is free is the day I, er, die.

Oh yeah, right I forgot.

“It says here tea poisoning?” asks the Angel slowly.

I scratch at the back of my neck trying to avoid his quizzical gaze in the perennial synchronised pavement and ceiling inspector’s waltz (Or in this case clouds and more clouds. Oh, and isn’t that a pearly gate over there…).

“Sort of,” I mumble. I guess he doesn’t get many truckers here.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a voice of eternal understanding, “This is a first for us. Usually it’s heart attacks or clogged arteries by the time truck drivers get here. I guess you weren’t hardcore enough.”

Talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk. He gestures to the gate and I shuffle on through. Behind me the Angel shakes his head and turns to the next in the queue. As the clouds billow around I hear strains of conversation floating.

“Mrs Smith? Good. What was that? Reincarnation?”

A rustle of paperwork.

“Oh dear, accounting’s made a mess again. Just stand to one side, and I’ll see if I can get things straightened out.”

*****

Then the lights are green, and I let in the clutch. A roar of four hundred and eighty horses prancing under the cab signals that we’re off. Four hundred and eighty horses, and one Donkey to drive.

Bringing Home the Stars (Extract)

Sirens wailed throughout the ship as it shuddered from the Rösenbridge dimension back into real-space. For a few moments it was hard to react, to shake off the sluggish, sleepy feeling induced by the quo-fields that had held the crew in safety throughout the jump.

Zoë was the first to free herself from the restraints in her pod, and clamber groggily into the noisy corridor. She dashed to a console and keyed in her personal codes. For a moment the screen remained blank, then lines of text and data telemetry scrolled over it.

She sensed movement beside her.

“What’s up?” said Dezza in the calm twang that never betrayed emotion.

“Core collapse,” she said swiftly, jabbing at buttons. “It’s jumped us out of the Rösenbridge short again.

“Shit. I thought Tubs swore blind that he had fixed the core.”

She shook her head grimly and keyed off the alarms.

“Obviously not well enough.”


*****


Tubs lay on the inspection trolley, grappling with the underside of a console panel. Wires stretched out loose either side of him. He studiously ignored the mess to soldier on with careful laser-pen work inside the electronics.

Dezza leant on the railing, watching him with strained patience.

“How long before the core is back online?” he demanded.

“Just a few hours,” came Tubs’ muffled reply from beneath the panel, “There’s a couple of stabilisers to realign, then calibration on the injectors. I’m not sure why they slipped this time anyway. They should have held until we could get to dock and have them refurbed.”

Dezza held his composure. It was not the first time the tugship had dropped from the Rösenbridge short. For the last two months it had become an increasingly regular occurrence, and one which had fast become tedious. The ship’s drive core was old and frail. There were only so many times that ancient electronics could be patched back together. Tubs might be a miracle worker, but there are only so many times that a miracle can be worked before hitting the dead wall of the impossible.

Dezza’s communicator buzzed, and for a moment he felt relief of something that would break the boredom of this unforeseen stop in deep space.

“Yes?”

Zoë’s business-like voice answered, tinny through the electronics. “Have you checked the scopes?”

He frowned, sensing something not quite right in her voice.

“No,” he answered.

“This one’s the furthest yet. According to the navigation sweep, we’re not even at the further colonies. The damn core popped us out more than forty days short.”

“Forty days?! Shit!”

He glared down at Tubs’ feet, but the mechanic was oblivious and the gentle buzz of the laser pen drifted from beyond the pair of wriggling legs.

“That’s not the only thing,” interrupted Zoë’s voice.

He sensed the worry, and the note of concern. Tubs’ work was forgotten and he listened hard.

“What?”

“The sweep picked up something else. About an hour’s jag away on the ion drive we’ve got a ship floating dead.”

“Have you tried to get them on the comm?” he asked.

“There’s no answer. You had both better come to the bridge. This drop might just be the break we’re looking for if that ship is what I think it is.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s easier if you’re up here and I can show you.”

Stubbornly she let the communications channel click dead with static. Zoë had a habit for the dramatic. Well, let them humour her. With the main drive core out of commission, it was not as if time was at a premium, for now.

He flicked the device into a pocket and kicked gently at the legs beneath him. A muffled cry shot out from behind the wires and he smiled.

“Leave that, for now. Zoë wants us on the bridge.”

Tubs slid out on the trolley, grumbling. But it was no use. When Zoë got one of her ideas it was best to go along with her. It was easier that way, on the times things went wrong. Then there was not the pain of having her argue for days of what might have been.


*****


The holographic projection shimmered in the hot air of the cramped and dark bridge; stinking of ozone. Dezza wrinkled his nose at the smell. Zoë jabbed a finger at a small dot floating at the centre of the display. Ripples of static arched through the projection as the computer struggled to compensate for the untimely insertion of her hand into its image.

“This is what we’re looking at,” she said.

Dezza scrunched his eyes, trying to focus on what the projection was trying to show him. It was too small to make out.

She tapped a few buttons on the console, anticipating his struggles, and the image suddenly grew exponentially in size.

He stepped back in surprise before remembering that it was only a hologram.

The dot grew to the size of a cricket bat and sat suspended in the slight glowing field. He squinted; it was clearly some kind of vessel. Something big.

“Bulker?” he ventured.

She shook her head.

“Not big enough. Some kind of Starliner I think.”

He glanced to the reams of data shimmering in the air alongside the main bulk of the projector.

“She isn’t going anywhere if she is,” he said at last, “Computer says it’s holding a stationary position. It can't be docked, we’re several light years out into deep nowhere.”

“I think it’s a derelict,” she said.

He was not so sure. A derelict might mean an easy salvage to tow it back to civilisation and a guaranteed ten-percent, but there had to be a reason for it.

“What are you getting on the frequencies?” he asked calmly.

She shrugged. “Nothing except for a simple docking channel on static.”

“Any response to attempts to raise them?”

“No.”

She beamed a big smile. “This is going to be our big pay-day. We tow that hulk back to civilisation and that’s our pay for the year made in one.”

Tubs coughed, and they both looked around.

“I hate to be the realist,” he began timidly, “But our drive core is offline. We aren’t going anywhere near civilisation until we get it fixed.”

“How long will that take?” asked Zoë.

He shrugged. “Two, maybe three days work. We need a full refit.”

“Will it let us tow that hulk?” she asked, sensing the possibility of defeat after getting so close to success.

“It’ll tow,” he said after a moment’s pause, “But I would be happier not pushing it.”

“We can’t leave something this big just drifting!” she exclaimed, the disappointment clear.

“We could come back for it after getting the drive properly repaired,” offered Dezza, trying to be diplomatic.

Zoë was not having any of it.

“At the very least, I want to move in closer and scope this baby out. We can do that on the ion drive until the core is back online.”

Tubs had to concede they could do that at the very least. It was clear though that he did not want to. Something was bothering him.