“The Americans already know about the Others,” said Pat. “Why do you think that portal is out there in the desert so close to the base?”
“Whatever’s going on out there will be so highly classified that getting anyone to admit it will be next to impossible.”
“You think they’d rather go to war than give up their secret?”
“The Others committed the largest act of mass extermination in human history. I can’t see anyone in US intelligence putting their hand up to say, ‘Yep we knew all about it, we’re working with them.’ This whole agenda is so far removed from the affairs of humanity it defies rational explanation. Which is precisely what the Others are counting on.”
“You can take the viewing chair. That’s proof.”
“Weird science is all that is,” said Mel. “By the time you proved its worth to anyone with the power to make a difference, the war will already be over.”
“Without photographs or other physical evidence of the Others, the military is not going to stand down,” Luckman concluded.
It had occurred to him the survival of the Alice Springs population was a proof of sorts. Yet this would likewise be easily dismissed as an anomaly without any firm evidence of the Others’ handiwork.
“Oh listen, speaking of dreams,” said Mel, “I have something for you.” She had just remembered her encounter with Favaloro from the previous day. She retrieved a folded piece of paper strategically placed under a used coffee cup. “These words kept coming to me last night. I woke up and wrote them down. It might mean something important.”
She handed Luckman the note and he stared at the words:
The answer you seek is highward firestone.
It meant nothing. But he smiled his appreciation, shoved the note in his pocket and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To wake up Eddie. We’re going for a drive.”
Forty
“Why do you want to go to Pine Gap?” Bell asked drowsily. “And who’s that with Mel?”
She and Pat were peering in from outside the room.
“Morning Eddie!” Mel called out cheerfully.
“That’s Pat. He’s gonna drive us there,” said Luckman.
Pat stepped into the room. “I never said I’d do that.”
“Fine, then just give me your car,” said Luckman.
“I’m coming with you,” said Mel.
“No, I’m coming with you,” Bell corrected.
“No way,” Pat insisted. “I refuse to take you and you’re not takin’ mah car.”
“Who is this guy?” asked Bell.
“A friend. He’s helping us.”
“I’m not helping you go to Pine Gap,” Pat insisted.
“Oh for Christ’s sake. Eddie, call me a cab. No, that won’t work. Rent me a car.”
“No rental cars anywhere in town,” said Bell. “I tried yesterday.”
Luckman sighed. Mel unexpectedly hit boiling point as she turned to Pat. “Are you helping us or not? What if we just tied your scrawny arse to the bed and stole your car?”
Luckman smiled as Pat silently pleaded for brotherly support. “Mate, you wanna argue with her?”
“The Others will kill you,” Pat declared.
“No they won’t,” Luckman assured him. “They need me to help them fix this. Besides, where are all the Americans? The town should be lousy with them. I haven’t seen a single US serviceman since we arrived here. I’ll bet you anything the base is deserted.”
“Who are these ‘others’?” Bell asked. “And why would they want to kill us?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Luckman told him. “Get dressed.”
Pat insisted on driving. He was reserving the right to retreat at the first sign of trouble. But if Cutler or anyone else had wanted to harm them they would have done it already. Luckman had been returned unscathed from Altern just as Cutler had promised. Unscathed and, more’s the pity, unenlightened.
The road out of town was as deserted as it had been the night before and presumably every day since the Army trucks had returned the townsfolk.
“Pat, what can you tell me about the Others? Any idea why they moved to this place they call Altern?”
“Because it’s better than here,” Pat replied.
“There must be more to it than that.”
“It began back in the 1950s when they were reverse-engineering alien technology the Americans found at Roswell,” Pat explained. “They already knew we weren’t alone, so they wanted to start exploring. It always makes me laugh when I hear people say the moon landings were faked, ’cos the truth is we’ve been sending manned missions to the planets for more than 30 years. But it turns out human beings aren’t so good with deep space travel. People start losing their marbles when our ships venture out past Jupiter.”
Pat fishtailed the station wagon into Hatt Road without slowing down as if he suspected agents of Altern were waiting to pounce from shadows on the roadside.
“Are we sure this is a good idea?” Bell asked no-one in particular.
“It’s definitely not a good idea,” Pat reiterated.
Mel leant over to whisper in Luckman’s ear. “Why am I getting a bad feeling?”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head, silently urging her not to take Pat’s paranoia too seriously. But he likewise felt an unease growing stronger by the moment – a childlike sense of dread that the scary monsters under the bed were about to show themselves.
“Excuse me for asking,” said Bell, “but why should I believe a blackfella in Alice Springs when he tells me we have a secret deep space program that drives people insane?”
“Our consciousness is woven into the Earth’s magnetic field like DNA,” said Pat as if this was a self-evident fact any fool should know. “You can’t have one without the other.”
From all Luckman had seen he had to admit it fit the pattern. The Sunburst had caused a firestorm of magnetic disturbance that had wiped the minds of two billion people in the blink of an eye.
“Altern didn’t exist until they created it,” said Pat. “It’s an extension of the place we go when we dream. The Others worked out a way to make an actual land of dreams. It’s a place that is controlled by the power of imagination. You can create anything you want by the power of thought. The Others went there – created their own perfect world. No crime, no disease, no poverty. And no religion.”
“I bet the churches love that,” Luckman murmured.
“The Vatican hates Altern.”
“Let me guess – the Cardinals aren’t allowed in?” Luckman surmised.
“Like I said, no religion. In fact the border is pretty much closed to everyone. The Others are beyond the influence of Earth politics. They don’t need us anymore. They don’t want anything messing with their Utopia world where everyone agrees on everything.”
“Sounds very Animal Farm to me,” said Mel.
Luckman noticed Pat was straddling the centre line with the station wagon.
“But Father Clarence told me the Others have one big problem: they can’t come back. When they do, the Earth’s magnetic field makes them forget everything – just like when you wake up from a dream. But over there they are powerful. They know about everything here before it happens.”
“Maybe I’d better drive,” Luckman suggested.
“I’m not stopping now. We’re sitting ducks out here.”
“I’m gonna throw up,” Bell complained.
Luckman wondered how much of Pat’s story Bell had taken in.
“Do it out the window,” said Pat, but before Bell even had time to reach for the handle he hit the brakes hard and the front wheels locked up. The wagon veered wildly sideways and almost rolled as the tyres bit hard into the bitumen and they shuddered violently to a halt.