The Fethafoot Chronicles: The Seventh Veil

25

Prologue

Though weightless, the immense lump of primordial rock seemed to lumber its way through the deep cerulean space it rolled through so leisurely. Its eons-long circuit had occasionally feathered the edges of our own exquisite galaxy as it orbited its Sun, along with its time-wrought and sundry smaller peers. However, for the past 10,000 years, this particular ancient remnant - spat violently from between the birthing thighs of a brand-new solar-system - had gradually moved away from its rolling swarm of ancient debris and escaped its birth-assigned route.

This dense conglomeration of star-matter that we on Earth call an asteroid, had experienced the slightest of course adjustments several millennia ago, as it passed by a roiling super-massive black hole of infinite depth and frenzied mordant power: seated between our universe and that gigantic far-away neighbor known to us as; The Milky Way.

The Black hole’s churning celestial force possessed a magnetic charisma – that while too far away to suck the cold dead thing into its hungry maw, like many of its smaller kind - was yet potent enough to alter its usual relentless course by several, infinitesimal amounts of a degree. Since its formation, this minuscule course alteration remained the unique event in an epoch of fantastical voyaging through several conjoined universes.

While the modern scientific experts of our contemporary Earth could not know this aspect of its ancient history, this slightest of deviations, was a change that would ultimately have a major affect on our planet: and, its symbiotic relationship with our satellite moon. And, if further proof were needed of our universe’s practical physics, the encounter ahead would be sound testimony to the inalienable truth of Newton’s Third Law of Dynamics: to every action…

Isolated from any further gravitational effect for epochs of civilizations on Earth, the asteroid voyaged on its way innocuously through the dark vacuum: a colossal rolling body, trailing its icy lifeless vapor behind it in dark waving plumes, which only revealed their veiled beauty, when a passing sun’s distant light shone through. Then, it dressed itself up in every known color of the universe, splaying its exquisite tail out behind its colossal dark mass, like a proud gargantuan Peacock as it pierced through space and time.

On Earth, another thousand years went by before the space traveller entered our solar system and advanced unerringly along its pristine trajectory – too far to be detected as yet – toward the series of eight planets that sit out from, and ring our own bright young Sun: the god-like center of our own relatively small solar system. As with all large freewheeling space rocks, meteorites and asteroids in space, this large aggregate of star and space-matter, followed a trajectory as relentless and unstoppable as the fabricated Greenwich Mean Time and the Earth’s own, moon-related tidal movements.

In time, earth’s astronomers and space-scientists would see it, backtrack its movements and name it; 2017 BX37. More importantly, these trusted icons of intergalactic space and time would determine that its passing would be a spectacle only: much like Haley’s Comet and its millennia of peaceful journeying through our large and intricate Universe, they would assure us.

Out in deep space, relentlessly approaching our solar-system and carrying with it the practical test to that glib expert authority - and currently, a little more than the original smidgen off course from its ancient trajectory - that tiny fragment of variance began to amplify, the further on the journey went. Oblivious to change, the asteroid trolled relentlessly forward through the translucent space and time of its cold lifeless home; and if viewed from a certain angle, the invisible Peacock tail spumed out behind it, lit now by the far-reaching light of our youngish Sun.

While on the blue planet, we grew more ingenious, more glib with ourselves at each and every revolution of our rich and plentiful home. As BX37 whispered along toward us at around 30 kilometres per second, our knowledge of science, technology and medicine grew exponentially and was then shared, or stolen, so that each and every nation began to live healthier, longer - and with them grew an insatiable hunger for more and more of the modern-day comforts that came with the human explosion.

Within 100 earth years and a casual blink to the asteroid’s journey, humanity had exploded outward, in populations whose most valuable assets seemed to be war and building or rebuilding: and whatsoever else it took to ensure this pair of power brokers walked hand in hand across all the Earth’s lands and peoples - or seas, if they proved valuable, profitable. And neither solid-rock mountain, wailing native protest nor three-mile deep-sea trench could slow these raw material and power-hungry hungry creatures from seizing their short-term profits: and in the most frugal manner possible.

Ethics, morality, and environmental concerns, legalities – all were whitewashed to tame and toothless power by financial profit from within the ever-consuming, self-regenerating corporate monsters that now ruled our world and its people. However, these ultra-rich war-mongering international profiteers did not have it all their own way, in this modern world of instant communication.

For the past 50 explosive years, many of humanity’s ‘bright lights’ worldwide – those quick intelligent, imaginative minds that could look down the road of humanity’s future to sound alarm at the rate we were using earth’s natural resources – repeatedly echoed loudly and worldwide: that our world and its many ‘fruits’ was finite! they called earnestly and vociferously. That we needed to find a balance of both its use and care, before it was too late! they agreed unanimously. Unfortunately, these brave smart folk ringing the alarm bells were not filthy ‘rolling-in-it’ rich - and they didn’t have sway with Governments or big business. They went on talk shows, wrote books about their concerns, were awarded medals, titles, and then shunted off to some menial task that any university student anywhere, could have done.

As we found out since, even these brightest of us – of the Earth’s arrogant, intelligent ‘language creatures’ - were yet only thinking in terms of ourselves: merely examining the incalculable graph that our works on the planet had already caused. In fact, searching passively for an easy solution to what we assumed wrongly, was the major conundrum to the easy lifestyle, forged and built over a few - bloody and stoic - hundred years or so. The larger picture - the brilliant living universe all around us - we viewed with a childlike trust that some force, be it spiritual or physical, would always keep us safe from its emotionless, explosive infinite energy. As some wag said later, afterward: Perhaps we should have asked for it in writing?

Meanwhile, out in the ever-changing astronomical expanse of the Universe, following its usual 10,000 year cycle and thus - on this pass - heading toward some type of close encounter with nine and a half billion of this bright sparks’ fellow humans, the inanimate star-traveller was about to lend a helping hand to the busy-busy ‘human’ language-creature’s unctuous concerns regarding their planet. And yet unknown to us also, all of our niggling worries and concerns about our many and various negative impacts on our home planet Earth, were about to become null and void in the broader scheme of things going on around us…

Chapter 1

Earth, Heart-rock, Australia

Veil of Dreams

In his gunyah in the central northern Australian desert, Gurrdundjii, the oldest and wisest Yhi-barakundja of the mysterious Fethafoot mob, lay fast asleep. Having been anxious and sleepless for some several days before, the old man had dropped into deep sleep fast and soon, he began to dream about what ailed his wiry old spirit so profoundly. The shifting dreamscape caused his old hands to grasp and clench at the earth beside his grassy bed in uneasy dread. Against the swirling dreamscape, the old Fethafoot was again shown the six veils of time – six major worldwide events that had already passed by on his beloved Mother’s skin and body. The first began soon after the creation spirits had formed the lands and went on through time until now: the 6th veil of time for the people on the Mother. A fresh and plentiful multi-generational era, which had brought light warmth and lush colours of green from out of the snow and ice of that terrible harsh 5th veil’s influence.

As each veil lifted and a new and novel cycle of life fought to endure across her tough old skin, the old warrior moved restlessly, perspiring liberally and freely in the cool night desert air all over his shivering corporeal body of flesh.

When the dream reached the sixth veil and went further, to begin the as yet untold story of the seventh lifting, the elder and spiritual guide for his people groaned in his sleep, grinding his old teeth loudly as he watched the veil’s sundering.

Six veils had risen since the Dreamtime creation spirits had given their creations life here. Six times before, the lifting of a veil of time had meant that these same creation spirits were unhappy with the language creatures: their most potent creation that had thrived and now roamed all across the Mother’s skin. Six times – his ancient clan narrated in their majestic oral story – the lifting of a veil had brought with it terribly destructive change, affecting cohorts of his people here and brutal changes to the Mother’s skin right across the world. Here on Heart-rock, his secretive clan had prepared the language creatures each time; and even then, they had barely survived the calamities that the veil’s rising had caused. Each rising had been fraught with awful cost to his people. Multiple violent instantaneous deaths – sometimes extinction – came to many of the creatures that had ranged across the Mother’s skin, after just the first veil was torn asunder; Clan history told.

In his dreaming sleep old Gurrdundjii watched and listened, while his mind ground his life-worn teeth and cursed his prescient knowledge – unwilling to bear the shockwave of burden it brought to his - to this - life and times. As he ground his beloved desert sands between his weathered bony fingers in angst, one thing that the aged dreamer did not dream, was that all across his world, other shaman mystics and grass-root spiritual leaders in other lands - across immense seas - were also experiencing the same dream: at the same time. They too tossed, sweat and whimpered under the intense burden of their mutual dreaming awareness of something coming: a thing or event, large enough to affect the great Mother herself and that icy forewarning, scared every single wise one of them as much as the old man asleep under the Southern Cross in the desert in Australia.

These dreamers were not people given to spreading hearsay or rumour. They were spiritually wise traditional people that had never sought fame or fortune, far from it, they had shunned outside attention of any kind for all their lives, as taught. They were the local wise and learned elders of their own lands, and equivalent to the mystic Aboriginal man in the Australian desert that dreamed the dream of the veils. They were dignified men and women that had struggled vainly for most of their lives, to sway the hearts, heads, greedy eyes and hands of their selfish materialistic peoples. These humble folk had constantly exhorted their people to return to an older, more balanced and spiritual perspective of the true value and meaning of life here on Earth, and they were constantly harangued for their views: standing in the way of economic initiatives for their own needy people, was the catch-word phrase used most commonly.

In fact, these kindred ‘old’ souls, wished only for their world to live in adherence to the neglected ancient Laws of symmetry that all believed existed between the heavens and Earth: with mankind maintaining the links and thus, the proper balance.

Later on, after the approaching catastrophe was made public, it seemed remarkable and thus newsworthy to the world’s media, that no matter the name of the religion or the name of the deity, the dream’s content was unchanged between the spiritual factions. All said that something was approaching that would again rend the veil of our times. One of the more forthcoming of the various ‘prophets of doom’ explained that: ‘six so-called veils’ of time had been lifted on human progress through the ages, and that the seventh and most extensive veil, was about to be,’ torn apart, were the exact words used.

So said the mystical dream of forewarning to all who dreamed it, including the Australian Fethafoot, Gurrdundjii, and like him, they too felt the weight of responsibility to warn their fellow humans to prepare for calamity on a worldwide scale. Thus, almost immediately following the dream, in the land of the stars and stripes, in the European zone, in Africa’s many small countries, in India, Pakistan, in China and even from the frozen poles at the ends of the Earth, formerly obscure rarely seen wizened old men and women, began to expose themselves to the modern world - and its frequently puerile ridicule of anything mystically or spiritually off-beat from their norms.

These mostly gentle souls began to proclaim dire warnings of a coming event that would, they warned: collapse and turn everyone’s world on its head. Be ye rich or poor, young or old, or indeed; able to jump tall buildings in a single bound, as one well-read mystic said humorously and publicly.

All agreed that no one on Earth would be exempt.

The world’s aberrant hungry media immediately leapt aboard the curious worldwide incongruity of the simultaneous warnings from so many dissimilar and diverse prophets, soothsayers, shamans, sages, sorcerers, witches and wizards, as they had gleefully identified them. One erudite, philosophically inclined and self-styled media guru, ended his news segment with flashing pictures of the various prophets and which country they came from: …with each unique oddity clawing their way out from the dark shadows of the peculiar polytheistic philosophy they embraced, to burst prophetically into the electric light of the modern day, he’d said, and his nuanced phrasing had been aired repeatedly.

The world media’s pack mentality promptly turned the many admonitions into worldwide witticisms: something light and easy for their viewers to swallow; to round off their daily broadcasts of death war and worldwide suffering and stupidity. Throughout the contemporary world of the media’s television and online e-world, immaculately presented, prim proper and publicity hungry reporters and presenters, ended their daily news coverage with upbeat renderings of patently amusing ‘end of the world’ prophecies.

One such report in Australia, following on from the media mockery globally, ended in a similar vein: And finally tonight, the young smartly dressed TV reporter said, smiling at her audience of millions, several mystics, shamans and prophets of doom have been warning their followers that an event, which will change the world, is again on fate’s radar, she said with an indulgent smile for her sophisticated audience. Although none of the fortune telling mystics has so far been able to say exactly when or where such an event will occur, nevertheless, they are warning that it is inevitable, and for people everywhere to prepare themselves, she said, turning to her co-presenter with barely repressed mirth, for him to conclude the evening program with the world’s various reactions to the prophetic seeds of warning sprouting daily.

Yes! Thanks Karen, he said, grinning widely. I do believe I’ll be heading downtown to my bank for a rather large loan, as soon as we finish here tonight, her smiling, youthful-looking co-presenter said brightly in jest, before concluding the evening’s report. Meanwhile, he said straight-faced at the camera and his public, responses from the foremost religious leaders worldwide have stated that we should beware of irreligious, secular false prophets, he reported with a sunny smile, as he continued. Political leaders, both here and abroad, have warned their citizens not to take out large personal loans, in the hope of not having to repay such loans, the smooth talking glib newsreader told viewers, winking at his co-anchor as the news ended and advertisements for their light entertainment programs began.

In Australia, the sole TV broadcaster to mention the reports – minus the levity – was the National Indigenous TV channel, which resolved to report the bare bones of the warnings to their mostly indigenous viewers across the nation. That station’s management and staff had already heard of the warning, via the long-established bush telegraph; a grassroots national oral information pipeline that had existed long before the colonial invaders arrived with Cook & Co’. Many of the NITV staff reporters and associated media personalities - although erudite citizens and city dwellers - had large extended families still living semi or traditional lifestyles across the vast island continent - and many of these, still held a deep respect for the wise elders of their ancient lands.

Within indigenous Australia, Gurrdundjii’s message had taken a mere week to travel around the huge island continent. Now, almost everywhere across that land, indigenous groups were holding their collective breath, awaiting more information and for advice on what to do next. They were descendants from a nation of resilient survivors, defined and shaped by the long and authenticated history of their people in this rugged land. The old Fethafoot dreamer had launched the ancient tale of the lifting of the veils, and its fearsome consequences on their ancestors with a national and global warning to prepare.

His simple cautionary account immediately struck a chord of truth in the aged indigenous population, whose living grandparents had known of the veil’s legends. These too, advised instant heed to the warning across their lands.

Thus, while the mainstream public and the self-assured media continued to ridicule such warnings, observant indigenous people in many nations began to plan for survival once more.

Shortly after the first worldwide wave of dire warnings, the various dreamers again dreamed of the veil’s lifting on the blue planet. More specifically; of an immense object hurtling through the dark empty space toward Earth that would cause the 7th veil to be rent asunder, and not lifted gently over time as others had reportedly done – allowing the language and other creatures a gradual adaptation. Not this time! every dreamer emphasised. The warnings to their people grew more specific. The coming thing was huge. It was lifeless, pre-ordained, unstoppable and, they claimed they had dreamed also: it came because of ignorant arrogant self-centred human behaviour – reasoning that caused a backlash of scepticism, derision and suspicion across the whole of Earth’s religious and scientific leaders. This much less mystical warning from earth’s dreamers came with a postscript: whatever ‘it’ was – it was on its way now; each and every dreamer assured their followers.

When weeks turned to months with nothing-untoward happening, the doomsayers were ridiculed across the airwaves again and then, the warnings were drowned in more dramatic, everyday local and worldwide concerns. The few devout believers - mostly from indigenous races across the world - began to prepare their people for a major catastrophe; at the cost of being labelled nutcase native religious cranks by the majority 1st world populations, egged on by constant media jokes at their expense.

Three and a half months later, when wars terrorism, earthquakes, tsunami, flooding, fires, erupting volcanoes, mayhem and murder had retaken the airwaves, 2017 BX37’s slowly tumbling form was noted and tracked as it entered the space that the Earth’s various satellites, radio telescopes and observatories covered.

At that time, most sky-watchers world-wide were yet watching the more intriguing, 3rd unmanned journey to Pluto: where they’d found lakes of liquid neon and, ice/water on its 3000 meter high mountains with the 2nd probe. Stuffed full of nonchalant trust in modern technology from those successful probes, earth’s watching astronomers placed BX37’s passing in the ‘spectacular, though swiftly-over category’. When lay media personalities contacted international experts, querying their casual attitude toward the asteroid, they were told that the PDT of an object in space was never wrong. In other words, they explained: What we call the asteroid’s provisional designation trajectory (PDT), which had been allocated to this asteroid’s known mass many years before, could/would, never change. It had not altered for millennia, so why would it change now? - seemed to be the essence of the scientific thought, if thought about at all as notices about its imminent arrival went out through the world of astronomy and across the public news waves; as yet another entertaining ending for the TV media’s news stories.

Several of the more alarmist commercial Television channels put the two thus far unrelated incidents: the international doomsayer’s warnings and the arrival of BX37 together cleverly. They issued daily advertised, well-promoted ‘scientific’ reports of a near-future collision that pulled viewer numbers unheard of: which turned out to be more of a laymen’s guesstimate than pure science and, were instantly quashed by the world’s leading astronomers and scientists alike.

Old Boxcar37 wouldn’t come within a million kilometers of Earth! several major news-broadcasters responded gleefully and with professional authority to their rapacious competitors and, the ever-growing, ever-busy first-world populations looking for a light laugh by the end of each working day. What they didn’t say and no one on the shows thought to ask, several mathematicians did soon after. Taking the experts at their word, these brave purists mused publicly that our Moon is 400,000 km away, leaving a measly 600,000 km between it and a huge hurtling asteroid that could destroy all life on earth: if they were wrong. Thus, their question went: by Universe-area standards, was a million Kilometers a great distance? And thus, nothing to worry about?

At that query, the many online and television show experts laughed subtly, though long and hard on every single media outlet, once more relieving Government’ and the public’s unconscious fears, around something they had nil control over. The great distances involved, also numbed the ever-busy-existing masses to trust these confident, smiling experts. Sentient life on the blue planet shivered momentarily and moved right along: a fifth of us - very comfortably thank-you - and four-fifths struggling to exist daily and, with generally ungrateful attitudes, as the latest millionaire, stars and stripes candidate for leader of the of the free world had been fondly quoted as saying.

Perhaps because of this historical, ongoing imbalance, War and its shadowing twin Famine, along with their hungry 3-D-spawn: death, disease and disfigurement, exploded across the globe in a tumult of picture-shaking live news reports: yet desensitizing distant viewers in 1st world countries, to yet more head shaking apathy - as they met to ‘tut-tut’ in their comfortable, instant electric cities, while sipping warm creamy milk and coffee-bean, raised and grown with real blood: though somewhere ‘else’ and with an exotic-sounding name.

Ethnic cleansing of various forms returned worldwide as a viable political defense against the unruly, and anyone else in the way of the various dogmatic and power thirsty maneuverings of Capitalist and dictator alike. Volcanic eruptions stopping international flight for days, then weeks that turned into months began to occur regularly in the media’s eye-catching daily reports. Live reports from stranded passengers screaming blue-murder about their ‘delays’ to fly at 10,000 meters and 1000 kilometers per hour through volcanic ash to get to their next holiday destination, became common-place. In the very same part of the world, self-sacrificing terrorists; young of age and mind, and getting younger daily – both slayers and victims of innocence - entered their various Valhalla in growing numbers.

And over and above this sad state of affairs, rumbling cognizant - both deaf and deafening - was yet more daily frenzied ‘building and development’ and ‘economic advancement’, along with their subsequent ingestion of finite resources – as the new and improved industrial electronic civilization’s boon to mankind spread its hungry mantle across the world from Timbuktu to the back of Bourke and beyond.

It came with little or nothing but homelessness for the small minority of indigenous people in the way of the seemingly compulsory Economic Development stick, waved at random, when anything of ‘usefulness’ was found. Through rainforest and mountain, across desert sands to deep oceans and bleak ice platforms, we modern humans busied ourselves - using ‘time’ and its illusory sectioning to create a bustling busy-busy world that ran on our lives and our days. Inside its tangible comfortable reality, we daily forgot how insignificant we are, in the really big picture we live in.

However, for all our greed, ignorance and common failings to live up to what could have been, it seemed that which scientists and intellectuals had termed ‘the hand of providence’, was unfolding its stiff fingers and spreading them wide, to take a hand in the affairs of man once again…

A heavenly lover

At Siding Spring in the Warrumbungle Mountains, in the New South Wales region of southeastern Australia, a lone observer was concerned. Pem Weeatunga had worked and studied for most of his youth to gain and hold the position he currently held at the prestigious modern mountain Observatory. He told friends and family that his reason for the hard work and sacrifice was that his deepest and abiding passion was the ever-changing universe, in which we humans were, lower than gnats, when held against its size, length of existence and sheer gut-busting living radiance, he explained happily to the formerly blissfully ignorant.

At this exciting time of expanding science and technology, Pem was literally ‘in heaven’ in the Heavens and, he was being paid to do it. The ability to see out into the universe around us from Earth, had increased many hundred-fold in the last decade. There were now four major interconnected space-watch stations around the globe, and in his current position as Director of the Minor Planet Centre with the Australian National University, Pem had almost blanket time on their communal views of space around us. At least, he would tell you, an ‘Ozzie’ scientific Astronomer, now shares equal time with Spaceguard, the international program, tasked with identifying and tracking near-Earth objects or NEOs as they termed such.

His observatory and its sister observatory in Canberra – the nation’s Capital – were complemented by the enormous power of Wallaby and Dingo; the huge new radio telescopes in Western Australia. These made up the so-called Askap, the acronym for the Aussie Square-Kilometer-Array-Pathfinder, which comprised 36 matching 12-metre wide dishes that worked together as one sweeping antenna. And if that weren’t enough to bring me here drooling, he joked, then just a few years ago, the massive Ska – the world’s largest radio telescope ever built, spanning Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, came online as well! he’d been known to explain passionately.

Pem had worked with another Askap member and good friend, Dr. Elaine Duff from a Western Australian university, in designing the layouts for the recent massive array of international telescopes. This practical engineering participation on his part had been a major reason that Pem had won the lucrative, highly sought-after position that he now held. Pem’s down to earth response on winning the luxurious post had been: Holy crap! Are you for real? Well then, I’m just bloody stoked mate! although that expression of surprise was never made public.

And more recently, as his name and talents became more widespread, he and several fellow Australian scientific-engineering colleagues from Latrobe University in Melbourne, had developed the world’s first cost-effective digital radar: Earth-watch 3, a unique practical system of cheap and plentiful old Rugby-Union football post ‘antennae’, strung with wires and built in three years - at a cost of a measly few hundred thousand Australian dollars. Already, they were placed around Australia and the world; in every country, and with 20 times the sensitivity of the old-fashioned analogue or hybrid radar systems and a minimum range of 5,000 kilometers – they were proving a boon both to weather-watchers, and law-enforcement agencies worldwide.

These too, along with the far-seeing ‘eyes’ of the very old, though yet orbiting Kepler Space telescope, were now tied into the massive system of digital electronic ‘eyes’ that Pem could navigate and control - with relevant permissions his contract stated in bold – and all from his tiny portable laptop.

Pem and his fellow space watchers – and most intelligence services, Pem assumed - could now observe anything bigger than an apple, anywhere within a few million miles of Earth, Pem quipped. Nevertheless, it was true that experts across the world saw every tiny piece of flotsam that came anywhere near their amalgamated telescopes and these days, it was all in high-resolution 3D computer-graphic clarity. The massive computer-banks - that not only compiled a digital image of what it saw from all it’s many sources, but also integrated a semi-intelligent version of the latest face-recognition technology to fill in any gaps in its comprehensive data-banks - offered a true-color, insta-pic that could be printed out on any old house-hold printer. Therefore, no moving thing escaped their outer spatial view, especially something as large as 2017 BX37, or ‘Boxcar 37’ as some media wit had gaily dubbed it…

A worried man

Pem smiled wistfully as he looked at the front page of the newspaper lying on his desk. Newspapers around the world had taken to the epithet in droves. Even in countries where 90 per cent of the population had no idea what a boxcar actually was; Boxcar 37 was making headlines. Television media entertainers were having a field day. Most were cracking dry old jokes about illegal boarding, or jumping boxcar 37, as she ran past us, though others in the daily media grind were more reflective. Pem paused to watch one of these now.

Imagine what it must have been like for people in the old days, when something like this happened – when a massive meteor passed close by their home planet, a morning program host said excitedly, on the wall-mounted television that was almost always left on in Pem’s office. Um? Actually, I believe that Boxcar37 is an asteroid, Jim, his blonde female co-presenter corrected him. A meteor is smaller – and becomes one by burning up as it hits the atmosphere, apparently, she said, reading from the inbuilt laptop on the desk in front of her as she spoke. Pem left them to it and turned back to the thin delicate monitor screen of his own laptop. He studied the readout on the screen then gazed at the real-time boxed video image on his screen - of the asteroid itself - twirling in the vacuum of real space.

Usually calm cool and collected in any situation, once again Pem felt the sudden chill of premonition deep in his bones, as he remembered his people’s warning and gazed at the asteroid’s slowly rotating image. He shook his head to clear it and began to type, guiding the huge computer that he had at his command to recalculate the math for this asteroid’s PDT, before he bothered contacting his boss at the Australian National University; the position that administered this part of the observatory’s space-watch programs. In fact, Pem was more worried than he would ever let on to anyone at this moment. His whole professional instinct, coupled firmly to his people’s warning, ran counter to the thought of the majority of his co-workers across the world. The best of his peers firmly believed the latest professional and scientific opinions - all based on the old PDT for 37’s safe traverse across their skies.

While he had no wish to join the ranks of the media-hyped doomsayers, Pem knew that he was and should be, much more worried than either his peers or the average man-in-the-street, and with good reason. He came from a long line of Aboriginal warrior ancestors: clever men and women that had vowed obeisance to the Mother and their Dreamtime Law that governed the Earth and heavens: as far as they were concerned…

Omens

He had heard the warning from the Aboriginal desert elder and had listened rather than ridiculed it, as many of his scientific colleagues had done with the entire abrupt worldwide rise in mystical warnings. But Pem also clearly remembered an incident that had happened a few months ago, just prior to his hearing about the warning, when an old Aboriginal man – certainly a dignified warrior-type old fellow – had made a sudden appearance in Canberra, the nation’s Capital.

Pem had first seen the elderly man during one of his days off, at a ceremony at the Aboriginal Embassy on the grounds of Parliament House, when he attended a Koori meeting there. The elder man was semi-clothed and although many of the young men at the meeting had also dropped the clothes from their backs for the meeting, the old white-hair looked to Pem, like he had just stepped straight out of the desert. As Pem scrutinized the old fellow, he had suddenly looked up, nodded gravely at Pem and then pointed a small boomerang at him.

Pem remembered the incident distinctly, because of the beautifully carved miniature boomerang that immediately caught his eye. Ochre colors and patterns adorned it, complementing the dignity that emanated from the rough dressed elder himself: an authentic dignity that seemed to come at Pem in perceptible waves as they gazed eye to eye across the distance separating them. Something in the old man had called to him, in the same manner that his passion to look at and understand the universe around us had done. He never got further than that one glance though, and afterward, he had asked around his Canberra colleagues and others there that day, but no one else seemed to have even seen the elder stranger, much less knew anything about him.

Then today, after he had almost forgotten the man and the incident, he’d stumbled across the elder again, while out bush walking through the beautiful high-altitude bush-lands of the Warrumbungle Mountains surrounding his workplace. Pem knew immediately that this second chance meeting was no mere coincidence; the hairs standing at attention all over his body shouted it at him. Early this morning, before breakfast and as Pem had rounded a large rock at a blind turn on the track, he saw the old fellow sitting comfortably against the other side of the rock and right in his path. It was only a few hours ago, just this morning and still fresh in his mind, how the old red-dust covered fellow had startled and stopped him with warm eyes and a mellow voice.

Wah! The great train will come ‘long soon - one-time, eh? he’d said, wrinkling up his old eyes to see Pem better against the sky’s glare as he looked up at him. "It will come. It comes - and you, man who sees far, will view its terrible cold beauty first," the mouth under the bushy beard seemed to sing at him.

The rhythm and smooth confident tone the old man spoke to him in compelled Pem to pause, and to take the old fellow seriously. He’d obviously been waiting for him.

"What is coming? What will I see? Grandfather?" Pem asked, as he knelt to squat, understanding that this old man had come far from his home for good reason. Up close, he could see that the old man was a true desert dweller. The red dust of his country’s arid lands was like a thick second skin over the old man’s body, covering him from hair to bony bare toes with its fine powdery dust. He gazed at Pem through dark pebbled eyes that seemed to smile warmly from somewhere deep inside him and his lined face crinkled and softened as he spoke, though ignoring Pem’s question for now.

Wah! Our people have survived everything that has ever been sent to test us, young star-gazer, the old man sighed out, gesturing for Pem to sit and take his hand. Pem sat and took the offered hand – and for an instant the astronomer felt his own hands were almost too tender; soft almost slug-like, compared to the old man’s tough coarse stringy and sanded appendages. Then, a second or two after their hands made contact, something like an electric shock coursed through Pem and he forgot about hands altogether. He felt the hairs on his head and all over his body stand to attention again, at the contact of the bony hand; that now firmly grasped his own.

Pem grunted and fell awkwardly onto his butt, shaken at the contact and trying to find a point of balance with any of his senses - as he suddenly remembered he had been taught: many years ago. Shit! he thought; rattled by the unfamiliar sensations that his practical mind instantly disputed. Senses were only of use if there were some practical bloody relative stability nearby, to catch hold of with one of them! he thought, stunned to stillness. The enthusiastic astronomer was even more startled in the following moment, as he seemed to just fall right out of his body of flesh. The feeling was at once shocking and familiar; and surprising himself, Pem abruptly threw himself headlong into the tangible sensation of estrangement from his body.

He could see himself sitting there: a cross-legged stranger with bowed head and his arms in his lap. The hairline and features looked alien; a complete and utter stranger to him, until he realized that he had never seen himself from this angle before. Pem chuckled softly at his lack of recognition and examined himself more slowly. He saw a thin, brown-skinned man with short black crinkly hair. He was suddenly proud of the fact that there was no fat in sight on his thin tightly muscled body. He was wearing tough outdoor shorts and a collared work shirt that he’d put on this morning for the walk. His battered old digger’s hat lay beside him and a strange smile of contentment was on his fine-boned smooth brown face.

However, as soon he turned to the old man and the focus on his body eased, his ephemeral body became lighter than air and he began to rise into the air: alarmingly, he thought, groping and gulping for air that was neither there nor needed, he understood but tried anyway. But the yet-solid old man with him just smiled in that warm humorous manner again, before reaching casually across between them to hold and steady him, even in this wispy life-form, Pem thought. As the old man’s bony hand held him from floating away, Pem desperately tried to remember how to gain a foothold in this somehow crazily familiar, insubstantial world.

This separation of body and spirit as split entities was no strange thing to him, Pem abruptly and vaguely recalled. It had been a long, long time ago, he mused, though right then, he remembered with intense clarity, the more recent practical teachings that his father and uncles had imparted to him. Immediately, he hushed and calmed his nameless fears and as his spiritual breathing slowed and calmed - along with his panicked mind - he sank slowly back to ground level. And stranger yet, Pem thought calmly, though I can’t feel any kind of solid earth underfoot, even that strange detail felt right; here and now, he assured himself.

Witnessing the control that Pem was exerting on his awakened life force, the old man smiled and let go of the hand he held, and as Pem’s lighter-than-air image settled to a semblance of acknowledging gravity, he looked quizzically across at the wiry, smiling-eyed elder questioningly. The old man smiled widely; at his fast efforts to bring himself under control in such strange circumstances – Pem ‘read’ clearly in the old fellow’s eyes and face. I begin to see why you were chosen, my boy, he said, his warm smile wrinkling up his leathery dust lined face in genuine warmth.

Pem had to rely on his fledgling spiritual training and his people’s ancient instincts for the proper conduct that speaking to this dignified elder warranted. He closed his eyes and the words flowed easily from his mind to the other there. Pem heard them, though he hadn’t moved lips, tongue or mouth to voice them.

Wah! Ah? Thank-you for speaking with me, old eye of heart and time, he responded respectfully as he considered the old desert warrior. Chosen for what? Exactly, Grandfather? Pem asked, lowering his eyes as he’d also been taught as a child.

The great affair of the ancient prophecy of the veils has arrived – in your and my time, my boy, the elder told him gravely. "This is the final test for our people; survive this and we will have our old and proper way of life back – a treasure," he whispered longingly - somehow making the one word sound like all the gold, silver and jewels in the entire world, Pem thought as the old fellow continued, handed to us by the living Great Spirit of our ancestors, who cares about us even now, he said, quite wonderingly, Pem thought, as the elder raised his dusty wiry arms and hands to encompass all about here.

Instantly, their surrounds became the cobalt blush of deep space, forcing Pem to willfully relax, as his spirit-mind blocked his unconscious instinctive attempt at breathing: at the sight and void of what seemed like, actual, real – Space! – Out there, every which-way he glanced around. The old man with him yet sat cross-legged with nothing holding him up, though he looked unperturbed in the least; he was staring out in a particular direction intensely. The new weightless Pem instinctively relaxed with long sigh and found that this being – him here – was actually breathing: though it was through every atom of its or his existence here. But even in this confident knowledge, Pem still wanted to breathe. However the old man with him just nod slightly at his obvious fresh awareness, then turned and gestured casually out in front of them.

But his words and the vision out there were anything but casual – and not helping at all with the whole ‘not breathing’ thing either! Pem mused, feeling light-headed and totally vulnerable…

An angry being

There! There comes our future, young warrior-man of learning, the old man said, ignoring Pem’s obvious spirit-mind struggle for control of his breathing. Yet he wait until Pem had it under a semblance of control before chin-lipping directly behind them at the vast beauty that could be seen so clearly all around them from out here: wherever the hell here was? Pem thought again, trying hard to pinpoint some star-group or cluster to gain his bearings, though without success. He turned back to his staring companion. Our salvation? Or our end? the old man’s strong voice cried. The elder’s words overwhelmed the astronomer’s initial wide-eyed heart-thumping delight at being in space and immediately drew his attention back to the present dilemma, and whatever the old clever-man was staring at so meekly.

The excited young scientist turned to follow his gaze, to see a huge rotating miniature planet of rock, rushing toward them across the dark vacuum of space that their spirits currently occupied. As it rolled toward them, the old man’s voice changed, and became a powerful storyteller’s hypnotic command to listen. Pemulwuy Weeatunga listened very closely, while in his ephemeral body, an electrically charged butterfly of emotion began to struggle up from memories that he hadn’t known he possessed: somehow, Pem knew this story before it was told, and worse yet, he knew it also to be utterly true.

"Once upon no time, in the Dreamtime heavens, the old man began to explain, Gurandah, one of the Heart-rock creation spirits, was already angry at the language creatures who lived on the Mother’s beautiful blue-green skin. And as time – which they’d also been given secret knowledge of – passed by, these humble maintenance creatures became totally self-centered beings, caring only for themselves," he said, somewhat dismally.

Pem watched the rolling mass twist and turn as it loomed larger, closer, more menacing in his field of view as he listened to the old man’s tale, and abruptly realized that he’d forgotten about breathing. I’m not breathing! Just being, he thought wondrously, as he focused in on the distinctive plural sensations coming with his enigmatic companion’s words. Then, as more than half the population began to worship themselves, forgetting altogether their reason for being and the Law; well, old Gurandah lost his temper.

The old man with him suddenly flung his bony arms out from him as he spoke.

He lashed out with his powerful creation arms in frustration, and in his anger, he struck a passing insignificant half-formed thing: that orb there, he said with certainty. He chin-lipped again at the oncoming mass.

Soon now, that lifeless thing will bring on the final test of our people, man of dust, he explained. "And Gurandah – the only one who could stop it – has turned his back on the outcome, believing that perhaps this sudden change may bring the language creatures that were given life here, back into the true Dreaming reality: the time and life after the Dreamtime – if they can survive it," the old fellow said, glancing at Pem then back at the dark rushing mass that almost filled their common view now.

Why come to me grandfather? Pem asked: raising quivering ghostly hands out from his sides in confusion. All of his questions tumbled out one over the other in his urgency at what the old man was telling him so calmly. What can I do? Will this thing strike the Earth? How can I help my people survive such a calamity? Is there no way to stop or avert this event, respected elder? Pem gushed. The old man turned to him. "You, he said and paused, staring deep into Pem’s wide eyes almost accusingly - as if Pem should somehow know more of both him, and of this event - before he continued with his reply. You, must warn your people; all of your Heart-rock people," the old man said, as both Pem and the elder’s images dissipated and they returned to their bodies; and the rough and now wet trail, where they had met.

Pem found it was raining ‘out’ as he slid smoothly back into his wet-clothes weighted, stale, sweat scented body again – all highlighted by the sweet purity of the occurrence he’d just been in; through? he wondered. The usual feeling of joy that he had at the rain-wet smell of the earth and air around him, now sent a jolt through him at what he had seen coming, through this old man’s powerful magic and visions. Although, the cross-legged elder with him continued on calmly, as if they hadn’t been sitting out in space, mere moments before. A warrior will come to aid you, he said, before rising fluently from his cross-legged position to stand, while Pem caught his breath again.

His Clan name is Djikarra-Parrpa, he said, offering Pem his old bony hand to help him stand. He is of the Fethafoot. He will aid you and any others belonging to this land, when the changes come. Trust him, as did your grandfather to his grandfather, many, many years ago, young Pemulwuy Weeatunga; my dear old friend, he murmured oddly at the end of his instruction.

The old man was already shifting away from Pem, but he paused and turned to face him again. The Fethafoot elders have joined together to see the future – not all who are strong will survive, man of dust, he said cryptically. There is a mist covering that which usually opens readily to such raw naked power as these elder’s utilize, he said, frowning slightly. Thus, at present, all final outcomes are unknown. However, he paused. The same elders have warned that brain and not brawn – as with each lifting veil through generations – will be the key factor for survival, man of memories, he called. He gazed at Pem thoughtfully. Now, they too await your learned reasoning, man of the far-see – especially as to the safest areas to be in when the change comes, he told his wet companion, before he cut the air with hand gesture of finality. That is all. I will see you again. He turned and left the path, disappearing into the dense forest of the rugged mountain like a native to that land also…

HJB!

Pem watched the old man gradually dissolve into the land. All he could think of at that moment, were three huge flashing words that his cousin, Greg Yow-yow from central Queensland used a lot to convey awed shock. They flashed on and off in his mind like a neon mantra: HOLY JUMPIN’ BUNDAH! He leaned back against the rock in a daze of shocked surprise, when the old man’s melodious voice drifted back through the drizzle to him, long after he had believed him gone. The words alone, without the surprise aspect, astounded him again.

’Ere! You-fla! it called clearly. You best be re-check that PDT ‘bidness there, with your wonderful vast devices my boy, it said, and continued before Pem could react. P’rap even ‘at ‘ole Spaceguard mob there may be believin’ you then, youthful and cunning man of wisdom, his voice echoed, with a curious teasing jest in his tone.

After a quick, though irrepressible double-take at the old bush-man’s very up to date knowledge and articulation regarding his work, Pem’s trained compartmentalized mind placed the elder’s final suggestion into the neon-bright: needs-action-now file in his head. As he started back along the path that would take him to his quarters for a quick change of dry clothes, Pem began to work on the math input to crunch and, how many and which, space-searching radar stations would be needed. He knew exactly what would be needed to convince authority and - more importantly at present - his optimistic, yet angst-ridden self. He knew also that he could prove or disprove the alleged imminent event quite easily; if he could gain the time needed on the telescopes and radar arrays needed.

Moving on autopilot, Pem reasoned, calculated, washed, changed clothes and made it back to his office in a blurred rush of adrenaline. He quickly put together the data needed and requisitioned the immediate ‘emergency’ use of the three-way view into space that he’d concluded, would give him a high-speed yet accurate and real-time answer. Within minutes, he found his emergency over-ride and control request had been computer approved and he began furiously typing in data: first, to ‘look’ at the asteroid, and then to re-work its current and future path. After his walk, the strange incident with the old mystic-warrior fellow, plus the deep angst controlling every thought and action since then, Pem found himself suddenly and ravenously hungry.

He took the lift down to the small cafeteria provided and wolfed down his food and drink like a starving man, one eye on the 24/7 TV news station behind the counter to see if other astronomers had become interested in Boxcar37. However, there was nothing new, only the new and exciting streaming information arriving from space-Spider # 3, which had landed on Pluto, and the prevailing media lampooning of the various mystics and their recent and continuing warnings of catastrophe.

When he returned to his desk half an hour later, the proof needed, the re-plotting program of 2017 BX37’s PDT was yet ongoing. He re-checked his input, given the current speed and trajectory from the combined data of the three major telescopes he had trained on the asteroid for real-time movement. Feeling impotent, impatient and more than a little scared, Pem grabbed a coffee from the machine at the end of his hall and paced the hallway of his office floor while he waited on the results. More worried now than he had ever been in his life before, he drank cup after cup of the awful machine-made coffee as he paced and thought, until finally, his anxious footsteps aroused the curiosity of a colleague on the same floor, who popped his head out from his office while sitting on his multi-wheeled office chair…

A death in the family mate?

I thought that was your footsteps Pem. What’s going on? Professor Martin Nigby asked. Pem stopped his pacing for a moment to look at him curiously.

How much do you know about Boxcar37? Pem queried, as he continued the various ‘dependent’ calculations in his head. The Professor was about to make a joke about the asteroid, but the earnest look on his young colleague’s face, warned him that any response had better be genuine. Pem was not known for his patience nor did he suffer fools when he asked a direct question, as many a disgruntled senior staff member had discovered to their personal and public embarrassment. The older man screwed his eyes up as he looked at Pem curiously and recounted what he knew.

Um, I believe it will pass close to us – though, not at any distance that would affect us in any way, shape or form, Pem. Why do you ask? he quizzed the talented part-Aboriginal man that had won everyone’s respect including his: both at the observatory and in Canberra at the university. I’d like you to come with me Martin - and verify the re-plotting data I’ve done for its PDT please. There was a slight quiver in his young colleague’s usually steady confident voice that gave the older man pause. He glanced into Pem’s eyes to see the smile that should go with this request, although there was nothing but genuine concern there.

Sure Pem - uh, I’ll just shut my laptop and lock up; be with you in a minute, Nigby replied, disappearing back into his room.

The re-worked trajectory plot had still not arrived by the time Pem had returned to his office. He threw himself into his chair and thought about whom to contact first if this warning proved to be correct and, would they believe him? Pem also had family in Queensland, and if some major catastrophe were to occur, he felt he should be with them, helping them, as his customs, law and parents had instilled in him.

Good God! Pem thought dazedly, as he listened to Nigby’s footsteps announce his arrival. Good great bloody God in heaven! Pem immediately realized the gravity of his knowledge and responsibility, as a very curious Nigby took the other chair in his office and slopped down into it.

So, what’s happened Pem? he asked, promptly concerned at the solemn expression on his young colleague’s uncharacteristically pale face. Has ahh, someone in your family passed away, Pem? Nigby had never seen Pem in shock before. The older man leaned forward attentively, baring his concern and empathy for his young colleague, though the Professor obviously hadn’t put the two together as yet: that jump was too far too fast for anyone, the young scientist expected.

I bloody wish! Martin, Pem replied without thinking. He pointed toward his screen, still dazed at the thoughts racing through his head. I’m re-running the PDT of um – Boxcar37, he told Nigby, who looked puzzled that he had brought up the asteroid again.

Okay, so what’s the verdict then? Nigby raised his eyebrows at Pem with a calm curious smile on his face. It’s not done yet, Pem replied as he turned to stare back at his screen. But – I believe it has moved slightly from its SkT ah, scheduled known trajectory, Pem said, arousing an expression of consternation on his colleague’s face.

Nigby frowned and moved to examine Pem’s small laptop screen with renewed interest. But this is crazy Pem. You do realize that, don’t you? Nigby said, as he fiddled with his hands and physically had to hold himself back from grabbing Pem’s laptop and re-checking his work immediately. Go on Martin! Pem encouraged, not laughing at the joke as he thought he would. Go and check for yourself. I’ll send the data now, Pem told him typing furiously to do that, before he turned back to his friend and colleague. It’s a small difference, but a difference nonetheless, Martin. I could be … hopefully, I am wrong, he said softly, before continuing to explain his doubt and growing fear.

Though, I am seriously bothered that we haven’t heard anything about this at all from our colleagues at NASA Martin, or any of my friends at HAG in the UK – nor the Safeguard folk. He shook his head worriedly at the inconsistencies of the bizarre situation they faced. At least, he thought, I’m not in this alone, now that I’ve shared my psychosis. Staring uneasily at the resolute face of his associate, Professor Nigby abruptly realized that his bright young colleague was deadly serious.

He took another look at his colleague’s young face, hopeful he would spot the beginnings of a joke on himself. When still none was forthcoming, he jumped up and almost ran to his office and his own connection to the big mainframe. He had never known Pem to be a practical joker and his bright young colleague’s demeanor today was definitely bleak - possibly scared. The Professor sat down at his laptop and immediately began his own check of the work that Pem had done and sent to him.

Meanwhile, Pem’s computer sounded a muted gong that told him that the calculations were complete. He was already feeling apprehensive about examining the information he had requested. The powerful mainframe they hooked into at the observatory had completed a set of calculations that would have taken Pem and Nigby days, perhaps weeks of non-stop work. Now, it waited patiently with his answer after one and a half hours, and Pem, usually afraid of nothing was suddenly hesitant to look; an adverse answer was too significant to contemplate seriously, the astronomer in him appreciated. Dear Great Spirit of this great land of my ancient people, he prayed silently, before checking the answer. Please, give us a chance – just a chance is all I ask for; we’ll do the rest, he murmured, suddenly feeling a deep camaraderie with his current crop of the world’s people. Pem shook his head slightly to clear it, touched a button on his computer and gazed cautiously at the outcome of his deliberations.

The outcome was as bad as he had feared and been warned - but - slightly better than instant and total annihilation. There would be major changes to the earth: fast, massive changes, Pem reasoned. Boxcar37 would not hit the Earth, but it would slip within a spatial whisker of the moon. Unfortunately, Pem knew: anything that affected the moon at all, would most certainly affect Earth…

They are listening in.

As he re-entered the room, Martin Nigby’s sallow white face and shallow breathing told Pem that he had found the work to be solid – and noted the slight but real discrepancy in the current PDT of Boxcar37’s actual course. He was also intelligent and knowledgeable enough to understand what it could mean for Earth without a lecture. Nigby slumped in the chair in shock. Every single thing in his routine though content life had abruptly changed in one Nano-second, and his usual warm-hearted wit drowned in shock as he gaped at Pem.

Why are we the first to know? he questioned immediately.

I was warned by one of our people’s old magic men, to be honest, Martin, Pem told him. At this point, Pem did not think to care how his colleague took the explanation and he continued with the bizarre warning, which