by Bob Goddard
The seaman looked crestfallen. He caressed the carved markings reverently and said: “Storee of sheepeee. Laansmaaan aann seemaaan, all samee.”
Yonaton was more puzzled than ever. “The story of this thing?” He stroked the side of the huge cylindrical ‘sheepeee’. “What does it have to do with you and me?”
“Sheepeee breeng laansmaaan aann seemaaan.” The creature used his paw to draw a line in the air slanting down to the surface of the water.
Yonaton’s creased brow suddenly smoothed as the penny dropped. “A ship! This is some kind of ship?”
“Ess, esss. Sheepeee.” The creature nodded with a big grin.
“And it brought landsmen and seamen? It brought them here… to this place?”
“Ess, esss.”
“But… where did it come from?” He stroked the side of the huge cylinder beside him. “And when?”
“Vrom mooneee!” The creature pointed up to the ceiling of the cavern.
“FROM THE MOON!?” Yonaton was aghast. “But that’s… that’s impossible!”
“Ess, esss,” it was nodding sombrely now. “Vrom mooneee… onnee thoussaaan, vie hundreee anee vooree yeeers.”
“What? Say that again please.” The hairs on the back of Yonaton’s neck were standing up and he felt a prickling, dizzying sensation.
Carefully and slowly, the creature repeated: “Vrom mooneee… onnee thoussaaan, vie hundreee anee vooree yeeers. Laansmaaan aann seemaaan. Evree maaan. Vrom mooneee.”
Yonaton’s legs gave way and he sat down with a splash.
“You mean,” he whispered in awe, “all the people on Earth are… are descended from those who came on this ship – from the Moon – one thousand, five hundred and four years ago?”
“Ess, esss. Vrom mooneee. Evree maaan.”
“But why from the Moon? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Comet cameee,” said the seaman, slapping the water with his paw. “Evree maaan die – million million maaan – all maaan die. On mooneee maaan sayfee. Build sheepeee. Onnee hundreee maaan come Earthee.”
The captain stroked his bedraggled beard, wide eyes staring into infinity. “So there were people here before us…” he muttered. “And that’s why the Cardinal was destroying the stones! This changes everything.”
He turned to the seaman. “I need to find my friends now, tell them all this. Can you take me, please?”
“Ess, esss.” The seaman stretched out his paw towards Yonaton. “Tell storee.”
Postscripts
Postscript 1:
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2002: Two sharp-eyed investigators using radar astronomy imagery and photos of the Moon snapped by the American Defence Department’s Clementine orbiter pinpointed the best place for a 21st century program of lunar exploration and utilization. The site, Malapert Mountain, is located 76 miles (122 kilometres) from the Moon’s South Pole.
A key attribute of 5,000 metre-high Malapert Mountain is that it basks in sunlight over 90 per cent of the time, enough to run a human colony and power all the equipment it would need.
From the mountain’s peak, a staggering view of the lunar South Pole region is available. That lunar terrain is thought to hold a reservoir of frozen water ice, pocketed in deep craters that never see a ray of warming sunlight. Transforming such a resource into drinkable water, breathable oxygen and rocket propellant would make this the ideal location for human research and exploration.
Postscript 2:
Terra Vivos shelter, in the Mojave Desert 50 miles east of Barstow, California, was built in 1965 by AT&T to protect telephone infrastructure from nuclear attack. Bought in 2012 by Robert Vicino and converted into a commercial shelter, places could be purchased in 2013 for $35,000 apiece. He’d already sold 25,000 of them! Barstow would only hold 4,000, so he’s building more, many more, across the USA and around the world.
Postscript 3:
China’s space program, controlled by the military, has long been shielded in secrecy. What is known is that China is currently planning its own space station, exploration and mining on the Moon, plus a colony on Mars. Beijing is pursuing multibillion-dollar programs according to Zhang Houying, a scientific director of the Shenzhou program. “In science there is only a number one, no number two. We’d like to lead in contributing to mankind.”
Postscript 4:
Iraq has confessed to having made 9,000 cubic yards of weapons-grade botox (botulinum toxin – botulism). That’s enough to kill every person on Earth 1000 times over. An amount of bot-tox the size of the dot over this i would be enough to kill 10 people. It is 100,000 times more toxic than sarin, the nerve gas that Aum Shinrikyo sect released in the Tokyo subway. Not a single drop of bot-tox made in Iraq has ever been found. It is believed to be buried somewhere in the Iraqi desert.
Acknowledgements
John S. Lewis, Professor Emeritus of planetary science at the University of Arizona and chief scientist at Deep Space Industries. He found time between commentating on Chinese space launches and advising NASA and ESA about mining in space, to advise me on asteroids, comets and future space exploration. Dr Lewis is author of Comet and Asteroid Impact Hazards on a Populated Earth: Computer Modeling and Mining the Sky among many other learned works.
Also thanks to: Mary Ann Fulcher, for professional sub-editing. Neil Walker for editing and plotting. Sue Weekes, Sara Walkers & Arabella Hammons for beta reading. John Goddard, for aeronautical advice. Emily Mackie, for submissions help. Victory Crane, Bruce Davis and Scott Nash for critical reviews. Skinny van Schalkwyk, for containing her impatience and cheering me on. Olesya Babushkina, for expert advice on all things Russian. David Brin, for SF writing tips. Alison Lowndes, for astrophysics help. Ludmila Evanova, for naming Nadia Sokolova. Esther Lemmens and Katy Jon Went, for design and encouragement. And, finally, Sir Terry Wogan, for suggesting the need for a Moon colony with a throwaway line during his Radio 2 show in 2004.
Also by Bob Goddard
Motorcycle Adventure Travel
Beyond Bucharest
Author: Bob Goddard, ISBN: 9780956351807, price: £9.95. Softback 185 pages, Colour and B&W photos and maps. Available direct from the publisher – www.timbuktu-publishing.co.uk – or in paperback or kindle format from Amazon
* * * * *
It sounded simple enough: emulate their screen heroes by riding motorbikes to Eastern Europe in aid of a children’s charity.
But Bob & Viv Goddard were nervous grandparents, not fit youngsters on sponsored bikes with a back-up crew. Their ride to Bucharest and beyond, across twelve countries and sixteen border crossings, through storm, flood and tempest, was almost a challenge too far.
Ride with them along the Road To Hell, into the City of Nightmares and through the Valley of Death. Okay, that last one might be stretching the truth just a tad. Join them for an inadvertent night in a brothel. Laugh with them at the absurdities of life on the road. Hop on board for the adventure of a lifetime… and hold on tight!
Reviews for Beyond Bucharest:
“Two north Norfolk grandparents abandoned their sleepy village to ride powerful motorbikes into the ‘valley of death’ and killer floods in Eastern Europe. The couple could not have foreseen the horrendous storms, widespread flooding, “nigh-suicidal” driving and awful roads that made their 5,000-mile trip seem almost impossible to complete. Romania was the country worst hit by the European storms in 2005, which killed 62 people across central and Eastern Europe and left thousands more homeless…
“Eventually we found a very strange, rickety building that looked like a truck halt. They said they had a room. The place was full of young girls serving but we went straight to the room, which was desperate - there was no mattress on the bed, and wires hanging out of the walls. It wasn’t until after we left the next day that we realised it was a brothel. I think they could see we were too exhausted to raise a smile, let alone anything else!”
– Mary Hamilton – Eastern Daily Press, Evening News and North Norfolk News
&
nbsp; “Anyone who has ever set out on two wheels will cringe: ‘…violent gusts met us on roads awash with water and mudslides. We hadn’t been rolling 20 minutes when we came across the first fatal crash of the day. Impatient motorists nudged my bike with their bumpers. We were constantly cuffed by great fists of wind that threatened to knock us off. We were sucked into Bucharest via a long, awful one-way nightmare of pot-holes, trenches and floods.
Adventure, danger, hazards, trials, tribulations, humour and some nudity, all told in Bob’s self-deprecating, laid-back style. Bob and Viv made the trip to support and publicise the work of UK charity EveryChild - royalties from the sale of the book being donated to EveryChild.
– Andrew Malkin, Lincolnshire Free Press
New Zealand Travel
Land Of The Long Wild Road
Author: Bob Goddard, ISBN: 1898030375, price: £9.95. Softback 259 pages, Colour and B&W photos and maps. Available direct from the publisher – www.timbuktu-publishing.co.uk – or in paperback or kindle format from Amazon
* * * * *
Land Of The Long Wild Road is an off-beat, observant and humorous journey around New Zealand.
Bob & Viv Goddard ride two small off-road motorcycles on gravel tracks, drovers’ routes and old gold-miner trails into the wilderness of this fabulous and unspoiled country. With hilarious encounters and manic mishaps, they survive three-months and 11,000 kilometres as they battle with the elements.
Lured onward by the landscape’s awesome beauty and wide open spaces their journey through rain forests and desert trails, up volcanoes and across river-beds proves to be a life-changing experience. In remote outposts, sheep stations and towns, they meet larger than life characters who offer old-fashioned friendship, wonderful hospitality and endless entertainment.
Full of vivid flashbacks and improbable bodge-ups, their humorous take on life, New Zealand, motorcycling and the art of marital maintenance, this tale is as much a voyage of discovery of themselves as the land down under. Hop on board for the ride of your life.
If you are thinking of visiting New Zealand this will put a smile on your face.
Reviews for Land Of The Long Wild Road:
“Want to ride through New Zealand but aren’t quite sure how to go about it? This book is as close as you’ll get to the real thing without actually going there. Over three months and 11,000 kilometres, a husband and wife team explores breathtaking New Zealand scenery and glimpses of Kiwi life aboard twin Yamaha Serows. An entertaining, well-written read. By Bob Goddard. Softcover, 6” x 9”, 278pp, b/w (& colour) illus.”
– Aerostitch Rider Wearhouse
“What’s it about? Grandparents and inveterate travellers Bob and Viv Goddard covered 11,000 kilometres of New Zealand’s tracks and trails on off-road motorcycles. They met larger-than-life characters who offered them friendship and boundless hospitality; they braved the elements, and marvelled at the country’s awesome landscape.
“This is a vivid account of a once-in-a-lifetime journey and you have to admire the Goddards for their enterprise and grit. There are lots of photographs and line maps to show where the couple ventured in the North and South Islands – on roads that were, all too often, long and wild.
“Did you enjoy it? Yes! It revived some happy memories of my own time in New Zealand.
“Would you recommend it? It’s a must for anyone who’s been to New Zealand or dreams of going.”
– Yours Autumn Special, 2004
About The Author
Bob Goddard was born in 1953 in Holbeach in eastern England. He was a journalist, working first for the Lincolnshire Free Press and Spalding Guardian, then Motor Cycle News, Motorcycle Mechanics and Motorcycling magazines. Later he was editor and publisher of Southern Life, Microwave Cook, Gridiron and Tennis magazines before setting up his own marketing and distribution business.
In 2004 his first book was published. Land Of The Long Wild Road was a humorous account his travels with wife Viv on two small motorcycles around the wilderness of New Zealand. A second non-fiction book was published in 2009. Beyond Bucharest recounted the couple’s near-death experiences riding motorcycles across Europe to Romania and Bulgaria in support of a children’s charity.
Today he lives with his wife in rural Norfolk and Cyprus.
Table of Contents
Prologue
1. Bad News Day
2. Down To Earth
3. Ngomi’s Secret
4. Nadia’s Big Idea
5. Ginny’s Great Escape
6. The Tower
7. In The Can
8. The Aftermath
9. Something’s Not Right
10. An Angry Young Man
11. A Last Gasp
12. The Comet’s Valentine Kiss
13. One Week After Impact
14. One Month After Impact
15. The Cardinal’s Treasure
16. One Year After Impact
17. Ten Days After Santos 2
18. Thirteen Days After Santos 2
19. Thirty Seven Years Later
20. Return To Earth
Postscripts
Acknowledgements
Also by Bob Goddard
About The Author