Diamond Sky (Diamond Sky Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

‘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 spaceship 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 of 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
its 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.

‘She was beautiful, wasn’t she?’

‘Like her daughter,’ replied the professor, in a rare moment
of warmth. ‘It is easy to see how a man like
Armareth
could have become obsessed with her. Leave this matter with me and I will see
to it that he stops coming here.’

She replaced the picture.

‘Okay, but please promise me you will be careful. We do not know
what a man like this is capable of. Whatever you do; make sure that Lucas knows
about it.’

‘Do not worry about me and certainly do not worry about
David
Armareth
. You have worked much too hard to let
any distractions get in the way now. Just keep focused on your work and I will
take care of everything else.’

Despite feeling pride in receiving approval from such an
esteemed quarter,
Emmy
could not help but feel
suspicious of her grandfather’s intentions. The night before, he had threatened
to pull the plug on the whole endeavour and now he seemed to be actively
supporting her. Knowing him the way she did, she sensed he was keeping
something from her.

She decided that she would tread carefully and only report
back the bare minimum of information from her findings. Until she figured out
the reason for his apparent change of heart, she could not risk compromising
everything for which she had worked so hard to achieve. Not when she was this
close.

***

The American military base at Shady Pines, 12 miles southwest
of Alice Springs, was the source of much speculation among the town’s
inhabitants. Some thought it was a top secret research facility, whilst others
thought it was a prison camp. The more level headed of the population simply
dismissed it as nothing more than a routine base established for the
convenience of its isolated location. None of these people were able to confirm
their theories as all 2000 of Alice Spring’s residents who carried US passports
remained tight lipped. Of the 700 or so people who were known to work at the
base, all gave the same story. Every one of them was a cleaner.

Captain Peters and Lieutenant
Schwarzmann
met the general in his office. Their superior was on the phone when they were
ushered inside and they both stood in silence and waited for him to finish.
Mike overhead a few words of the conversation and he guessed it was about the
mission they had been pulled in on their day off for. When the general put down
the phone they stood to attention and waited for a salute before returning the
gesture.

‘At ease, gentlemen,’ the general said, inviting the men to
be seated.

They exchanged a brief look of surprise before sitting down.
It was the first time they had been granted the luxury of a seat during an
audience with the general.

‘I understand that you two men are familiar with Operation
Sleepwalker?’

They nodded.

‘The program is about to enter live testing. You have been
selected to take part in the next phase of the operation. There will be minimal
risk involved as several successful trials have already been carried out. From
what I hear, the potential is limitless. I want you boys to find out how we can
apply this technology to our defence strategy.’

Mike took time to consider his response. He had read the
file and whilst the ideas it contained were extremely alluring, he did have his
reservations. If what the general said was accurate then this would be the
ultimate game changer. From a military viewpoint it was a dream come true as it
could guarantee one hundred percent accurate up to date
intel
on any mission. The problem was in exercising restraint when using it. Spying
on an enemy was one thing, but how long until the Government started using this
against its own people?

‘Has the success of these first trials been verified?’ he
asked. ‘I’ve heard claims about remote viewing before and it turned out to be
nothing more than an acid trip. There is no way that I will sign up to any kind
of medical testing; I’m a soldier not a guinea pig.’

‘There are no chemicals involved,’ replied the general. ‘The
technique is purely based on meditation and the technology gives it an added
boost.’

‘How much of a boost?’

‘Like I said; the potential is limitless. It took Apollo 11
three days to get to the moon, but I heard that these scientists can do it in
seconds. All from the relative comfort of their laboratory too, I might add.’

Mike took a deep breath to clear his head. Millions would
kill to be in the position he was in and he knew that he could not take the
responsibility lightly. He glanced around the office at the various mementos
and trinkets the general had gathered during thirty years of campaigns both
successful and otherwise.

At one end of the scale were the medals and a letter of
commendation from the President. At the other end were framed photographs of
comrades long since dead. This told the true story of war. The medals were
rewarded for honour, but they were paid for with blood. Men like Mike had
pledged an oath to serve their country no matter what the risk. In the far
corner of the room the stars and stripes hung proudly from ceiling to floor.
America was calling and that was something he could never turn his back on.

‘We’ll do it,’ he said.

‘Excellent,’ replied the general, who then rose and shook
both of his men by their hands. ‘If all goes to plan there may be a promotion
for both of you. I know you will not let your country down.’

The three men exchanged their final salutes and then Capt.
Peters and Lt.
Schwarzmann
left to where a transport
was waiting to take them directly to the test site. When Neil Armstrong had
taken his first small step, he ushered the world into the space age. These two
men had been chosen to pick up the baton and take that journey on to the next
level.