Locator

By William Girdwood

In the far distant future, after segregating into groups decided by race, religion, color, creed or nationality, mankind has dispersed throughout the spiral arms of the galaxy. The only remaining human's left on Earth are the aboriginal peoples of Australia, some of the American Indian tribes, the Zulus of Africa, and the Creators. The Eart

• Language: English
• Publisher: STAMPA GLOBAL
• Release date: Dec 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781951585846

William Girdwood

William (Bill) Girdwood was born and raised in Perth, Western Australia in 1948. He now resides in Sydney on the other side of the Australian continent with his wife Carolyn and their two Cocker Spaniels, Darby and Evie. He has seven children, eight grandchildren and one great grand son. Writing has been an integral part of Bills life and a selection of his poems was published in a collaboration with poets from a workshop he established and ran for six years. This is his first attempt at a novel and a second is well under way due for release in 2014. Another SciFi work which he hopes to follow up with further adventures of Kaalen Soon Yar will be completed in the future.

Book preview

Part 1

Prelude. Beginnings

2075 – Earth’s overpopulation had long reached saturation point, not so much by the numbers of people but with the ability of the arable lands to produce enough food for all. A combination of climatic catastrophes:- locust plagues, fires, flood, drought and blizzards, had decimated crops and severely depleted mankind’s abilities in the production of all food. For decades the inhabitants of Earth had suffered with continuing wars, political bickering, agitation and various ethnic driven persecutions all coupled with weak political leadership. The recently formed United Earth Government (UEG, formerly the United Nations) had finally been gifted a solution to all the worlds’ problems.

2076 - StarDrive was discovered by the Scottish physicist William Bradbury working out of his private facility, located at the Parkes Observatory in western New South Wales. With his usual philanthropic nature, he made his discovery simultaneously available to all nations of the world thereby giving all the peoples of Earth the capability of space travel. StarDrive technology was circulated globally providing a release valve to ease the crowding masses. What was also discussed in those early years was the potential for any country, nation or racial group who was dissatisfied with their place on Earth to elect to relocate their populations en masse if and when a viable planet became available. In effect, a chance to create their own world in their own way.

The major political powers readily agreed to fund the future re-settlements and the uptake of the plan was instigated and proceeded more rapidly than anticipated. Earth’s moon, already a established research facility operated by Biogene, was not an option therefore Mars became the first obvious choice for resettlement. The exploratory bases that had already been established and been occupied by scientific teams and in operation for two decades, were quickly updated, upgraded and expanded.. Massive effort was now urgently employed into more effective Terra-forming processes Primarily, utilizing the untapped polar ice shelves, the scientists hoped to recreate the lost atmosphere. In the interim, enormous domed cities were constructed and five sites were initially selected, each having a capacity of 200000 with an ongoing plan to expand to domes a hundred fold.

These cities, though large, would have little impact one Earth’s bulging populations however it was a beginning and major corporations and developers battled for the rights to be the first ones to establish off world colonies. Expeditions to the planetoid moons of Jupiter, Ganymede and Calysto and Saturn’s Titan, were well underway as well.

2080 - However, to reduce the bulging population, it became a desperate priority that new worlds be discovered quickly and by utilizing the new Bradbury Drive, unmanned drones, piloted by Androids, were dispatched out into the Orion and Perseus arms of our Milky Way Galaxy to search for new Earth-viable worlds (EVW).

To be classified EV, the UEG had determined that three absolute criteria had to be met:

The world had to have water and breathable air.

It had to be able to support Earth acceptable agriculture and

It must not contain any established sentient life forms.

Thousands of EV Search Drones were sent into the spiral arms carrying the hopes of humanity to locate a new home, a new life and a reprieve from the depression that only desperation can bring.

2087 - The Fall. However while EV search was being implemented everything began to change. Some saw the ensuing disasters as an opportunity to support their long-held religious beliefs that divine retribution had finally come to punish the wickedness of man and swallow up the sins of the world. God’s wrath had finally been unleashed, falling like a rushing torrent of torrential rain, washing over humanity’s wretched head, to cleanse last the evils of sinful Man!

God had had nothing to do with it!

The first indication that the Earth was in trouble was documented in the mid twentieth century when scientists became concerned about ozone depletion and the subsequent melting of the Arctic and Antarctic icecaps due to global warming. As the massive weight of the ice decreased it released the pressure it was having on the continental plates resulting in rapid sub-oceanic and continental movement and earthquakes. By the mid 21st century the damage was irreversible.

Unnatural weather patterns continued to form in the great oceans creating massive storm cells. Unceasing torrential down pores continually washed away the valuable topsoil devastating food production even further coupled with tides of unprecedented size that flooded the low lying coasts of the world. Countries like Holland and parts of Belgium disappeared under water as did thousands of the small islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans due to subsidence and tectonic shift. The entire Eyre Basin in Australia became an inland sea covering an area bigger than Europe. Violent storms, generating gigantic hailstorms, flattened everything laying in their path, lashing the coastlines of the world and tectonic slip tsunamis inundated coastal cities and towns Cholera, diphtheria, plague and mosquito borne viruses raged unchecked as normal fresh water sources became contaminated.

Changes in climate had a profound impact on the hydrology of river catchments where in many coastal regions, groundwater resources became increasingly vulnerable because of salt contamination. The rapid rise in global sea levels, over consumption and the unregulated extraction of groundwater, only exacerbated the problem. The rise in sea levels caused the rivers to flow backwards allowing increased seawater intrusion into rivers, limiting the use of the water for irrigation and drinking water production.’ (International Water Association report 2009)

The rising waters preceded an exodus of unprecedented population movement as millions fled the flooded coasts in search of higher ground. For almost two decades the famines, plagues, both natural and unnatural calamities and virulent epidemics swept the globe claiming victims from all the peoples of the Earth. The ‘Fall’ took good and bad alike until even those who at first saw the ‘Hand of God’ at work quickly went from praise to lamentation. As a precaution, DNA samples of as many flora and fauna species were taken and systematically categorized then cryogenicly stored and sent to the Lunar laboratories to await a hopefully ‘clean’ future, when all could be re-sussed.

Only Earth’s aquatic life, the Lunar Vacuum Labs and fledgling Martian colonies remained unaffected by the plague. Strangely, the native Australian aborigines, most of the American Indians and the Mongol races remained totally immune.

2128 - Finally a cure! When pure antibodies were extracted from the sampling capsules taken from native populations during the Austabor and Amerind testing were developed into an anti-viral serum, was the viral plague contained. With ‘the virus’ under control and the weather improving, humankind began at last to repopulate and develop. Able to learn from the mistakes of the past, advances in scientific invention raced into the bright future.

Larger, more complex settlements were constructed on Mars as the teraforming process progressed rapidly and a semi breathable atmosphere had been established. Finally free from the combined debilitating restrictions of disease and nature, Earth rebounded and a booming population exploded. However, because of the terrible reduction in arable land due to the salination of the previous decades, it was not long before the Earth’s ability to feed the populace was once again stretched to the limit. To compensate for the severe loss of arable land, three aquatics habitats were established to provide food for the ever expanding population. Atlantis, in the Canary Islands, Pacifica on Hawaii and Indiannus at Eucla on the Great Australian Bight.

Biogene, the company that invented and produced the life-saving drugs had now become the largest and most influential company Mars, Luna and Earth had ever known. They continued to make huge investments in the Lunar and Martian colonies which expanded their fortunes. With the exception of the aquatics, their monopoly of almost all science and technology made it the largest corporation on the three worlds. The Oceanic’s, Atlantis, Pacifica and Indiannus maintained a stubborn resistance and presented a fierce independence to any takeovers or interference, growing even more remote from their land-bound cousins in the process!

2180 - Prompted by the ever expanding populations on all inhabited worlds, which now included fledgling colonies on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the information and data which had been relayed back from the early probes of the early 21st century, had been acquired by Biogene and now their most ambitious program ever, was on the verge of being implemented. Those early unmanned probes sent out into deep space with the sole purpose being to locate new Earth Viable (EV) or the new term Earth Equivalent (EE) worlds for Humanity to grow into had located over 3000 possible sites. With the world economies reasonably stable, the weather returning to normal and the viral plagues eliminated, those 3000 potentially habitable planets and systems now became accessible. Many of Earth’s citizens who had not taken work on the newly opened industrial settlements on Mars and Luna or had opted for undersea dwelling, lobbied their governments for total resettlement to one of the new worlds.

Following the UEG’s declaration of 2080 it was decided that worlds would be selected to suit everyone’s choice of race, religion or politics whereby the age old conflicts that had plagued humanity for thousands of years, could be eliminated forever. To soften the blow of relocation and in return for vacating their traditional homelands, the UEG contracted Biogene to agriform all the vacated lands on Earth for farming and to subsequently transport 90% of any resulting crops and produce generated from that land, to the old occupiers new planet. This ongoing support would continue until such time as their new homeworld was able to support itself, or by mutual request, was discontinued.

Entire populations of countries were granted relocation and distinct ethnic groups within those countries were also recognized. This segregation included the religious and politically diverse peoples within any group which was all well and good except….not every citizen wanted to leave so the UEG decided unanimously that there was one proviso.

The only people granted immunity from the exodus were those who could prove original ownership of and had an affinity for the land – Australian Aborigines and the American Indians were such groups along with the Inuits and some African tribes - their populations being so small that relocation was impractical and their continued presence would have no impact on the deserted Earth.

Although seeming harsh and inhuman, to overcome the reluctance of some, it was decided that once a 90% majority of any nation, ethnic, religious or racial group chose to resettle, then everyone from that nation or racial group had to go! No one from that group would be allowed to remain on Earth, thereby ensuring that there would never be even the remotest chance of any resurgence of old hatreds. Sects within those divisions could also apply for distinction and be granted homeworlds. Of course there were still those who flatly refused to be ‘resettled’ so the UEG created a special branch of the government who answered only to the High Council. These Special Forces’ primary function was to ‘ensure’ that every person from a nation or racial group actually went, whether they wanted to or not.

2185 - First Office - Undertaking Nationwide Detainment, Deportation and Resettlement or FOUNDDaR, were authorised to carry out the wishes of the majority of any group who had elected to resettle. Once the population had vacated the land they were transported either to their new world or to intermediate detainment areas while their ships were prepared. Following the populations departure all their land had to be cleared and then farmed for crops and cattle or reforested. Although their primary task was initially to cleanse and sanitize the now vacant lands of everything except vegetation and native animals it did not take long for them to begin the sanitation of humans.

Humanity had regressed to the days of the Catholic Inquisition and was reminiscent in many ways to the witch hunts of the middle ages of Earth’s history and the McCarthyist persecution of Communists during the mid 20th century. Cities, bridges, roads, railways – everything created by man was obliterated by the FOUNDDaR and they took to the task with fanatical enthusiasm. As expected, there was enormous resistance by many to the New World Resettlement Orders and so detention and deportation slowly morphed into The Cleansing. Granted the authority by the UEG to use whatever force necessary, the FOUNDDaRs, or Foundars as their name had been shortened to, began the sanitation sweeps of all the vacated countries. This task went to the Foundar police called Quizitars and anyone ‘found" was arrested, detained and quickly processed for deportation to their respective new worlds. During many mopping-up operations, whether due to boredom or laziness, a simpler solution to the resistance began to find favour with the Quizitars. Within months of any nation’s final departure, many of the dissidents were never detained, they simply disappeared, making the processing much more efficient. As time progressed, less and less of those resisting, were being ‘found’ and the Quizitars, gained a reputation for cruel, brutal and inhumane methods

Although the government was vaguely aware of the cleansing methods of the Quizitar and their terrifying collection ways, it was more convenient to ‘turn a blind eye’ to the brutal methods and atrocities they were committing. Very slowly stories leaked out to the remaining world populations who had yet to decide whether to stay or go, learnt about what was going on, inciting a global outcry. The power of the Foundars had become a monster, an unstoppable juggernaut who answered to no one and about which the government could do little. The Foundars decided that they could just as easily cleanse the dissenters as well and prominent agitators and politicians who tried to go against the Foundars soon began to disappear. Fearing reprisals against themselves, the UEG and the public hid behind closed doors and closed minds.

2245 - The Foundars became increasingly powerful finally usurping the rule of the UEG and taking over the government. For 60 years, the Quizitars cleansed and sanitized while the Foundars held dominion over the entire Earth!

In the ensuing years of the Foundars Rule, supplies to many of the new worlds ceased, records disappeared and communications between Earth and the colonies deteriorated to a point where they were eventually considered unnecessary, expensive and therefore forbidden. Links were lost and, in many cases, even the location of those communities who had upset the Foundars in some small way were forgotten or deliberately erased.

2365 - after 120 years of repression and despotic rule, a new order emerged. They called themselves Creationists. The hundreds and thousands of persecuted men and women came from all the five continents and in a mere two decades, they finally became strong enough to overthrow the Foundars rule and begin the second Cleansing. This time however, it was the Foundars who were being cleansed

2395 - the nightmare years were over.

2401 - By the turn of the century, all of the original Foundars, the Quizitars and their followers - of which there were now many thousands, were exiled to the tiny fifth planet of the Dawn system, Fundeth. For over eighty years this speck of desolate rock, four times the size of Earth’s moon, had been used as a penal colony where only the worst criminals had been sent. Classified EEm or Earth Equivalent (marginal), its orbit was barely within the limits of supporting life but it at least had a breathable, albeit cold, atmosphere. Barren, consisting of wide open grasslands and ragged stony outcrops nestled beneath high snow capped mountains basked either in a dark twilight or mild starshine, it was most fitting for the dour Foundars. Within a short space of months, they quickly established themselves as the ruling body and they soon usurped the ‘Right by Might’ rule which the prisoners had up until then used.

The despicable Foundars and their minions remained isolated in exile on Fundeth for over 2600 years, their hatred of Old Earth and the Creationists had never dimmed, festering and seething to become a religion, ruled over by a hierarchy called Archfoundars or Arcs.

It is now the year 5065 (OC) – Oceanic calendar.

Chapter 1

The Final Solution - AD 2240

The tall stalks of wheat whipped at the speeding hover truck as it hurtled across the open field, its dozen occupants gripping the roll-cage, knuckles white, frantic eyes darting everywhere as they squinted against the rushing wind. Several kilometres behind them an ominous dust cloud scratched the horizon indicating that they were being pursued and, they were losing ground. There were just too many people on board for their vehicle to make any headway but there was no way that they could let themselves be overtaken and captured!

Can’t you get any more speed out of this rubbish bucket? screamed the obese man sitting next to the driver. He had been whining and screaming this way ever since they had seen the dust. We must get away. I have more money if that’s what it takes. Here! he said, stuffing rolls of credits into the drivers pockets.

Your credits won’t help us but yes, we can get more speed but it will take a sacrifice. The driver yelled back having to raise his voice above the howling wind.

How, how can we do that? he whimpered.

By lightening the load. Get rid of all the dead weight we’re carrying. the driver responded with a cold look in his eyes. That could make a big difference.

Then do it you idiot! Do it now! Whatever needs to be done just do it! the fat man wailed.

The driver, a tough bushman called Baz Kelly, turned to face the whiner. He had had about all he could take of this fat, blubbering fool. Without hesitation, he drew his stunner from the holster at his belt and shot him between the eyes, then before the fat man could recover, he reached over and hit the release on his harness. With the force of the tearing wind and aided by a slight nudge from Kelly, the whining ceased forever as the fatso was ripped sideways tumbling like a broken doll out onto the ground. With the loss of cargo, the ground-car seemed to lift and leapt forward with a neck jarring lurch. A woman screamed in the back. She had not seen what had transpired as her eyes were closed but opened briefly as the huge bulk of flesh rolled past her.

Stop! she screeched, Someone has fallen out. He’ll be caught by the Quizitars.

We can’t stop for anyone, especially someone who was slowing us down. The driver grinned as he patted the stack of credits in his coat pocket. For him it was a win-win. So shut the fuck up and let’s get away from those bastards! he ordered.

The vehicle rounded an outcrop of rugged stones, gravel and dust fan-tailed behind them peppering the red desert like tiny explosive puffs of dust, then, as the hover truck straightened, it accelerated off at a 45° angle towards the distant range of steep hills.

"We have a chance if we can hide in the ranges." Kelly thought to himself. "But not an ice-cubes hope in hell if we get caught out here in the open." he grimly added.

Baz Kelly was a fifth generation Aussie originally from tough Irish stock whose forebears immigrated to Australia to escape the religious Orange vs Green turmoils of the mid to late twentieth century. He was now caught up in his own version of political and religious purge, and those in pursuit of him now were the persecutors! There was no trace of any Irish accent now, he was all Oz. Dressed for the outback wilds of Australia, his khaki shorts and shirt were covered with red dust and stained by weeks of unwashed sweat but his signature battered Akubra hat was sliding around on the floor under his feet. Better to have it squashed than ripped off his head and lost forever to the tiger snakes and dingoes, but he did try to keep one foot on the brim holding it in place. Unfortunately every time he swerved or made a radical change in direction he lost contact, and unable to take his eyes from the terrain he spent the next few minutes scrabbling for it with his feet. All his effort proved futile as the wild ride and wind overcame his dancing feet and the hat was whisked away chasing the obese passenger. At least he had goggles to stop most of the dust from affecting his vision and what was once a red polka dot scarf, covered his nose and mouth.

Those bouncing around in the ute tray were less fortunate having no protection at all from the suffocating red dirt and howling wind. If they had brought any type of head covering then it was long gone, ripped away in the first mile or so after they sighted their pursuers. At least they weren’t travelling in one of the old style wheeled vehicles because, if they were, by now they would all have been thrown out. The hover truck slewed left and right as it was buffeted by the windstorm which was still increasing in intensity as it roared down off the hills they were fast approaching.

The Quizitars had been pursuing them over the wheat plain for six hours now, ever since they had left the relative safety of the last derelict town they paused at before making their final, desperate dash for the border. Whereas Old Victoria had been designated a total eradication state, the more stubborn south and western states had remained belligerently anti to the relocation laws. Their initial destination was the British sub state of South Australia and the border town of Peterborough but the Quizitar patrols between Old Melbourne and Adelaide were far too frequent and so they were forced north before they could turn back down into the Sub state. Provided they could reach it they had a better than even chance of then making it to Adelaide and relative safety. Providing they could reach Adelaide or what was left of it, there was the overland dash to the Eucla Habitat and complete safety. Best of all for Baz Kelly, someone else could take over babysitting his passengers.

Safety was within their grasp, so close, before the pursuing Black Shirted Quizitars has latched onto their tail. Kelly had promised them all, before he took their money, that he would get them away but now? They were almost safe however almost is not good enough where the Quizitars were concerned! The range of hills he had been heading for were much closer now and he could almost taste the refreshing, cooler air of the upper ranges streaming down towards him, chilling the filthy sweat coating his exposed flesh. He anxiously turned around to check on the rest of his passengers and to see if he could spot his tormentors. His distraught passengers were not looking back, instead he noticed that they were all staring ahead, eyes wide in terror, straining, their mouths agape, an unexpressed scream forming on their lips. Kelly whipped his head back to the front, and froze in his seat as the dull black form of a second Quizitar ship hovered threateningly just meters down the track. He yanked hard on the right rudder almost tearing the muscles of his forearms from the force he applied but the hover truck was too big, too heavy and much too sluggish to have been able to immediately respond to his demand. By shear will he held the pressure, finally spinning the hover truck to the right in an effort to avoid a head-on collision. Unfortunately, the combination of soft sandy soil, loss of vertical thrust and centrifugal forces sent the vehicle tilting out of control.

With sickening screams, bodies flew in all directions, tumbling over and over, crashing and bouncing through the scrubby, spiky spinifex grass like rag dolls. As the hover-truck rolled it crushed those unfortunate to have landed close to the out of control vehicle. Others were either killed where they fell or were laying in unnatural postures like some weird Salvidore Dali painting.

Blood streamed like a red veil from a gash to his scalp. He frantically wiped the blood away and looked through blurred eyes as the demon ship settled on the ground and the dark clad Quizitars stomped arrogantly down the ship’s ramp inspecting the scattered remains of his refugee group as they went. It mattered not to the grave faced men who made sure everyone was dead, shooting them all.

His right leg was bent at a strange angle and he could feel that several ribs were caved in as he drew deep rasping breaths through clenched teeth, frothy blood bubbling from his mouth. Baz Kelly knew his fate was sealed and patted the stack of credits in his torn vest against his crushed chest, smiling ruefully as the nearest Quizitar raised his blaster. He would never get to spend any of it.

No good to me now. he mumbled to the sky. His final words as the darkness of death enveloped him.

The leader of the murderous black shirted men finally strolled pompously out of the stationary ship just as the first vessel arrived and settled down next to its identical sister.

The two commanders shook hands and stood gazing out over the bloody massacre.

Any survivors sergeant? the officer queried. Their was not a hint of compassion in his voice or manner.

No sir. came the reply. All vermin accounted for. he laughed.

The Earth had ceased to be a safe habitation for anyone who had not already relocated to a new world and for over sixty years the Quizitars had systematically rounded up all stragglers, dissidents or the just plain stubborn. Everyone the Quizitars ‘captured’ was detained in camps, segregated by ethnicity or religion who then waited until sufficient numbers were reached to allow for a profitable transportation to the appropriate colony on one of the new worlds. They were herded onto crowded hiberships like cattle and taken to a planet which the authorities deemed suitable, which could be any where in the Orion Spiral. No records were kept and people became refugees, no longer permitted to remain on Earth and seldom welcome wherever they were sent.

With thinning numbers of humans remaining on Earth it became harder and harder to fill the holds of the transport ships thereby making the trips to the colonies cost effective. The Quizitars resorted to what had just occurred. No one was being caught any more. Those captured were simply eliminated or forced to become ‘game’, as sport for the bloodthirsty Black Shirts. The ruling government, the UEG, erroneously believed that everything was progressing normally.

With the elimination of these last few stragglers, the entire east coast of Australia was now cleansed of ‘vermin’ as the Quizitars referred to other humans. It was now time to turn their attention to the troublesome south and west.

Leave them for the dingoes men. the commanders ordered. Everyone back on board. We have lots more work to be done!

Chapter 2

Out of the Frying Pan...?

From atop the windswept ranges, dark eyes watched the scene unfold below them and could do nothing to interfere or stop the carnage they were witnessing. These were aborigine from the west, nomads who never stayed camped in the same location for longer than one or two days, always on the move, always vigilant, survivors. Although living in the remotest parts of the Australian continent they were not entirely ignorant of what had been occurring all over the country and now they were witnessing it for themselves. Their sharp eyes had seen what the dark clad killers had not. A single figure had been thrown clear of the main group and had landed roughly behind a small rocky outcrop and had tumbled beneath a low hanging tree, screened from view by the ever present spinifex grass. Whether the person was dead or alive the watchers did not know but neither did the hunters.

The second pursuing vehicle had at last caught up and the two groups were talking and laughing as they casually lounged amid the dead and bloodied bodies, sorting through the scatted belongings and scavenging for anything of value on the bodies.. Without bothering to bury their prey, the black clad hunters stood around in groups, smoking and laughing until a taller, similarly dressed man stood at the top of the vehicle’s ramp and barked aggressively at the men on the ground. They in turn, dropped their cigarettes and scampered back inside their respective hovers. The boarding ramps were retracted and both vehicles sped away in a cloud of dust, heading south.

The watchers on the hill were Spinifex people, or Pila Nguru, traditional hunter-gatherers who had occupied their traditional lands, which spread over thousands of acres of the Great Victoria Desert and the Nullarbor Plain as they had done for over 60,000 years. At the moment however they were far east of their lands heading for a corroboree with all the tribes of the land. They knew how to exist in harmony with the land in the extreme conditions of the desert and had no respect for the white man’s territorial borders or his laws. As past white settlers of the region considered the lands remote, inhospitable and unsuited for agriculture, and even pastoralism; there had been comparatively little direct contact between the two cultures and peoples. The People of the Sun and Shadow, the Spinifex People, remained cocooned within the Spinifex plains of the Western Desert, for hundreds of generations until shaken from their nomadic solitude by the atomic shock of Maralinga. When they eventually returned to their homelands in the 1980s after their displacement, they found the southern third of their country had been converted into a nature reserve, the northern third leased to other Aboriginal people in the north and the centre deemed vacant crown land.

These new, black clad hunters had entered their traditional lands and had shed blood, had killed their own people and therefore desecrated the sacred earth with their bloodlust. They had not even offered the souls of their victims to the fire to give them rest. For many years, their spiritual brothers the Maralinga Tjarutja, the southern Pitjantjatjara people who inhabit the remote western areas of South Australia had sent messages to warn the Pila Nguru in the west and north about the cruelty shown by these new, encroaching whites and the plight of anyone who did not co-operate with the government. They had now witnessed their disrespect first hand and this was not the first time that the white man had caused great harm to the sacred lands.

Many hundreds of years in the past both the Maralinga Tjarutja and the Pila Nguru people had been exposed to damaging levels of radiation from radioactive fallout following extensive testing of atomic bombs. Meteorological information available at the time showed that the prevailing northerly winds during the Maralinga tests, would carry the bomb plumes safely over uninhabited land. Unfortunately, this was not the case as immediately following one test, the wind changed direction and blew east to west, carrying the radioactive plumes into the western desert. Officials later learned that a group of indigenous people - probably then around 150 - lived west of the sites. Prior to testing, an officer, the expert bushman Walter MacDougall, had been directed to warn the people of the impending tests. A total of nine small hydrogen bombs ranging up to 25 kilotons were tested at Emu Junction and Maralinga and, given that only one officer with an assistant were sent to warn the Spinifex people, who lived across an enormous area, it was an impossible assignment. Therefore, far to the west of the test sites, many of the Spinifex were never informed, nor did they leave the area. Officially, it was claimed, that all of these tribes had been convinced to leave their lands and were not allowed to return to within 150 miles of ground zero.

The government made a leaflet drop, a totally pointless exercise because the Spinifex Tjarutja and Pila Nguru, could not read the leaflets and were wary and afraid of the aircraft. In the later stages of the atomic testing, MacDougall discovered that up to 40 Spinifex people may have been hunting over the eastern portion of the prohibited Maralinga area while the tests were being conducted, however, those to the west were never accounted for. One family of twelve were the nearest people, living less than 150 Miles west from Maralinga. Although close enough to hear the larger bombs explode, they were pronounced as healthy several years after the tests and the The Australian Royal Commission established to investigate the effects of the radiation, was unable to determine how bomb testing radiation affected the Spinifex people. After more than two hundred years the Pila Nguru were still wary of the white man! (*Information from the Scott Cane report – ‘Pila Nguru 2000’)

No one at this time could have predicted what the impact to the exposure to the nuclear testing of the 1950’s would have on mankind 2000 years later!

Waiting enough time for the white men to disappear over the horizon, the small group of aborigine left their concealment and ran at a steady trot down to where the massacre had occurred. They found the unconscious person, a blond haired woman, covered in dirt and broken vegetation. She was alive and bleeding from several wounds which the men cleaned and covered with bark then wrapped spinifex grass around her limbs to bind the dressing together.

A fire was lit and the injured woman was lain next to it and one of the younger men stayed by her while the rest of the group hunted for wallaby. They returned just as twilight descended over the plain carrying two red bellied snake and a small goanna. Having made a miraculous recovery, she was awake and apart from the cuts and bruises sustained having been flung from the hovertruck, she seemed fully recovered from her ordeal. Fortunately she had no serious injuries however she was a little unsure about the meal she saw the men preparing. To her astonishment she discovered that her rescuers were not ignorant ‘blackfellas’ as she had always assumed the aborigine to be but everyone of them had been professionally employed before the madness and had come back to the bush to