Diamond Sky Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3

by David Clarkson

  ‘Forgive my lack of amazement at this news, but how exactly did you have the best night of your life in some dusty old field?’

  ‘I was just coming to that. The reason it was so good is because I was not alone.’

  She took a sip from her mug while she let her words sink in.

  ‘Lucas?’

  ‘Cut that out! I already told you that nothing is going on there. Anyway, I never said I was with another person.’

  Armareth sat back in his seat with a look of dismay on his face. It was a long time since he had a conversation as irreverent as this and he was enjoying himself. Lucy reminded him of a girl he had known a long time ago. A girl he could not forget even if he wanted to. He did not want to.

  ‘So if not who then what were you with?’

  ‘One might say that I had an animal encounter. Of course, it was so much more than that. You would have to have been there to understand, but it was the most wonderful thing. It was like we made a connection. I could almost read their minds and they mine.’

  Armareth waved his hand to interrupt.

  ‘Slow down, you haven’t even told me what kind of animals you are talking about. Sometimes dingoes can seem quite tame, just like ordinary dogs, but I hardly think they can read minds.’

  ‘These weren’t dingoes - they were kangaroos, silly. The whole field was full of them. There must have been at least thirty, maybe even more, and like I said; we had a connection between us.’

  ‘What sort of connection?’

  ‘It’s hard to define. It was emotional, but also physical. Kind of somewhere between the two, if you get my meaning.’

  The mechanic shook his head.

  ‘This is so frustrating,’ continued Lucy. ‘It was all so clear at the time. It was like when I reached out to stroke them, something passed between us. I saw into their lives and they saw into mine. I could feel their hearts beating, but inside my own chest.’

  She briefly paused – struggling to find the right words.

  ‘Go on,’ Armareth urged.

  ‘This is the really crazy part, but I believe that dad was there with me. There was an energy in that field; I felt it, the animals felt it and I think it was him. I know you won’t believe me, but I just wanted to tell you all the same.’

  Armareth saw something in the girl’s eyes. It was not pity or sadness, but genuine hope. She was trying to reach out to him.

  ‘You want me to go to the field, don’t you?’

  ‘Only if you want to. There was some kind of magic in that field and if I could find it then so can you. If you want, I could come with you.’

  Armareth rose from his chair and walked over to the corner of the office where he stood with his back to Lucy.

  ‘I know why you are doing this,’ he said, ‘but believe me when I tell you that some things are better left alone. Demons, I can live with, but facing them is a different matter. Whatever it was that you experienced in that field, it is not for me.’

  ‘Are you sure, because...’

  ‘I have no more to say on the matter,’ he interrupted. ‘Now if you will excuse me, I must be getting back to work. Your car will be ready for you to leave tomorrow morning.’

  Frustrated, Lucy finished the remainder of her drink and got up to leave.

  ‘If you change your mind; you know where to find me.’

  She walked out of the office and crossed through the workshop. When she got to the door, Armareth called out to her.

  ‘There is one more thing.’

  She turned to face him.

  ‘Take care,’ he said.

  Lucy relaxed and smiled back at him.

  ‘You too.’

  ***

  Two thick streaks ran down the centre of the road before arcing off into the bush. Lucas followed the tracks until he came to the clearing by the billabong. Shards of broken glass, stained red with blood, lay on the ground next to one of the wing mirrors from Ned’s ute. Everything was exactly how Lucas was told it would be, although he dared not believe it until witnessing the carnage with his own eyes. Seeing how Ned was forced to flee in reverse gear, the policeman turned his own car around to face the highway before getting out for a proper look around.

  He remembered how the animal reacted to him when he found Lucy in the field and decided to leave his shotgun in the car. He still had his sidearm, but as long as it remained holstered, he hoped it would not mark him out as a threat. It was only a short walk from the car to the billabong and he could see nothing between the two to indicate that he was putting himself in a dangerous situation.

  Jake was not difficult to spot. Fat and bloated, the animal floated in the water only just out of arm’s reach from the bank. Dismissing any thought of wading into the billabong, Lucas looked around for something he could use to fish out the carcass without getting his feet wet. He spotted a small bush with bare branches that were easy to tear off and made himself a rod from that.

  The stench of death and decay prevailed all around the carcass of the canine. Lucas went back to his car to pick up some plastic sheeting to wrap it in. When he returned, something caught his eye just above the horizon. He placed a hand over his eyes to shield them from the overbearing sun and was able to make out a large kangaroo silhouetted atop a small mound of earth. This creature returned his gaze and he had no way of knowing if it had been watching him the whole time.

  After placing Jake’s remains on the backseat he turned to check if the animal on the mound was still watching him. It was. This time he did remove his gun belt and placed it in the back of the car next to the dead dog. He hoped that this gesture would be appreciated. When he turned back, the animal was gone.

  ***

  He was unable to shake off what the girl had said no matter how hard he tried. Her words stuck with him as he worked on her car. Why did she have to bring this up now; on the eve of the anniversary? What she had told him could not possibly be true. Her story was insane. It was just the fanciful imaginings of a youthful spirit trying to cope with the emptiness of loss.

  But what if?

  He knew it would only lead to more pain even to entertain such thoughts. The best thing for him to do was to keep working and hope that eventually he would forget or at least become distracted enough not to let it torture him so.

  There was still a bottle hidden in one of his cupboards. He wondered if that would help. It had never helped before so it was stupid of him to think it would this time, yet he craved it no less. He would not drink it all. Just have one small glass to take the edge off his pain.

  No!

  He had to remain strong. This time he would not give in. It was only one day. If he could make it through this one day there would still be a life for him beyond it. The girl from the city had believed in him. When he was at his lowest ebb, she found him and gave him a purpose. She would be returning in the morning to collect her car and when she did, he would greet her with sobriety and respect. Just one more day and he would be free.

  ***

  A chill ran up Lucas’ spine. Had the beast been waiting for him to disarm himself? He had closed the car door behind him and now wondered whether he should reopen it and take the gun. In order to do so he would have to turn his back on the open bush land, leaving him vulnerable and exposed. An ambush was how Ned described the beginning of his ordeal. Had Lucas now fallen into the same trap?

  Feeling along the outside of the vehicle, he searched for the door handle whilst keeping a lookout for any movement around him. He sensed motion in the bushes and his eyes quickly darted to the left. As if aware that he was watching, the movement abruptly stopped. A few seconds passed and then the maniacal laugh of a kookaburra bird explained the source of the disturbance.

  He let out a heavy sigh. This was met by a loud thump just a few paces to his right.

  He did not turn to face the animal immediately. Instead, he stood frozen as he watched its shadow double in size. At its full height, Lucas estimated that the beast was close to seve
n feet tall.

  ‘Take it easy,’ he said, finally daring to face the animal.

  He expected it to pounce, but when it did not he noticed that it was holding something in its mouth. Instinctively, for reasons he could not quite comprehend, he reached out and offered his palm to the kangaroo. It freely gave up its prize to him. Lucas recognized it as Jake’s collar. He placed the item into his car, laying it down beside the body it had previously adorned. Once he was done, the kangaroo turned away from him and began to slowly hop back to its mound.

  He walked alongside of it. When they were at the summit, the animal stopped and stared into the distance. The policeman followed its gaze and as he did so he noticed they were not alone. He had never seen so many animals gathered in one place. There were not only kangaroos, but also dingoes, wombats, wallabies and whatever else lurked in the undergrowth. All of them had their gaze fixed in exactly the same direction. They were all looking towards the observatory.

  Chapter 20

  The professor was just leaving his study when the phone rang. The caller ID indicated it was Lucas. He decided against taking the call. Whatever was needed of him would have to wait. The project was entering its most crucial phase and he wanted to make sure that he observed the afternoon’s experiment. Emmy was already in the lab along with Charlie and the two soldiers. The equipment was prepped and his granddaughter was just fastening Mike’s bindings.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ he asked, as he entered the room.

  ‘It’s one of the safety protocols that you put in place,’ replied Emmy. ‘Surely you aren’t suggesting we break one of your rules?’

  ‘Precautions are required when one does not know what to expect. I think that now everybody is familiar with the process, we can forego unnecessary tasks in a bid to move things ahead more swiftly.’

  Emmy shrugged. Supervising the Americans was now merely her day job and not important enough for her to instigate an argument with her grandfather. The experiments she carried out with Charlie when the soldiers were not around were her real passion. She left it to Mike to decide whether or not he wanted to wear the bindings. He removed them without hesitation.

  ‘Too easy,’ said the professor.

  The old man then signalled for Bradley and Charlie to lift his chair up to the control station. The fact that the console had been erected on a raised platform was one of the reasons the professor did not attend each test. The indignity of relying on others was not suffered lightly by the great man.

  ‘What happened to taking on an observational role only?’ Emmy asked her grandfather.

  ‘If you can show me a place where I can better view the outcome of today’s experiment, I will gladly take it. Otherwise, you can try and adopt a more professional attitude and get on with your job.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  She could see Mike smiling in the corner of her eye and did not want to provide the old man with any more fuel with which to burn her. He obviously had a reason for changing things around so she decided to just let him play it however he wanted to. At least once Mike’s separation was underway the tension in the room seemed to relent a little. Emmy and Charlie had seen it all so many times before that they could run practically on auto-pilot, whilst Bradley was too engrossed in the various technical readouts to bother them.

  The first session lasted for fifty two seconds; a record for Mike. The professor, however, was unimpressed.

  ‘We need to work on extending the time he spends under,’ he said. ‘What’s the maximum that you have achieved, Dr Nguyen?’

  ‘I’m not sure, ten minutes maybe,’ replied Charlie.

  ‘And Dr Rayne?’

  ‘Twenty minutes, but you have to remember that on the other side time can increase by anything up to tenfold and we have also had a lot more time spent in training, and to put it bluntly; our minds are...a little sharper.’

  The professor did not take exception to Emmy’s jibe at Mike’s intelligence; comparatively speaking it was a huge understatement. He did, however, think that there was a way to compensate for the soldier’s inferior mental agility.

  ‘What if we raise the power output; would that not make the connection stronger?’

  ‘It would,’ replied Emmy, ‘but it would also make things more difficult to control at his end. He’ll be like an out of control comet just bouncing from one star system to the next. We’d do just as well to send him to Disney World to ride Space Mountain for all the knowledge he would gain.’

  ‘I’m sure that with a little tweaking we can find a solution,’ said the professor. ‘We will go again, but this time I will increase the power to level 5.’

  ‘That’s too high,’ Emmy told him, but her concern was dismissed immediately.

  This time Mike regained normal consciousness after just nine seconds. The professor was undeterred. After making several further modifications, he instructed the soldier to try again. The results were instant. Mike managed to stay in his astral form for fifteen minutes; just five minutes shy of Emmy’s record.

  ‘That is enough for today,’ said the professor, as Mike returned to his body for the final time. ‘Agent Peters; I want a full report by morning and then we will go about seeing if you can match my granddaughter’s mental dexterity and perhaps even surpass her achievements to date.’

  ‘Not a problem.’

  The soldier gave the professor an almost comical salute with his right hand. His arrogance had now returned to its earlier level. Bradley, meanwhile, pulled Emmy to one side, seeking further clarification on the experiments.

  ‘According to the data,’ he began, ‘Mike travelled almost to the edge of the solar system. How is that possible? Even light would take months, if not years, to get there.’

  Emmy sighed, normally she would like nothing more than talking science, but her tolerance of the Americans was still low.

  ‘Do you want to field this one, Charlie? Our friend wants to know how we can travel faster than light.’

  Emmy then left the lab leaving the others to shut everything down.

  ‘Well?’ Bradley asked Charlie.

  ‘Well, it’s really quite simple,’ replied Charlie. ‘You want to know how we can travel at speeds faster than light and the short answer is that we can’t. It is true that we have no trouble matching light-speed though. All of the time that one spends in astral form one can move around by essentially piggybacking onto photons and neutrinos in the atmosphere. The idea can be quite intimidating at first, but once you’re under, it becomes second nature.’

  ‘I understand that part, but it’s the travelling of such vast distances that I don’t get. Even the computer cannot keep up with some of the movements that are being made.’

  ‘That’s where it gets a little more complicated. We don’t actually travel between places directly. A process known as quantum tunnelling allows us to take a shortcut, if you like. Think of it as a form of teleportation. All you have to do is concentrate your thoughts on where you want to be and then you will be there – instantly.’

  The scientist’s explanation got Bradley thinking about other applications of the technology.

  ‘So could this device be adapted into a teleporter?’

  Charlie laughed.

  ‘Now that is science fiction. The energy required would be unimaginable. When a single particle tunnels through matter, it must sacrifice much of its lifespan to achieve this. The same would apply to a human being. Basically, if you tried it, you would deplete your entire life energy in one go.’

  ‘You’d be dead?’

  ‘You’d be obliterated, gone, dematerialised. Believe me - it’s not even worth considering.’

  Charlie stayed to clear up whilst the professor escorted the soldiers to their quarters. From the old man’s point of view at least, the afternoon had been a resounding success and he had a very important phone call to make.

  ***

  Once the hole had been dug the body was placed inside without ceremony. Lucas stayed onl
y so that Ned would not have to be alone when laying his best friend to rest. There were no other mourners present. The two men did not speak as they filled in the grave, which sealed Jake’s final resting place. When they were done, Lucas was the one to break the silence. As the town’s law enforcement representative he saw it as his duty to always be there for his citizens in times of need.

  ‘He was a good dog.’

  They were not the best of words, but it was the gesture that was important. He hoped it would be enough to get the other man to open up. It was important not to bottle up emotions in times of grief.

  Ned did not respond. The butcher had a faraway look on his face. It was as if his body was there, but his mind was in a different place.

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Huh?’ replied Ned, slowly emerging from his trance.

  ‘Jake; how old was he?’

  ‘He’d have been eight next month. I had him since he was a puppy.’

  Lucas nodded, solemnly.

  ‘It’s not right that he went this way,’ added Ned. ‘Those monsters are gonna pay.’

  The policeman could see the rage burning behind the other man’s eyes. He worried that Ned was going to do something rash. Sometimes vengeance could prove a more potent lure into lawlessness than either envy or desire.

  ‘I know how you feel right now, but I would strongly advise against going back to the billabong. I am monitoring the situation with those animals and if I think it is required, I will involve animal control or even the park rangers.’

  Ned smirked at Lucas.

  ‘You do whatever you have to do, officer, but do not expect me to go along with any of this tree-hugger crap. Once animals go feral they need to be destroyed. If you haven’t got the guts to do what is necessary, somebody will do it for you.’

  Lucas could have used his authority to give the man a harsher warning, but he thought Ned had enough to worry about already. Besides, the man had a history of issuing empty threats and making idle promises. In small towns, big talk rarely led anywhere. With luck, no more would come of the unfortunate episode. He promised that he would keep the butcher up to date on any developments and that he was there if anything was needed. He then got in his car and started driving back to the station.