Her initial euphoria subsided and she was beginning to feel isolated and uneasy. Something was not quite right, but she could not tell what that something was. She thought of her body, lying still in the projection chamber and she could feel her focus begin to switch back to the material world. It was like waking from a dream, but as the ethereal landscape disintegrated, a light appeared directly in front of her and something or someone reached out to her.
She opened her eyes to see the curved ceiling of the matchbox. The figure had gone. She tried to relax her mind in order to go back, but she felt anxious from the strange encounter that happened a quarter of a million miles away and just a few seconds earlier.
Come on Emmy - you can do this.
She closed her eyes and focused on nothing but the moon and the strange entity. So many questions were going through her mind that any relaxation of thought was impossible. No matter how much she willed it, the separation would not come.
‘Emmy, are you okay?’
The voice was Charlie’s. She ignored it.
‘Emmy, can you hear me?’ he asked, with more urgency this time.
‘Pull her out now,’ demanded a second voice, whose tone was all too familiar.
The old man had come after all.
She felt the slab pulled from under her and lights dazzled her as she was brought back into the open.
‘You have to let me go back,’ she said. ‘Someone or something was out there. It reached out to me. You have to send me back now.’
Charlie’s eyes widened and he let go of her binds. As it often was, his scientific reason was usurped by a schoolboy’s giddiness.
‘Was it an alien?’
The young scientist was clearly excited, but Professor Fox had a different take on the news. He shot his junior with a scolding look of contempt.
‘Do not be preposterous. If what Emmy says is correct and she was not alone up there, then it can mean only one thing. Obviously, somebody else shares our ambitions. If a competitor were to go public with this technology first then everything we have done here is for nothing. I simply cannot allow that to happen.’
He turned in his chair and left the laboratory. Charlie unfastened Emmy’s binds and handed her lab coat to her.
‘Competitor,’ she said with disdain. ‘He makes it sound like we are running a supermarket. There is a lot more at stake here than mere technology.’
‘He is funding the project.’
Emmy shot him a look not dissimilar to that which her grandfather had moments earlier.
‘This has nothing to do with money either,’ she said. ‘Charlie, do you realise that tonight I travelled where no man or woman has gone before. I actually made it to the outer rim of the solar system. You cannot put a value on that.’
‘You reached the Oort cloud?’
‘I could almost touch it. Of course, when put into context of the universe as a whole, it is like we have only reached the garden fence. There is still a whole world out there waiting for us to explore.’
‘What about this encounter of yours? Do you really think somebody else has found a way to do what we do?’
She shook her head.
‘Whoever or whatever was up there; they did not get there by the same means that I did. It simply isn’t possible.’
‘How can you be certain?’
She picked up a book from her desk. When she located the page she was looking for, she handed it to Charlie. The picture it showed was a crude imagining of a disembodied soul taking part in astral projection. Charlie was familiar with the image and he failed to spot its relevance. He looked up from the page, but Emmy had already pre-empted his question.
‘The cord,’ she said. ‘We have both seen it when we have left our bodies. It is what allows us to find our way back when we cross over. Without it our consciousness would be lost to the void.’
‘What about it?’
‘The being that I encountered had no cord. There was nothing to bind it to our world. I think I have finally made the breakthrough we were looking for.’
***
The evening progressed better than Lucy could have hoped. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she was able to relax without the shadows of fear and grief being cast over her every thought. She was actually having a good time.
As the lights came on and the music stopped, she wondered whether there was any further fun to be had from the night. The boys were the first to stand.
‘Is it that time already?’ asked Joel, who was clearly not yet ready to leave either.
‘Afraid so,’ replied Lucy. ‘Unless you know of anywhere else we could go?’
Joel laughed.
‘In Coober Pedy on a Wednesday night? I think the nearest nightclub is about a four hour drive away.’
‘You could always come back to our place,’ added Josh, smiling at Lucy as he did so.
She looked to Anna for guidance. The German girl had earlier taken the lead with the pool game and this dynamic held throughout the evening.
‘Maybe some other time,’ she said. ‘I have tour in morning and should be getting to sleep.’
The boys were frustrated, but not yet ready to give up.
‘Maybe we could walk you girls back to your hotels,’ offered Joel.
Lucy was staying in the same hotel that they were drinking in, but she decided to wait and see what Anna would have to say first.
‘Okay,’ agreed the German girl.
The girls stood and followed the boys to the door. Lucy was happy to go along with the group and to see what happens. When they got to the door, Anna stopped abruptly.
‘Did you forget something?’ asked Joel.
‘No, not forget,’ she told him. ‘You offered to walk us home and now we are here. I’m staying at this hotel.’
Joel waited for her to elaborate by perhaps making him an offer, but when she did not, his face dropped and he could not hide his frustration.
‘Goodnight,’ she added.
Lucy and Josh exchanged a look of confusion seasoned with disappointment. They had both been following their friend’s lead, which left them now reluctantly parting too. Once the boys had gone, the girls were left standing in the doorway.
‘I thought you liked Joel,’ said Lucy. ‘The two of you seemed to get along really well.’
‘Are you kidding; did you not see how low he wore his trousers? It was like he had already dropped his pants before he got the forfeit. That is not fashion, it is a learning disability. Those guys were definitely not my type. I thought they would never leave us alone.’
Lucy was confused. She only had three drinks and could recollect the evening perfectly. It was definitely Anna who had instigated the pairings in the first place.
‘I don’t understand, I thought that when you came to the pool table...’
‘...I came to rescue you,’ said Anna, finishing Lucy’s sentence for her in a way she had not considered.
‘Rescue me?’
‘Of course. I could tell you were not comfortable with those idiots. It is a shame we could not have gotten rid of them sooner.’
She took hold of Lucy’s hand and squeezed it.
‘Maybe we could do something together sometime,’ the German girl offered. ‘I don’t really have a tour booked for the morning.’
Lucy blushed. Was this girl making a pass at her?
‘I’m only in town for one night, I am leaving tomorrow to go to Alice Springs and then on to King’s Canyon. I have to scatter my father’s ashes.’
Anna nodded. The moment, if there had been one, was clearly lost.
‘Sadly, I am headed the other way. I have already been to Alice Springs, but maybe we will meet again sometime. It was very nice to meet you, Lucy.’
She opened the door to leave.
‘I thought you were staying here,’ said Lucy.
‘No, I only said that to get rid of those boys. My hostel is across town. You have probably seen it; it is the one with the spa
ceship in the car park.’
‘It doesn’t ring a bell,’ replied Lucy, although in a town like Coober Pedy nothing would have surprised her.
Anna smiled and then left. Lucy watched her disappear into the still, dry night. A thousand questions competed for attention inside her head. If only she had somebody to confide in. She missed her father more than ever.
***
Professor Fox returned to his study a great deal more troubled than when he had left it earlier in the evening.
He was a wealthy man. In his early career he had registered several successful patents, which still brought in a healthy income to this day. He used his affluence to purchase the observatory outright and had subsequently been able to direct the focus of his research wherever his scientific fancy took him. Making money was not his main incentive, but that is not to say that he did not see its value. Anybody can create wealth for themselves, but to generate great wealth for others is to possess real power. He switched on his computer and logged on to his e-mail account.
Emmy would never agree to his involving a third party in her research, which is why he had no intention of telling her of his plans. She had her dreams of helping mankind and making the world a better place, but he was a realist. There was only one real world application for their work and with the threat of competition looming, it was now more important than ever that he made sure he was to be a part of where the work would ultimately be heading. He typed out his e-mail and then pressed send.
There was no need to leave his computer on for a reply to his message, so he shut it down. He did not expect to receive his response by the same medium, as the people who he had chosen to enter into business with, preferred only to deal in absolutes.
He took out a bottle of whisky from his bottom drawer and poured himself a generous serving. The green power light of his machine had not yet gone out when the phone started to ring. There was no delay due to international time zones as this was a local call. They were already here; ready and waiting to step in and take over. He gulped down the whisky in one go and then picked up the phone.
Chapter 4
Captain Michael Peters prepared to take his shot. He blocked out all distractions both real and imagined as he focused on his target with machine-like powers of concentration, acquired through years of military service. If he missed, it would mean sudden death for both he and his partner. After completing two tours of Afghanistan, he was used to pressure. There would not be a second chance at this.
He missed.
‘Shit, Mike!’ said Bradley. ‘What is with you today? If it wasn’t for your wayward putting we would have had this game won ages ago.’
‘Blame the course, not me. Golf is supposed to be played on grass, not sand. This is the one proper sport that they actually play in this country and they still cannot get it right.’
The pair’s opponents stood smugly on the sidelines. They had not played any better than the Americans, but they at least had the restraint not to talk themselves up so much before the match.
‘Are you ladies okay?’ asked Dennis, who owned a local bar, which the Americans were particularly fond of. ‘If you feel that you need to take a time-out at any time, you just have to say.’
‘Don’t worry about us,’ replied Mike. ‘The only problem we are likely to be faced with is in deciding what to spend our winnings on.’
Dennis laughed. It was the bellowing, all encompassing laugh of a man who was used to entertaining people and felt comfortable on either side of a joke.
‘If you stopped blowing smoke up each other’s arses and just focused on playing a round of golf, you could have had this won by now.’
‘He’s right,’ added Bert, who was Dennis’s partner in business as well as golf, although he did tend to spend more time in front of the bar than behind it. ‘We’ve actually been trying to let you fellas win, because beating you would be too easy. I’m starting to think we’ve set ourselves an impossible goal.’
Neither of the Americans bothered to offer a response as Bradley tapped in the ball to finish the hole and tie up the game. He shook his fist in a gesture of ill deserved triumph before the pairings made their way back to the first tee. Dennis was first to play and he comfortably found the sandy fairway. Next up was Mike, who was not so lucky and put his ball into a bunker.
‘You’re in the sand trap,’ said Dennis.
‘This whole course is a sand trap,’ Mike snapped back.
‘Okay, princess, there’s no need to go getting your tiara in a tussle; I just stated a simple fact.’
Mike shook his head as he walked away from his amused opponent. He knew that he should not take the bait, but the Australian was one heck of an angler.
Bradley managed to salvage a decent second shot out of nothing, but Bert found the green with his. The game did not go to another hole and the Americans were left sour faced in the club house.
‘How about you guys tell us what you do up at that base of yours and we’ll call it quits,’ offered Dennis, as the foursome took seats around a table with their freshly poured beers.
‘Well, that’s easy enough,’ replied Mike. ‘I’m a janitor.’
Dennis looked across to Bradley who took a sip from his pint before giving the same answer.
‘Me too, I mop up the mess that Mike leaves behind.’
He winked to his friend and colleague, who in return offered up his first smile of the afternoon.
‘There must be over five hundred men working at that base and every one of them claims to be a janitor or a cleaner,’ said Dennis.
‘What can I say,’ replied Mike. ‘There is a lot of mess that needs clearing up. I think a lot of it is because of all the sand that keeps blowing in. It seems to me that Alice Springs must be the dustiest town on Earth.’
‘Well, I’m not buying it, which means you guys owe us two hundred bucks a piece.’
‘Stick it on our tab; you know we’re good for it.’
‘I’m sure you are.’
The four men took a break from ribbing each other when a waitress came over to the table.
‘Excuse me, but which one of you gentlemen is Mike Peters?’ she asked.
‘That’ll be me,’ the American replied.
‘You have a message. A gentleman phoned. He asked that you call work as soon as possible.’
‘Sounds serious,’ said Dennis. ‘Maybe they have a blocked drain or the bins are overflowing.’
‘That’s what I’m here for,’ replied Mike, who then left the table to return the call.
The American returned five minutes later and he advised his partner to drink up as they both had to leave immediately.
‘Must be one hell of a mess up there if they are dragging you guys in on your day off,’ said Dennis. ‘Maybe we’ll see you in the bar later.’
‘Afraid not,’ replied Mike. ‘We’re gonna be out of town for a few days. There’s a cleaning conference that we have to attend.’
‘Cleaning conference?’ repeated Dennis, sceptically.
‘You bet. We’re hoping to check out some new tech that’s fresh on the market. If it is as good as I’ve been told; mopping floors is going to get a heck of a lot easier.’
***
Sammy arrived at work at his usual time of 10am. He little understood what went on at the observatory, but he did perceive a change in the mood of his employers over the previous few days. They were getting excited about something and this worried him. His mother had brought him up to believe that the only knowledge worth knowing was that which was passed down from his ancestor’s. Wisdom was contained within the songs of his people. Yet there were things going on at the observatory that did not sit in harmony with any rhythm he knew.
In the days before the white folk had come, when his grandfather’s grandfather roamed the land, the site where the observatory now stood was a sacred place. The sky above was so clear, it was said the ancestral beings had carved out a hole through which they could look down on the land and it
s people.
The people belonged to the land. That is how it had always been and how it should always remain. The white folk, they not only claimed ownership of the land, but they were now looking to extend their domain through the hole in the sky too.
He unlocked the storage cupboard and set to work with his mop and bucket. His job was to maintain the cleanliness of the corridors and living quarters within the observatory complex. The master’s office and the laboratory were out of bounds. He also had a secondary calling. He also had his duty to the land. He would watch and he would wait. Then if needs be, he would do what was necessary to protect the land, which his people had belonged to for over ten thousand years.
***
Emmy saw the car from out of her window. It was the third time that month he had been there. She wondered if he knew she could see him. He never got out of the car, never approached her, just sat and watched from afar. She could not think of anything creepier.
Her grandfather told her the stories about this guy; about how he would never leave her mother alone. Although he never said, she also thought this creep had something to do with the accident that took away Pops’ legs.
‘He was there again,’ she told her grandfather as she entered his study. ‘Sitting in his car, just staring at this place; at me. I can’t understand why you don’t let me call Lucas and get an end put to this matter once and for all.’
‘There is no need to involve the law. He is not interested in you. It is me who he wants to torment. He always blamed me for why your mother never gave him the time of day. He thinks I poisoned her mind against him. The simple fact is that she loved your father and never cared for him at all. Even now, all these years after she passed away, he is still unwilling to let it go.’
Emmy walked over to his desk and picked up the photograph of her mother that he kept on it. It was taken not long after Emmy was born, when her mother was twenty one years old. It felt so strange to her that at the age of just twenty two, Emmy was older than her mother had been when she died.
Diamond Sky Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 4