Triskellion 3: The Gathering (4 page)

“Evolutionists would have us believe that we are descended from the great apes,” Crane continued. “And their theory has always been a convincing one … until now.” He turned to an easel by his side and flipped over a sheet of paper. On the other side were pictures of a chimpanzee, an orang-utan, a gorilla and a human. Next to the pictures were numbers.

“Now, if we were related to these guys, you would expect some genetic similarities … and there are
some
. But it’s not the similarities that are important; it’s the
differences
. If we were descended from the apes, then we would have the same number of chromosomes, right?”

He tapped the board with a pointer.

“Well, if we look at the figures here, we can see that the apes all have forty-eight chromosomes, that’s twenty-four pairs. Now, if you look here” – Crane pointed at the idealized human figure silhouetted on the sheet – “humans have only forty-six chromosomes, twenty-
three
pairs. Which means that we have a pair of chromosomes missing.” He stared out at the crowd, shaking his head. “Now, I’m no scientist, but chromosomes don’t just disappear, do they? So where have they gone?”

There were murmurs from the crowd. Crane took a couple of steps forward, speaking more intimately, fixing the faithful with his eyes.

“What I believe, my friends … what I
know
… is that we are a completely
different
species. One that has existed from the beginning of time. Ape
like
maybe, but different. And what changed us from our primitive form into what we are now is a genetic input from
elsewhere
. A genetic input that fused our chromosomes and made us
men
!” Crane brought his hand down on the lectern in front of him for emphasis. He heard a collective intake of breath from his audience. It always happened at this point in his speech, as if this were the moment when he was going to unlock the secret of mankind for them.

This was the point at which he knew he had them in the palm of his hand.

“Now, if you turn to page fifteen in your books, we’ll read together the words of Ezekiel, the great prophet I am named after. Then we’ll see the truth together.”

The audience shuffled and opened their copies of
The Triple Wheel.
Ezekiel Crane had edited parts of the Bible and other sacred writings that appeared to reinforce his theory and dotted them throughout his book, which, along with the accompanying CDs and DVDs, were selling in increasingly large numbers. Some of those in the audience had read it already, of course, but they were happy to listen again and have their faith in Pastor Crane renewed and strengthened.

Crane began to lead them in the reading:

“Great sermon, Pastor Crane,” Brother Jedediah said. He passed Ezekiel Crane a cold Dr Pepper and smoothed a hand over his thinning scalp, as if trying to make himself smart for his boss.

Crane put his white shoes up on the dressing-room table and cracked open the can with a hiss. “Thank you, Brother Jedediah. I thought we’d never get rid of them.”

Crane had given a two-hour sermon with readings and songs. He had then spent another hour blessing children, and signing books and CDs while the collection buckets were passed around. He had encouraged his followers to go home and listen to the CDs whenever they could – in the car, in bed, at any time, night or day – so they could learn and spread “the good news”.

“Don’t know where you get your energy from,” Brother Jedediah said.

“From above,” the pastor said. He smiled and tipped his Dr Pepper at the little man in a “cheers” gesture.

It was true that Crane did not look particularly tired. His creaseless face betrayed no fatigue and only the dark circles of sweat under the arms of his suit gave away the fact that he had been working hard. Crane swigged down the last of the cold drink and crushed the can in his hand.

“I got a good feeling, Jed,” he said, smacking his lips. “I can feel it in my bones. I’ve got them buzzing, and now them worker bees are all coming round to my way of thinking.”

“Hallelujah to that,” Brother Jedediah said. He placed a hand on his sweaty black satin shirt over his heart. “Hallelujah and amen.”

T
he sun made the landscape shimmer, and Rachel imagined she could see patches of water on the rough track ahead. The Great Central Road stretched in front of them into infinity. Rachel had thought it would be a major highway, but in reality, it was little more than a rough track used by only a few thousand intrepid vehicles a year.

Over dinner at a small motel the night before, Levi had revealed where their journey would take them. Rachel and Adam were excited. It was the most famous landmark in the country, but they had never been there. In fact, during their two years in Australia, they had rarely gone further than their local beach.

“Do you think we have enough food for the journey?” Adam asked, concerned as always about his stomach.

“There’s plenty of food out there,” Levi said, gesturing at the landscape around them. “If you know what you’re looking for…”

They spent the first hour in silence, taking in their surroundings. With every step, the horizon seemed to get further away and both Rachel and Adam began to worry about exactly how far they were going to have to walk.

“Don’t worry,” Levi said, reading their thoughts. “After the first hundred kilometres or so it all goes much quicker.” He grinned at their astonished faces. They had assumed they were already within striking distance of their destination.

“So how far are we going altogether?” Adam asked.

“About a thousand kilometres,” Levi said. “But who’s counting? It’s easier if you don’t think of it in terms of miles or kilometres. If you just think of it as a distance that needs covering, it becomes longer or shorter, depending on your state of mind. Kind of like time.”

Rachel knew what Levi meant. Although a hundred years was obviously way out of her own life experience, sometimes ancient history could feel as if it had only happened yesterday. She walked on, losing herself in thoughts about the past, and the track seemed to melt away under her feet…

Laura had made it no further than Kalgoorlie the night before. Five hundred kilometres had been the most she had been able to manage and she had checked into the Nelson Hotel at nine, exhausted and in need of a drink. Laura always stayed at the Nelson when she passed through Kalgoorlie, partly because it was quiet and private, but mainly because she and Kate had made a pact that, should anything happen to them, this hotel was to be their emergency refuge. It would be a meeting point and somewhere they could lie low for a few days. Being a mining town, plenty of people came and went in Kalgoorlie, and it had a reputation for turning a blind eye to people’s indiscretions.

It was a good place to hide.

Laura now wished that she and Kate had told Rachel and Adam about their back-up plan, but they had always assumed that they would be with the kids if anything ever happened. Besides, they hadn’t wanted to burden the twins with the fear that they might be under any kind of threat.

She had tried calling Kate again that morning to let her know where she was, but the tone had told her that the phone had been disconnected, and that had made her anxious.

Laura revved the engine of the old Jeep and headed out on the road from Kalgoorlie. As she drove, she willed herself to see a pair of twins and an Aboriginal boy on the road, repeating the words “Rachel” and “Adam” over and over to herself, as if by speaking their names she might summon them into existence.

She turned on to the Great Central Road that ran east towards Uluru, Australia’s best-known natural landmark. As a child, Laura had become obsessed by the isolated mountain. She had been fascinated by the way it stood alone in the desert, squarely in the middle of the continent. It was as if someone looking down from outer space had stuck a pin at the exact spot that marked out the centre of Australia.

She still loved the mysterious way that the rock changed colour with the climate and the light. It could be silver-grey in the rain – streaked with black where algae grew in the damp crevasses. It could glow red at sunset, partly from the light and partly from the iron oxide particles rusting among the sandstone. At dawn it could appear violet as the early light caught the quartz that made up twenty-five per cent of its composition.

But it was not just the unique structure of the giant rock that had captivated Laura’s imagination, or the fact that three-quarters of it was underground – iceberg-like – a piece of information which had made early geologists think it was a meteor. For Laura, it was more to do with the primal feeling she got every time she looked at the mountain. She could never suppress a flutter of excitement at its great age and the myths that surrounded it.

The legend of the Anangu, the Aboriginals who traditionally owned the area, said that before the world was fully formed, two creator beings – brothers – had fought in the wet mud, creating the table-topped mountain. The Aboriginal belief was that the spirits of these warring brothers still inhabited Anangu land.

Given her research credentials and the special relationship she had built up over many years with the local tribes, the Anangu had given Laura almost total freedom to continue her study of the monolith. She knew where the Dreamtime tracks ran. She knew the sacred areas that could not be photographed and she respected the traditions.

And she knew the perfect spot to hide something very valuable.

The most obvious place in Australia.

S
ome time must have passed before Levi spoke again, because as he did so Rachel and Adam suddenly became aware of their surroundings again, as if awakened from a daydream. Looking behind them, they could see that they had already walked a very long way. It was like they had been mesmerized by the heat and the sunlight and the soporific buzzing of the insects.

“How far have we walked?” Adam asked.

“Why do you need to keep counting?” Levi laughed. “Let’s just say a fair way.”

Rachel could tell by the position of the sun in the sky that they must have walked for three or four hours at least.

“This is where we turn off,” Levi said. He checked some stones at the side of the road and looked across the plain to an area of sparse shrub land. “We should get off the road, because if anyone’s on our trail, this is the only way they can come. We also need somewhere to sleep tonight and some food.”

Adam looked around and, seeing no sign of a town or even a roadside motel, began to fear the worst.

“We’re sleeping outside?” he said.

Half an hour later Levi led them into a small clearing surrounded by scrubby trees and bushes. He surveyed it and spread his arms out as if he were leading Adam and Rachel into the lobby of a five-star hotel.

“The Garden of Eden,” he said, grinning.

The irony was not lost on Adam. “You can be Eve,” he said to Rachel.

They lay their bags down on a soft, sandy area, and almost immediately, Levi began scratching around in the earth with his hands. Within seconds he had uncovered a large, brown-skinned ball, the size of a large potato.

“Desert yam,” he said, pulling the stalks off the tuber and brushing the sandy earth away with his hand. “Great to eat. Can you find some more, Adam?”

Levi took Rachel to the line of tall stems that grew along one side of the clearing. He snapped one off at the base and showed her where dried sap had formed into waxy chunks of resin near the roots.

“Can you collect some of this, Rachel?” he asked. “And when you’ve done that, we could do with some firewood.”