by Dan Arnold
“You’ve already met him. Wally and his family have been stockmen here for as long as the station has been in operation. Nobody knows those hills, but Wally can get you out to them. Can’t you, Wally?”
“I wasn’t planning for that water truck. It’s rough country and there’s never been any motorized vehicle in the area. I can get you out there, but if it rains—that water truck won’t ever come back.”
“Are you expecting it to rain soon, Mr. Colfax?”
“The rains are already late. Usually we have rain by the middle of November. It’s been fifteen years since the last drought. I hope we aren’t in for another one. What do you reckon, Wally?”
“It’ll rain when it’s time for rain. When do you want to head out to the site, Professor?”
“How long will it take to get there?”
“It’s sixty kilometres, that’s nearly forty miles in a straight line, but we won’t be able to go straight there. The way we’ll have to wander round, it’ll take at least three hours.”
“It’s rather hot for traveling and then we’ll have to get set up. It might be a bit too much today. Would it be better to go tomorrow morning?”
“It would be better not to go at all.”
“As may be, but the uni didn’t send us out here for our health. Can we leave first thing in the morning?”
“Yes, we’ll leave at first light.” Saying this, Wally pulled on his hat and left the room.
“You’ll have to excuse his manners, Professor. He’s guiding you out there because he was asked to do so by the leaders of the tribe. Otherwise, I think he’d be off on walkabout.”
Six
Professor Madison found Wally in the shade on the porch of Dempsey’s Store. In this remote station, Dempsey’s served as post office, community center, convenience store, and watering hole for both the local stockmen and the winter tourists. Wally was sitting on a precariously balanced wooden chair leaning against the wall.
“G’day, Wally. Could I ask you a question?”
“G’day, Professor Madison. Step up into the shade and take the load off. What can I do for you?”
Professor Madison took off his hat as he climbed the stairs.
“I wanted to ask if you’d been up into those hills where we’re headed.” He wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and settled the hat back in place.
“I know that country round about there, see, but no, I ain’t been up in those hills. It’s a local taboo, you might say.”
“Do you know of someone who has been?”
Wally shook his head, waiving a fly away from his eyes.
“No. I can’t say I do.”
“Come on, Wally, you don’t know anyone who’s ever been up in there?”
“Is what I said, mate. Nobody ever goes into those hills. Most everyone gives the whole area a pass. It’s just dry bush land. I’ve had to find lost stock, or I wouldn’t have had occasion to go round there myself. For as long as anyone can remember, the elders have forbidden us to go into those hills and canyons. Generation after generation, I reckon going all the way back to the dreaming.”
“All this time and not one person has gotten curious? Surely, someone has gone there.”
“Not from my mob.” Wally frowned and looked away.
“Why not, what are you afraid of?” Professor Madison was insistent. “Clearly you know something, some story or legend about the boogie man or whatever.”
Wally looked back at him without answering. His dark features wrinkled and his frown growing deeper.
“Come on, man. Tell me something.”
Wally crossed his arms and twisted his neck, working out a kink.
“Listen, mate. I’m not a stupid child, and I don’t care for your attitude. You think because I didn’t grow up in a city, or attend your fancy university, I’m not as intelligent as the next bloke? I’ll tell you this. There’s a reason we respect our elders and honour our ancestral ways. There are things, ancient things, you couldn’t begin to understand. Do you think you’re the first scientist or even the first white man to come poking around, looking for who knows what?”
“No, I’m just trying to figure why you won’t go up into those hills. I know there’ve been others. I’ve heard the story about a British army patrol vanishing out there. Then, about fifty years later, Heinrich Von Bulen and three other survivors of his survey party were found wandering in the bush, mad as hatters. They all died before they could be brought back to hospital. One of them had been in the habit of keeping a journal. It was found with his remains. I’ve seen the journal. It indicates their deteriorating condition and mental state. The first entries in his journal were clear and informative, but by the end, all he left was weird drawings and gibberish. I’m sorry, mate. I didn’t mean any insult.”
Wally slowly nodded.
“I don’t know any more than that, myself. Like I said, we don’t go there. It’s just desert hills, see? I never heard no stories about booger men or monsters. The elders only tell of darkness. They say there’s evil in the clefts and canyons. We’ve always stayed away. That’s all I care to know.”
“Alright, Wally, thank you for explaining it.”
“No worries, mate. Tell your people to be ready at first light. We need to get there and get you set up before the heat of the day.”
“Yes, thank you. It’s good of you to guide us there, even if you won’t go into the hills. You’ll be welcome to join us if you change your mind. ”
“Ta, but I’ll pass. I’ll get you out there, but then I’m coming back here to the station. You probably think it’s some kind of silly Aboriginal superstition, but like I said, we take our traditions seriously.”
“I understand. G’day, Wally.”
“G’day, Professor Madison.”
With narrowed eyes, Wally watched from under the brim of his hat, as the university man walked away.
“You lot don’t understand anything.” He mumbled under his breath.
Professor Madison was relieved to hear Wally’s story. He’d heard the locals weren’t keen to explore the rocky canyons of the funny looking mountains of ancient sedimentary rock in that remote part of the desert. In some other parts of Australia, these mountains would have been seen by the Aboriginal people as a sacred place. The fissures and canyons would’ve provided shelter and burial chambers, but evidently, for some obscure superstitious reason, this particular mountain range had been off limits for centuries.
He smiled as he considered the taboo. It suggested an ancient fear. Perhaps the earliest Aborigines had encountered the ruins and been frightened off by the strange structures now revealed by satellite imagery. Whatever the reason for their fear, it worked to his advantage. There would be no one snooping around as he and his team did the preliminary exploration. He was glad he would have little cause for concern about looting and keeping the locals away. If it turned out to be a legitimate find, care would have to be taken, or the area would soon be overrun with journalists and film crews from around the world.
Now if only the weather would hold.
Seven
By the time full daylight swept away the last of the night-time gloom, the little convoy was well on its way into the Tanami Desert. While the land looked flat and featureless, in reality it proved to be far more rugged. Driving through dry washes, up or around rocky outcrops, into and out of deep canyons, through gum thickets and thick brush, they seldom exceeded nine or ten miles per hour.
The first vehicle drove out onto a flat, dusty plain.
“This looks like a playa,” Jake said to Becky, who was seated next to him in the back seat of the lead ute. As the navigator and scout, Wally occupied the passenger seat to the left of Professor Madison.
“What’s that you say, mate?” Wally asked.
“I was just saying this looks like a dry lake bed. What we call a playa, back home. It fills with shallow water in the rainy season.”
“Too right. Even then, the water’s no good
for the stock. It never lasts long and animals can get bogged down in the mud. This is outside our lease lands, but the cattle will wander on occasion. Right now, it’s one of the few places we can travel a straight line and pick up the pace. If it had water in it, we’d have to go far out of our way to get around it. See those low hills over there, Professor? Head that way.”
Jake returned the conversation to the subject of dry lake beds.
“It’s funny how life adapts to a desert environment. There are brine shrimp and other aquatic life forms lying dormant all around us here. When the rain fills this shallow basin, they emerge from their cryptobiotic state and live out their entire life cycle in just a few days.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Becky said. “They can lie dormant for years during times of drought.”
“Yes, some anhydrobiotic organisms, like the tardigrade or water bear, can survive incredible climate changes and conditions in which nothing else can live. They become so dry, there is virtually no water left in their bodies. Some of them lie dormant for centuries. Other organisms like bacteria can lie dormant for thousands of years.”
“That’s extraordinary.”
“Indeed, there is ongoing research as to how we might be able to put humans into a cryptobiotic state for the length of time required for interstellar travel.”
“Do you mean like suspended animation?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Do you think we’ll ever succeed?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“The organisms that enter into an actual cryptobiotic state are fairly simple organisms with rudimentary systems. In order to survive they change organically. Human beings are incredibly complex organisms with multiple systems which are all interdependent. Other mammals hibernate, and in that state their metabolism slows, but even those animals remain semi-conscious and have to eat and drink as soon as possible. If we shut down every system in a human being, one or more of them will fail—resulting in death.”
“What about freezing? Isn’t that one of the ways they’re researching?”
“Yes, that’s called cryobiosis. The problem remains the same. Human beings and our tissues are too sensitive to extremes. If a single vital system fails, the entire organism fails. Also, there seems to be something about human beings that is different from the animals.”
“What’s that?”
“Our soul, Becky, there’s more to us than just our physical functions.”
“Oh, are you saying the fact that we’re sentient beings is a complication?”
“How do you define the term, ‘sentient beings’?”
“Well, I guess it means self-awareness or something like that.”
“Right, from a scientific perspective animals and humans are considered sentient beings because we have minds, wills, and emotions. Science tends to equate intelligence with sentience. However, if you think about it, sentience is an aggregate of things that go beyond intelligence alone. I believe our emotions and motivations are not merely a function of biology. Look at those kangaroos. They’re leaping away because they fear us. Why? What do you think?”
“I reckon it’s just survival instinct. If they feel threatened, they flee.”
“Maybe so, but humans are more analytical. We recognize that sometimes our fears have no basis in fact. We seek to understand. Now, you could say that’s just a function of a higher intelligence—a better brain—but I believe there’s more to it.”
Professor Madison had been listening to the conversation. Once again the professor didn’t like the chummy way Becky was engaging with the tall American.
“Civilization, that’s the difference.” He said.
“Are you saying we’re different from the other organisms on the planet because we create civilization, Professor?” Jake asked.
“Quite right. We’re told that apes, pigs, dolphins, even octopi are nearly equally as intelligent as we are, but you don’t see those building cities, composing symphonies or designing space vehicles, do you?”
“No, you don’t, but birds build nests, some of them quite complex, and they have a repertoire of songs. Some simpler organisms form colonies. Maybe our civilization is just a more complex form.” Becky said. “That could be attributed to a higher level of intelligence.”
The professor shrugged.
Wally spoke up.
“Better slow down, mate. It gets real rough and rocky from now on. Go around this clump of trees. Try to keep to open ground. When you reach the top of that little rise, stop. I want to have a look on the other side.”
“How much farther is it, Wally?”
“You’ll be able to see the hills from the top of the rise. They’re only about ten miles off, but I have to sort out how to get that water truck over there and get us to the exact area you want to explore. Stop here, Professor. You wanted to see those mountains? There they are.”
The view was panoramic. The “high ground” proved to be the edge of an escarpment. Below them the dry desert land looked almost like wrinkled fabric. Here and there the white bark of the occasional ghost gum rose above the red earth and thickets of yellow brush. The mirage effect showed a large lake in the distance. On the far side, in the bright morning sun, odd, conical shaped hills rose like stacks of orange coloured beehives. They seems to undulate in the heat waves
“Isn’t that beautiful?” Becky said. “Let’s get out.”
Wally nodded as he opened his door.
“I’m going to be gone for a little while. I have to work out the track down from here. You can stretch your legs, but have a care. We’re a long way from help if you get bitten by a snake.”
Professor Madison, Becky and Jake stood watching the distant hills as the other vehicles drew to a stop behind them.
“Crikey, will you look at that! We drove all the way out back of beyond to see nothing but a bunch of eroded hills? I’ll bet the tallest one is no more than forty meters.” Bob Overlander observed.
“They look like a good rain storm would wash them away.” Another grad student named Todd Franks said.
Jake shook his head and said, “They’re bigger than they look from here. Three or four hundred thousand years of annual rains wouldn’t quite get it done, gentlemen. That sandstone is more durable than it looks. Those mountains are there because everything else washed away. Still, you’re right. Many thousands of years of erosion made them look the way they do. Even this escarpment was formed by erosion. What we think of as flat land or low ground is mostly valleys where the surrounding earth has washed away, leaving promontories like this, and those mountains over there.”
“How long will it take us to get there?”
“I don’t know. Wally is scouting the route. He’s working out how to get the water truck down off this high ground and over there. Speaking of water, it’s important to stay hydrated. Don’t wait till you feel thirsty. Drink as much water as you can, every chance you get. Do it now.”
“See, that’s the problem with you yanks.”
“What problem is that?” Jake said
“You’re over-paid, over-sexed and over here. Now you’re giving orders.”
Professor Madison said, “That will be enough of that, Mr. Franks. Dr. Walker is quite correct. I suggest you apologize and follow his instructions.”
“I’m sorry, mate. I was just having you on.”
Jake smiled and said, “Ok. What is it you say, no worries?”
The young man shrugged and said, “I reckon it’s time for a morning smoke-o anyway. We’re short on tea, but we brought plenty of beer in the esky.”
“Save it for after dark. Water is your friend in this heat. It’s too early in the day for beer. It’ll only dehydrate you.”
Before the grad student could answer, Wally returned.
“Did everyone drink some water? You can’t feel it, but you’re sweating now, and the sun isn’t very high in the sky. A couple hours from now it will be at least forty two degrees and e
ven hotter this afternoon.”
The truck driver agreed, slapping Mr. Franks on the back.
“Fair dinkum, mate,” He said
“Have you found the way forward, Wally?”
“Yes, Professor, the worst part is just here. Once we make our way off this shelf, we’ll be right. The utes won’t have much trouble, but the water truck will have to stay exactly in our tracks and go very slowly the rest of the way.”
That last comment was directed at the truck driver.
“No worries,” the man agreed
Wally asked, “Exactly where are we going once we reach the mountains, Professor?”
“I have the coordinates in the GPS.”
“Coordinates? That won’t help me, mate. I need to know where we’re going.”
“So, you’ve changed your mind? Are you coming into the mountains with us?”
“Not bleeding likely. I promised to get you there. That’s all.”
“Well, then, get us to the mountains. The GPS will show us to the exact location.”
“It’s your funeral.”
“So you keep telling us. How long do you think it will take us to get there?”
“I reckon we’ll be over there by half past nine. That water rig will be along a little later.”
Eight
The last ten miles were the most challenging part of the journey. There was no way to make a direct approach to the mountains. The drive down off the high ground was perilous. Once they reached the desert floor, deep gullies, rock outcroppings, dense brush and loose soil kept the little group of vehicles weaving like a conga line of drunks.
Wrestling with the steering wheel proved no easy feat for Professor Madison. Even in the air-conditioned interior, he was sweating and occasionally mumbling expletives.