The Ultimate Aphrodisiac

by Robert G. Barrett

  Around seven the next morning, Brian was standing on the balcony sipping a bottle of mineral water while he watched the rain peppering the calm blue water in the harbour. The rain wasn’t heavy, yet it wasn’t light. Drumming steadily on the roof, it was somewhere in between. Much like Brian’s thoughts.

  Even though it would be cold and he’d be back to the same old grind before he knew it, Australia, his home and family beckoned. He’d never find a place like Lan Laroi again and once he left there would be no returning. But certain things about the island weren’t adding up. Such as the bottle of mineral water in his hand. Brian was extremely doubtful now if it was bottled at any fountain of youth. And on the subject of youth and longevity, hanging around during the invasion could be very detrimental to one’s future. Especially once the Yanks started dropping bombs everywhere and a battalion of trigger-happy marines came charging up the harbour shooting every gook and dink in sight. Or in this case, redskin. And what was this fork in the road and weird power rave Milne was on about? It didn’t make sense. Yet Brian still wanted to help. There was no escaping that strange bond between himself, Milne and his father. Then there was the thought of Keleu getting a bullet in the head, or finishing up as a bar girl once the marines turned Key Harbour into another Saigon. Brian wiped a hand across his face and got a faint sniff of Keleu’s body oil. There were definitely no girls like her back in Bondi. Bondi wasn’t Windmills either. And even though he’d be safe back in Bondi, he wouldn’t be Takatau. He’d be just another punter. And he could forget the fifty-cent drinks and Lengi’s cooking. Brian finished his bottle of water as the rain eased, then got under the shower. He dried off, put on a pair of shorts and a clean white T-shirt and walked down to the kitchen. Milne was seated at the table dressed much the same, drinking pineapple juice from a jug in front of him. Lengi was at the stove. She turned and gave Brian her customary warm smile.

  ‘G’day mate,’ said Milne. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Good, thanks,’ replied Brian, taking a seat opposite the President.

  ‘Did you sleep all right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ replied Brian. ‘Like a top. What about you?’

  Milne nodded over his pineapple juice. ‘Yeah. I got off okay. Then something woke me up. It sounded like some poor sheila was getting attacked by a mad dog over on the jetty. But there’s no dogs on the island. So I went back to sleep.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ said Brian, reaching for the jug of pineapple juice. ‘I didn’t hear a thing.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll bet you didn’t,’ said Milne.

  Lengi had made fluffy crab omelettes for breakfast with sweet potato hash browns and the same salsa Brian had commented on the day before. They ate in moderate silence, the rain stopped, and they were down to coffee and toast. Milne put his cup on the table and laced his hands across his stomach then eased back in his seat and looked at Brian.

  ‘Well, mate,’ said President Milne. ‘I guess this is it. The moment of truth, as they say.’

  ‘Yes,’ Brian nodded slowly. ‘I guess it is.’

  ‘So, have you thought things over?’

  ‘Yes, Ron. I have. Very much.’

  ‘And?’ asked the President tentatively.

  Brian looked at Milne for a moment. ‘All right. I’ll give you a hand. I’m staying.’

  ‘Oh! You bloody little beauty,’ exclaimed Milne. He leant across the table and pumped Brian’s hand. ‘You hear that?’ he said to Lengi, giving her a slap on the behind. ‘Takatau’s staying.’

  Lengi smiled. ‘I was hoping so. It is good.’

  ‘Fair dinkum, Brian,’ Milne assured him. ‘You won’t regret it for a minute. And bugger it, anyway. This island’s worth fighting for. Fuck letting a moron like Clooney blow it to pieces for no reason.’

  ‘That’s pretty much what I thought, Ron,’ said Brian. ‘Plus, being a boofheaded Australian, I had to stick up for the underdog.’

  Milne smiled and made a magnanimous gesture. ‘Well of course you did, mate. Otherwise you wouldn’t be true blue.’

  ‘So what now?’ asked Brian. ‘You said you wanted to get the ball rolling straightaway.’

  ‘That’s right. Finish your coffee. Then we’re going back to the ruins.’

  ‘The ruins?’ said Brian. ‘We taking the runabout?’

  Milne shook his head. ‘No. We’re going inland. We’ll take the Jackaroo.’

  ‘I’ll get my gym boots.’

  ‘Do that,’ said Milne. ‘And bring a clean pair of socks.’

  Brian finished his coffee, then left Milne in the kitchen and walked back to his room. After kicking off his thongs, he walked out onto the balcony again and stared pensively across the harbour. The rain had stopped and, apart from a wide bank of clouds heading out to sea, the sky was bright blue. Well, this is it, he thought. No going back now. Looks like I’m in for that long haul. A small pod of dolphins swam past the jetty, and suddenly Brian felt like a weight been lifted from his shoulders, and he smiled happily, fully confident he had made the right decision. He put his gym boots on and placed his camera in his bag along with a clean pair of socks. Milne was waiting beside the Jackaroo. On the back seat was a large travel bag and the esky.

  ‘You right?’ asked Milne.

  ‘Yeah. Right as rain,’ replied Brian, putting his bag in the back.

  ‘Okay. Let’s get going.’ They climbed in the front, Milne kicked the motor over and they drove down the side passage into Key Street. There were a few people standing around outside the bread shop and the bank. Milne tooted the horn as they drove past.

  ‘You know,’ said Brian. ‘I haven’t even looked in the shops since I’ve been here. Or checked out the hospital or the school.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of time now.’ Milne glanced at his watch. ‘I won’t stop at the farming area. We’ll drive straight through. We should be at the ruins in about two hours.’

  ‘You’re the driver,’ said Brian.

  They came to the fork in the road and Milne steered the Jackaroo into the jungle. Brian was a little curious why the President hadn’t bothered with any music. Brian was thinking of clearing up a couple of things Keleu had told him, but thought he might let it slide for the time being in case it came back on Keleu. After a short while, Milne turned to Brian with a half smile on his face.

  ‘So how did you finish last night?’ he asked.

  ‘In what way?’ replied Brian.

  ‘You and Keleu. Come on, give me the guts. I’m the President here. I’m fuckin Sawi. I’ve got a right to know.’

  ‘You got a right to fuck all,’ said Brian. ‘Mind your own business.’

  ‘Okay,’ shrugged Milne, a little admonished. ‘Fair enough.’

  Brian grinned at him. ‘Why don’t you ask me about the night before?’

  They drove on into the rainforest and Brian gave President Milne pretty much the lowdown about his sex life so far on Lan Laroi. The President was laughing his head off and loving it.

  ‘Don’t worry about knocking any of them up,’ he said. ‘Go for your life. We need all the kids we can get on the island. And don’t bother about condoms. We run a very clean ship here. There’s not a trace of STDs on Lan Laroi.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ said Brian. ‘I’ve had AIDS once. I’d hate to get it again.’

  The President finally put one of his own cassettes on with the volume down. Ian Drury and the Blockheads were getting into ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’ when they arrived at the farming area. The sheds were open, the truck was gone and the tractor was out in the fields. Several men were harvesting hemp by hand and the women were tending to the fruit and vegetables. Milne tooted the horn as they drove past. The people waved and smiled back. Brian recognised Chief Isosueri standing in one field wearing a green top. Brian snapped a couple of photos then the farming area was gone and they were veering left through more jungle, towards a narrow gorge running through the mountain range.

  The cliff face rose steeply on either side
of the gorge; the trail was narrow and muddy, yet surprisingly level. Milne said it was just an ancient walking trail when he first uncovered it. Finally they came out on the other side of the gorge into dense jungle full of moss-covered trees with thick vines and creepers hanging everywhere. They bumped over a couple of streams then the jungle cleared away and they were driving beside mangrove swamps. Brian’s window was down and he noticed the air was much steamier. Next thing, exactly like when they came there by boat, a huge wall of basalt logs appeared out of nowhere amongst the surrounding jungle. Then another, and another.

  ‘Shit! This is real Tarzan and the Lost City territory,’ said Brian.

  ‘This is the other side of the bay,’ said Milne. ‘We’re about half a kilometre from that first big temple you saw. The reef’s just over there on our left.’

  The trail ended and they circled the edge of the jungle through the mangroves, driving past more walls, then between two stone temples. Milne stopped the car at the last temple, in front of a basalt wall with a gap in it. Brian noticed another huge stone temple not that far away on the other side.

  ‘Okay,’ said Milne. ‘Hop out. We can walk from here.’

  ‘Okey doke,’ replied Brian.

  They got out of the Jackaroo. Milne picked up the esky and slung the travel bag over his shoulder. Brian put his backpack on and followed Milne through the gap in the wall then along a trail edged with basalt logs for a couple of hundred metres, and across a stone walkway over a flowing canal. The walkway ended in front of the huge temple he’d noticed before. A dozen big steps led up to an alcove in the wall the size of a garage door, edged in with smaller stone logs. Milne stopped at the bottom step and pointed.

  ‘See if you can notice anything different about that alcove up there,’ he said.

  ‘Different?’ Brian had a good look and couldn’t see anything. It was all the same. Massive stone logs and big stone logs, edged in by smaller ones. Brian concentrated a while longer, then similar to those little 3D drawings they put in the Sunday papers, things began to stand out. He turned to Milne. ‘Are those logs around the alcove pentagonal and not hexagonal?’

  ‘You’re a dead set genius,’ said Milne. ‘It took me years to notice they were five sided. You got it in five minutes. Okay, Takatau, follow me.’

  Brian followed Milne up the steps to the alcove in the logs; it was about a metre in width and wider at the bottom than the top. Milne unzipped a pocket in his overnight bag and took out a cloth bundle. He opened it and inside was the same piece of crystal Brian had noticed on the sideboard in Milne’s room.

  ‘The key’s been in the family for a while,’ said Milne. There was a small pentagonal hole at the edge of the alcove. Milne slotted the crystal into the hole then gave it a push with the palm of his hand. There was a rumbling noise and the stone logs in front rolled to the left, leaving a door-sized opening in the alcove.

  ‘After you, Takatau.’

  Brian stepped inside onto a stone floor two metres wide. On the right was a doorway. Milne took the crystal, slotted it into another hole inside and the stone logs rumbled back again. A glow came from the doorway on the right as if a soft light had been turned on. Milne pointed to a set of stone steps leading up inside.

  ‘Christ, what is this, Ron?’ asked Brian. ‘The temple of doom?’

  ‘Not quite,’ smiled Milne. ‘Go on, Indiana. Up the stairs.’

  Brian went through the doorway and climbed the steps, coming out on a stone landing with Milne behind him. Above them the temple rose to a conical ceiling formed by huge basalt logs, each one balanced perfectly against each other for support. Soft lighting from a row of crystals glowing in the walls above the landing washed over a wide semicircular area below. From where Brian stood, it was like being in the front row of a gladiator arena, except there was no seating, only walls. The floor of the arena was smooth stone, directly opposite was a wide pool of water with a stone landing sloping into it like a boat ramp. Brian had another look down at the arena and as his eyes became more accustomed to the light, he nearly fell over the edge. Resting against the wall at the far end, across from the pool, were three black discs: each five metres in diameter and three metres thick with a shiny, circular cabin in the centre. Although the three discs were touching the wall, nothing supported them. They simply hovered motionless and soundless, two metres above the floor. Brian stared at them, and the only things he could compare them to were flying saucers: UFOs.

  ‘What the fuck are they?’ gaped Brian.

  ‘MeG 21s,’ answered Milne. ‘Come on. I’ll show you.’

  Brian followed Milne down a set of stone stairs that angled right into the arena and followed him across to the three discs. Their rims were resting against three metal rods sticking out of the wall and that was it. The one in the middle was slightly bigger than the others; Brian ran his hand over it and it felt like rubberised metal. There was no vibration and it sat above the floor as solid as a rock.

  Brian was absolutely dumbfounded. ‘What did you say they were, Ron?’

  ‘Magnetospheric-crystalline electronic grid scanners. There’s twenty-one artificial islands in the bay. So I call them MeG 21s for short. Or bogeys.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ said Brian.

  ‘Remember I told you this island is one huge magnetic field? Well, this temple is the epicentre and that’s what these things run on. Magnetism and electricity. You ever seen those little gadgets you buy in National Geographic shops? They’re shaped like a skinny cotton reel and they hover above a little stand?’

  ‘Yeah. I had one in my room and a girl pinched it,’ said Brian. ‘You spin them and they light up red.’

  ‘These work on the same principle,’ said Milne. ‘Only the industrial strength version. They generate millions of watts of electricity in a rotating magnetic field. Then zip through the sky gliding on the earth’s electro-magnetic field. You start them with a crystal key like I opened the door with.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be buggered,’ said Brian

  ‘You ever heard of Einstein’s unified field?’ asked Milne. ‘Vortex arenas? A vertical gravity axis? Diamagnetic levitation?’

  ‘Yeah. All the time, Ron.’

  ‘Don’t matter.’

  ‘So these are fair dinkum flying saucers, Ron?’ said Brian. ‘Space ships.’

  Milne shook his head. ‘No. They’re not space ships. They’re just for zapping around old terra firma. But they rattle along.’

  ‘So who made them?’ asked Brian. ‘I suppose the same people who built the temple?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Milne. ‘An ancient advanced civilization. I just call them the ancients.’

  ‘What about all this electro-magnetic abracadabra, Ron? How did you work that out?’

  ‘A lot of rooting around,’ replied Milne. ‘And a bit of common sense. After my wife died I needed something to take my mind off things. I’d studied to be a teacher, so every chance I got, I explored the ruins. I got that crystal key from the chiefs. Put five and six together and got in here. Made heaps of notes. Theorised. Bought books on forgotten languages, magnetism, energy grids. Whatever. Put everything through a computer. Eventually I figured out what the ancients were on about. Then I taught myself how to fly a MeG 21.’

  ‘You know how to fly these things?’ said Brian.

  ‘Yeah,’ nodded Milne. ‘They’re easy.’

  ‘And are these what you intend to take Clooney on with?’

  ‘My oath.’ Milne picked up his travel bag. ‘I’m going to sort a couple of things out. Have a look around and I’ll tell you some more over a cup of coffee.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Brian.

  Near the door was a stone table and two bench seats. Milne went over and placed his bag and the esky on the table. Brian walked across to the wall and started examining things.

  The wall was made from massive stones covered in spiralling petroglyphs and formed a half-circle facing the pool. Carved into the stones above the petroglyphs were rows of
strange lettering. A Y would be upside down. An A would be straight on one side. An M would have an X in the middle. It looked much like an alphabet written back the front. Built into the wall by the edge of the pool was a small alcove with a stone seat at the bottom. Above the top was another row of strange letters and set into the walls inside the alcove were a number of unlit crystals. Brian had another look, then walked down to the ramp and stared into the pool. It was a murky green and looked ominous. Brian left it and went across to the three black discs hovering above the floor. Behind them were three sets of coloured crystals, green, yellow and blue, sitting in the wall like keys in a keyhole. Brian was tempted to take one out and have a look, but decided against it. He ran his hand along the disc in the middle for a moment then walked over to the stone table. Milne had the travel bag open and next to it were two pairs of white hemp coveralls and matching hemp gym boots.

  ‘I dunno,’ said Brian. ‘I can’t get over how those things just sit there above the floor. No noise, no vibration. Nothing.’

  ‘Diamagnetic levitation,’ said Milne. ‘Simple once you know how.’

  ‘Yeah, I can imagine.’ Brian pointed to the wall. ‘What’s that little alcove near the pool? It looks like a brascoe.’

  ‘Just a seat,’ said Milne. ‘Here.’ He handed Brian a pair of coveralls and gym boots. The coveralls zipped to the waist, gathered at the wrist and ankles and buttoned round the neck. There were two flap pockets on the front and above the right pocket was a small Lan Laroian flag.

  ‘What are these?’ asked Brian.

  ‘That’s your Lan Laroian Air Force uniform. We wear these when we’re flying the bogeys so we don’t get any dust and shit inside. That’s why I told you to bring a pair of clean socks.’

  ‘When we fly the bogeys?’ said Brian. ‘Am I going to fly one?’