Matt Eaton - Blank

Luckman stared at him in bewilderment.

“We safe here, this is tribal land. You look at that base,” said Pat. “Hills front and back, fenced all the way round. Cameras everywhere. You really think you can just walk in there?”

Luckman gazed toward the base perimeter. Pat was right. It would be impossible to breach without being detected. It would be easy enough to launch a couple of stingers from where they stood. That would get the job done, but escape would be impossible. He’d be lucky to make it back to the car before being arrested. Or shot.

“I’m Army Intelligence, I don’t need to break in. I can just drive up to the front gate and flash my ID. They have to let me in, it’s a joint US-Australian facility.”

“They’ll kill you.”

Probably.

“Nah. You’ve spent too long in that bunker. Speaking of which, what’s with all that gold – did it ever occur to Father Paulson to do something useful with it? Fat lot of good it’ll do anyone now.”

Pat Williams didn’t want to talk about gold. He was becoming increasingly agitated. “We should get out of here.”

Luckman was starting to feel the same visceral fear. But they were doing nothing wrong. They weren’t trespassing, they were on Aboriginal land. He wondered if the feeling had something to do with how the Others were keeping Alice Springs frozen in time. Whatever it was, his instincts were quickly becoming laser locked on a blind certainty that simply being here was a deadly risk. Both Favaloro and Pat had warned him to stay away. Yet neither were speaking from personal experience. They were merely responding to the same viral dread infecting everyone.

“You’re going to drive me to the base perimeter,” Luckman decided.

Pat reacted like Luckman had asked him to shoot himself in the leg.

“Fine, I’ll walk,” Luckman decided. But as he turned away, Pat grabbed him by the arm.

“Something else you need to see.”

“I’ve seen enough.”

“How about Dog? You wanna meet that fella?”

That caught Luckman’s attention. Pat’s eyes brightened and he took off in leaping strides across the top of the range and down the other side, away from the line of sight from the American base. It occurred to Luckman this could be a diversionary tactic, but as they were heading roughly in the direction of Hatt Road anyway he didn’t argue. He found Pat at the foot of a vertical wall of red quartzite, rubbing his hand across the rock wall in what might be termed reverence, caressing its contours like he was touching the body of a naked woman. Eventually he seemed to find what he was looking for: a crevice, barely wide enough to slide his hand inside. He looked back at Luckman and smiled.

“Follow me.”

Before Luckman had time to question it, Pat stepped into the rock face and vanished. It was so unexpected that Luckman thought he had begun hallucinating again. Then Pat’s arm emerged from inside the rock and pulled him through.

He passed through a moment of pitch black to a cave that was aglow in dancing waves of orange and red light from a fire burning a short distance away. Just beyond the flames, a painted Aboriginal man sat cross-legged, staring wide-eyed like he was in a trance. It was the same spirit man who had beckoned him from Gold Coast rooftops, and Luckman realised he had somehow known all along they had been destined to meet again.

“Dog?”

The kadaitcha man slowly extended his arm and twirled his fingers like he was seeking the attention of a child.

“He wants you to sit down,” said Pat.

Luckman stepped toward the flames, lowering himself to the floor of the cave on the opposite side of the fireplace. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” he said, realising how lame it sounded saying the words aloud.

Dog waved a hand over the fire and dropped something into the blaze. The flames flared amber green. Luckman felt the heat yet the fire produced neither sound nor smoke. He looked up at Pat then back again at Dog.

“Does he…? Do you understand me?”

“He speaks the old languages – sometimes all of them at once,” said Pat. “But he always knows what I’m thinking.”

“Tjurkurrpa… altjeringa,” said Dog.

“That last one is the Arrente word for Dreaming.”

Dog looked older up close. He was lean and fit. His long beard was grey, the wavy dreadlocks of his hair defied gravity like bolts of lightning. His nose was broad and curved – it reminded Luckman of the hood of an old FJ Holden. The spirit man was at least six feet tall – he must have been a giant among his own people when he was alive. Luckman wondered how long ago that was. Hundreds of years, thousands maybe. He gazed deep into the kadaitcha man’s eyes and was hypnotised. He saw those eyes had witnessed far more than the events of a single lifetime. It was like staring down a tunnel to the ancient past.

“Palineri. Ungud. Wongar.”

“I’ve heard those words before,” said Pat. “Dunno what they mean.”

A voice greeted them from further inside the cave. “They are different tribal words for the same thing. Dreaming, lore, creation, the order of things.”

A man in a phosphorescent white suit stepped out of the darkness and into the firelight. “These are but a small part of their meaning.”

The man walked slowly forward until he was standing behind Dog, his clothes now glowing like the rising sun.

“And who the hell are you?” Luckman asked.

“My name is John Cutler.”

The name on the notepad in Paulson’s office.

“The ground upon which you stand is all of those words and more,” said Cutler. “It is a world unto itself. For thousands of years it has been a meeting place for the people of worlds divided by space and time. A place of safety, of communion, a meeting of minds. A United Nations of the soul.”

“I just thought it was Dog’s secret cave,” Pat admitted.

Cutler smiled.

“You’re one of the Others,” Luckman realised.

“I have come to show you my world.”

“You killed Father Clarence,” Pat fired back.

“He left us with no alternative.”

There was no deception visible in Cutler’s demeanour although Luckman suspected his own judgment might be lacking on that front.

“You say this cave has existed for thousands of years. How? And why?”

“The local people’s spirit warriors have long used it to communicate with other worlds. It is how Perrurle became known as Dog – he was a liaison with the worlds of Sirius. The lore governing this place has been zealously guarded by tribal spirit men. But from the earliest days of European settlement its power began to decay along with the culture from whence it emanated.”

“I think you mean it was corrupted,” Pat countered.

“I am here because Perrurle permits it,” said Cutler.

“Why do you want to speak to us, Mr Cutler?” asked Luckman.

“I have tried in vain to speak to you via other means.”

“Why not just knock on the door?”

“The world in which I live is not the same as yours. Its physical laws are different. If I returned now I would remember nothing of my time here. I would no longer be me.”

Cutler’s expression soured momentarily but he checked himself and seemed to choose his next words carefully. “I never wish to forget Altern. It is more fantastic – or I should say it’s precisely as fantastic as you can imagine.”

“Sounds like my sort of place,” Luckman admitted.

“I had hoped you might say that.”

“But you’re telling me I can’t move between the worlds without losing my memories?”

“If you venture to Altern your Earthly memory will remain intact. You will simply forget your time in Altern upon your return, as if awaking from a dream.”