Prelude

Prelude

Deep in the center of the vast continent known as Australia lays a rock, Uluru, the largest single above ground Rock in the world. Red against the harsh red plain it sits in, larger like an iceberg in the Southern Ocean below the surface, floating for centuries, indeed millennia at the centre of this arid, forbidding continent. A land divorced from the other great lands for millennia with flora and fauna unique to itself and its people that emigrated from the northern lands of the Asian world, and much later, white man!

Next to this edifice is a white man's sanctuary from the element. Tourists from the South & Eastern habitable areas of Australia and people from all quarters of the world visit fro short periods of time in fleets and convoys, and from the North (Darwin) occasionally. Descendants of the original inhabitants conduct tours with professional tour guides and make native art and implements for sale in their shop and export to many peoples of the world. They have learned to copyright their work, and so enjoy a standard of living many native populations do not.

The Sails, stand low on the desert floor looking like a fallen sailing vessel lost in the wilderness far from shore. Here, all the comforts of five star accommodations are available along with budget family and caravan. A small township with a Safeway Supermarket, Pharmacy (Chemist), Post Office, Commonwealth Bank, many others represented by ATM machines standing sentinel in an alcove, air-conditioned as much for the machines as for customer comfort. A green grocer and butcher all in a quadrangle with a dry garden in the middle, benches and shade from gazebo's around the garden. The butcher has available what he calls €œ"bush tucker", lizards, snakes and kangaroo are some of the fair available to tantalise the foreigners who are game enough to try it, he makes it all available to the hotel and motel restaurants, so nobody misses out.

The Teskeys are a young family; Joseph is an architect and 38, with the upwardly mobile portfolio of someone who is good at his job. He has taken this holiday with his small family as a reward for a successful completion of a huge contract for the centre of Brisbane. The tower rises up high above the Brisbane skyline housing a major multi-national that has asked him and his firm to design their Hotel in Dallas, Texas. Needless to say, Joseph is extremely pleased with himself and he is looking forward to spending a year in the US with his family to complete the new contract. Now they are here to see the Rock (Uluru) for the first time, a pilgrimage he had planned, but not had the time for at least 10 years.

Barbara is 5 years younger and a teacher in secondary school, History and English are her specialities but no slacker at geology, or any other sciences, at least up to year 12. She’s happily playing the duel role with her son Josh as his mother as well. At 10, Josh is, well, a typical 10 year old with a lot of freedoms that his school mates and neighbourhood toughs’ envy, but he is responsible and polite to adults, at least, most of the time. The key is, if you disobey your parents, don't get caught. It has served him right so far.

Josh is getting bored whilst watching television in the hotel room at The Sails in the Desert. His parents have left him to his own entertainment whilst they went to one of the restaurants to have dinner and a dance, they said. The television had the full cable services available and a dial-up on demand video request, but Josh found nothing of interest. He watched a cartoon or two and then went outside.

It was cooling down outside, having been 35ºC all day, the passageway was empty, it was about 8:30pm and the life and noise was at the restaurants where he could here the music and excited chatter of the adults. He decided to go for a walk, unhindered by mum telling him to get a move on or hurry up. Tour buses were parked outside, two dozen at best count and only one driver was cleaning or maintaining his vehicle. Very quiet, he crossed the car parks and plantation onto the main road to the Rock and started marching in that direction. As he moved out of the glow of the hotels and tourist area of Uluru the stars began to grow fiercely, many thousand upon thousand with the Milky-Way clearly defined in the splendid panorama that is the Southern Sky. So bright that the tourists from the metropolitan haze area of the world, may have actually seen a proper vista for the first time in their lives. A car passed him at over 100k/hr., didn't even notice him. A little marsupial mouse darted in front of him, and he turned to watch it disappear into the bush, unlit, and unknown.

"Hey", shouted a voice off in the void, "What yah doin mate!" Josh jumped, he was not expecting anyone to talk to him, he replied "I'm walking". With that an aboriginal boy of about Josh's age stepped out and put his hand out. €"

My name's Arthur, but my friend call me Tracker, what's your's?"

"I'm Joshua Teskey, but you can call me Josh."

You like Uluru Josh?"

"Dunno really, I was bored and just decided to go for a walk."

"Me too!", said Tracker. "Want to see something the tourists never bother to see?"

"Yeah, I suppose, what is it?"

"Real ancient cave paintings, my ancestors made in the Dreamtime," said a proud Tracker."

Let's go!" said Josh, "it's got to be better than sitting and watching useless programs on television all night."

The boys then marched off together across the road and out into the sparse bush. To an observer they disappeared into nothingness. Josh had a look at Tracker and he was dressed much the same as himself, he shrugged and said, "Tracker, where do you live?"

"Just about another 500m from here, I am staying with my Uncle for the school holidays; I normally live in the Alice, "he said, meaning Alice Springs.

"Where do you come from mate, you sound like you're from Queensland?"

"You'€™re right, Toowoomba, my father's a famous architect," he said proudly.€

"€œThat sounds cool, my dad'€™s a senior officer with the Parks and Wildlife Department, and he works in the office at the Alice, the first local man to be a regional manager in that area."

€"€œWhere are we going,"  Josh asked, having lost his sense of direction when all the lights from the tourist area went out of view.

"€œWe'€™re here,"€ he said with a flourish. In front of them was a small valley where they could make out a small village, with a camp-fire and one street light, and half a dozen houses of various conditions, all fairly small."œI just have to get my torch and some provisions and we'™ll go on a little hike to the Rock."€

Josh followed his new friend into one of the houses along the red dirt street. Inside Tracker said, "€œThis is Auntie Flo, and my cousins, Jemima and Jenny,"€ he gestured towards three women, smiling and curious about the stranger, the boy Tracker had brought with him so late.

"œWho'€™s this handsome young man?" said Flo.

"€œThis is Josh, from Toowoomba; he'€™s staying at the Sails. I'€™m taking him up to Grandpa'€™s Cave." Tracker informed everyone.

"€œDoes your mother know where you are Josh?"€ asked Flo.

"€œNot exactly, she'€™s busy at a party or something'€, he explained rather reticently.

"€œYou look after this town boy Tracker!"€ Flo insisted, "€œDon'€™t let him get lost, eh!"€ she said with a smile, knowing that unprepared tourists often got lost, even in broad daylight, with no were near enough water for the heat. She knew Tracker was a responsible young man.

"€œYes, Auntie, I will, and it won'™t take long"€, Tracker pleaded.

"€œWell, OK, you have fun, don'€™t worry the Dingoes either."

€"€œYeah, yeah, Auntie, I know,"€ said Tracker.

The two boys then went to the back of the house, and Tracker opened a rucksack and pulled out his torch and a knife and then they grabbed some chicken from the kitchen table and marched outside into the night. Josh noticed it was appreciably colder now after just a few minutes out of Tracker'€™s Aunt’s place. The sky was brilliant, it seemed that there were millions more luminous objects than in the night sky at home in Toowoomba. What'€™s more, it was very quiet after leaving the small settlement. The generators and machinery of The Sails area were out of ear shot and the lone generator running at the small township was inaudible after climbing over the low valley wall onto the plain that extended with only the Rock and Bungle Bungles breaking the horizon, visible only as bumps between the black ground and the dark blue sky.The low bushes breaking the near field of view, the occasional rustle of foliage as the generally night creatures, marsupials unique to this area and lizzards, snakes generally went about their chores of foraging and hunting for food.

The Rock now filled half the field of view as the boys climbed over a low fence, which paralleled the red dirt road, actively used by the Park staff during the day to deal with their duties around the Rock and the locals (Aboriginal people), whose traditions made Uluru a sacred place. Just behind the boys on one side of the road was a sign pleading with the visitors to respect the Land and not climb the Rock. Unfortunately, it has been a tradition amongst the tourists for a hundred years or more to ignore Local Aboriginal requests, so today it is much the same, with the exception of the sign, and the lectures given by employees of the Aboriginal people to explain, as part of their program, the traditions surrounding Uluru, and its sacredness.

All this the boys ignored, of course. The night environment was too interesting. It wasn'€™t long before the two arrived at the face of a series of caves in the Rock, about 10 meters up from the ground., they were clambering up the face of a bolder when a rumbling sound like an idling diesel train began in the distance, echoing around some of the rocks.

It got louder and deeper and then the stars disappeared above their heads."€œShit, what'€™s that!"€ shouted Josh, above what was now a din trembling the ground beneath their feet."€œDunno, I'€™ve heard it before, but never that loud".€

The boys scrambled down the rock they were on and ran out to the desert to get a better look at what was making the noise. It didn't take long.Over the Rock came a huge, dark and menacing shape, a black triangle against the night sky, blotting out whole constellations of stars as it grew in size, finally revealing a slow moving triangular shaped aircraft. The boys were covering their ears, the ground was vibrating and the aircraft moved right over them. They could see nothing but the triangle. It slowly turned left and headed north, appearing low on the ground as it disappeared out of view, over the horizon.

"€œThat'€™s an aircraft, right?"€ said Tracker."€œYeah, a big one, bigger than a jumbo jet I'€™d say,"€ said Josh, trying to grasp the size of what moved over their heads. "€œIt covered the whole of the Rock easily, what sort of plane I wonder?"

"€œDunno"€, said Tracker. "€œWe'€™d better get home."€So off they traipsed across the dark low land. When they got home to Auntie Flo'€™s they recounted what they had seen. The girls had left the room and a figure in the Kitchen was listening.

"€œDad!!!"€ shouted Tracker as he ran across the room to the figure filling the frame of the doorway, very nearly knocking this big man over. "€œWell, well, well, whose here today?"€ said Charles Winderman, Chief of Station, Alice Springs Conservation Area . "€œMeet Josh, he'€™s visiting from Toowoomba, with his Mum and Dad."€

"€œPlease to meet you Josh. You'€™d be about Trackers age, say, ten?"'"€œYep, eleven next October."

"€œWell Dad, it wasn'€™t like any normal plane, it was too slow, and did not have any lights on."€

Tracker was well aware of the commercial flights landing at the airfield built for Uluru and The Sails, although they usually arrive in the daylight."€œI know one thing young son. The area above the Rock is off limits to aviation of any kind."€ Charles said in a matter of fact way. "œI'€™ll look into it; there have been a number of reports over the last year of strange low and big aircraft, all over the Northern Territory, but mainly around the Centre. (Uluru is close to the geographic centre ofAustralia).