The Go-Ann Legacy Book 4

PROLOGUE

Book four of The Go –Ann Legacy series is about the rescuing of as many of the Go –Ann descendants that had been left to prosper or perish in the past when their space ship had abandoned the teams of searchers from the space ship on the planet.

Pukely, the leader of the Go –Ann people had been shown a way to use the magic of the shell to travel back into the past to search for his brother Go – Ann and he was intent on using the advanced technology possessed by the Go – Ann to go back forty thousand years and rescue the Go – Ann people, all or any he found in desperate situations. 

Pukely and the original few Go – Ann people he had brought with him from the devastated past, had now established a new homeland in outback Australia and turned the hot, arid desert region into a water wonderland; this inspired him to go back in time and locate as many of his kin as possible and bring them into the present to enjoy and assist him to expand the homeland he had created.

The space ship had placed teams of explorers on many continents and expected them to explore their surroundings for minerals that they may be able to extract and take back aboard the space ship for the journey back to their home planet.

The placing of the teams occurred approximately forty thousand years before the establishment of today’s homeland in the Australian hinterland and the only way open to Pukely and his Go – Ann people was to locate the shells that each teams had with them when they arrived on the planet.

The shells were well hidden by the arriving teams in the dim past and Pukely and his people used their inventiveness to build a devise that would allow them to locate those shells on each continent of the earth today; when the shells were eventually located the task before the Go – Ann people was to venture back and look for their kinfolk.

The Go – Ann had used their skills to build space ships in their new homeland in Australia and they set forth on many adventures to locate their folk in the past; the space ship allowed the Go – Ann to circle the earth and look for the locations of the shells; from that point on the adventures into the past began and the rescue of their kin followed.

Chapter 1

The achievements of the Go – Ann people were miraculous; Pukely had created a new world for them following the destruction of the old village life they had enjoyed since the space ship had marooned them on earth.

They were happy to be doing work that was to be of benefit to their people for many years into the future; they loved a challenge, any challenge, and the way that the family worked to achieve the many successful projects that they started made the Go – Ann people feel like true achievers not just workers.

Life was good for them, Doctor Iris, Pukely’s wife had shown the women why they had not been able to have children when they wanted to, and they had taken the opportunity offered and began to have children when they wanted to, as a result the town of Fenton rang with the happy laughter of healthy, happy children.

The Go – Ann had a natural birth control apparatus in their bodily function that allowed them to stop the conception of children, unfortunately over the generations since they had been marooned they had lost the knowledge to manipulate the function till Doctor Iris had come along and re educated their thinking again.

Since that time having children had again begun to be a natural occurrence for females who for so long had been denied the joy of bringing a new life into the world and enjoying a true family love with her chosen partner.

Now they were intent on living the life to the fullest offered by the new homeland that their leader Pukely had brought them to.

They saw and enjoyed with the rest of the family as they worked and played with all the new and glorious things that were now a part of their lives, all the beautiful creations that they had achieved and were only too happy to participate in any new venture that their Master Pukely wanted them involved with.

The current project was the creation of the massive new lake; Lake Dianne and they all happily enjoyed this as their next big challenge.

The decision that Pukely their elected leader had to make now was what to do with the soil they were excavating to make Lake Dianne.

Lake Dianne was named after the little Go – Ann girl who by using her dowsing powers had found the underground running water source that hopefully would fill Lake Dianne when the excavation and sealing was completed.

Possibly they could leave the excavated soil as the mountain they called Mount Colin; the mountain they had created themselves by dumping the soil into a huge heap from the excavation of Lake Dianne, such was the volume of soil involved it actually looked like a mountain.

They also had the excavation that was simultaneously being created by the removal of red desert sand from the adjacent cattle station; this red desert sand was being used as the medium to seal the walls and bottom of Lake Dianne.

Pukely was aware that in outback Australia the presence of water in dams or lakes was the greatest asset that could be realised from the work of the family, the soil could not hold water until it was sealed by the use of the energy packs that the Go – Ann engineers had devised in conjunction with the conductive medium silk/wool, another family invention.

This sealing process was a long term, hard and tedious project for the people to carry out, especially in the hot arid conditions of the Australian outback.

Colin the engineer who was also Pukely’s father, was forever trying to create recreational activities for the crews working on Lake Dianne that would make working on the project enjoyable, the latest being the introduction of archery contests between the crews on the site for them to enjoy on their days off.

The crews loved archery; it was a bounty to Colin that they found archery to their liking and because of the terrible working conditions at the site the contests were eagerly entered to break up the monotony of the project.

The excavation work of the site carried out using the huge former bulldozer buckets that had been converted by the Go – Ann engineers into flying bulldozer buckets, the amount of soil these buckets could excavate with each dig into the soil was staggering, nearly seven metres wide and four metres high, these buckets had been used extensively by the mining sector twenty years earlier all around the country but had fallen into disfavour due to the enormous costs involved for refurbishment and the difficulty in having the buckets taken back to a major city for refurbishment.

The mining companies found it cheaper to replace the buckets every few years with new buckets, this is how the family had been able to acquire the huge second hand buckets cheap and convert them to their use.

The excavation and sealing of the beautiful Red Desert Sea on the Red Desert Station, the name of the family station next to the Desert Station on which Lake Dianne was being excavated had also been carried out using the huge buckets.

The excavation of Lake Dianne had been underway for nearly a year; the inside and the top of walls were all sealed and the bottom was over two thirds sealed, the buckets were still working hard each day to complete the project, so that the sealing could continue unabated.

The Go – Ann crew had been anticipating Pukely to some extent and had created another perfect lake setting on the Red Desert Station, but as yet without the walls in place, they knew Pukely would possibly want another lake where the red sand medium had been excavated so had endeavoured to keep the excavation as level as they could by eye sight only, and this would mean little correction when Pukely decided to create another lake on the site as they were sure he would want.

Water was the source of life on the stations and the Go – Ann members of the crews around the stations looked to every opportunity to create a water holding facility if and when the opportunity arose.

With the excavation of Lake Dianne nearing completion Pukely did inspect the excavation where the red desert sand had been taken out and just as the crew had anticipated he decided that another lake would be built there as soon as Lake Dianne was completed.

When Pukely advised the team of surveyors about his decision they just shook their heads and said, ‘We should have known you would’.

Pukely went to the Fenton Hospital and visited his famous little Sister, Dianne, and asked her if she would like to again look at the site of the excavation of the red desert sand and see if she could locate any water under the site that may be available to fill the new lake if they were to create one on the site.

Dianne, who had been through the medical programme in the shell was now a fully qualified doctor, and her time was totally absorbed in the Fenton Hospital operating on the wheelchair bound patients with back traumas.

These patients came to the hospital for the spinal operation from all over Australia and following the operation were then transferred to the Rehabilitation Centre on the shores of the Red Desert Sea to allow them to fully regain the use of their legs.

One of Dianne’s natural attributes was her ability to walk over the land dowsing for water and she was famous for her abilities in this difficult task, Dianne had successfully dowsed for water at the Two Ridges Lake site, Lake Dianne which was now named after her and for also locating the huge oil fields that were on other stations owned by the family.

Dianne of course readily agreed to the request from Master Pukely, she would do anything Master Pukely asked of her because she idolised Pukely above all other things.

During the time that Dianne and two other young Go –Ann females who had agreed to accompany her on her quest were searching for the water at the new location, Pukely had contacted John Tobin and had him organise the drilling rig to be moved to site inside Lake Dianne where earlier Dianne had indicated the spot where water was located underground.

There was still a massive amount of sealing to be accomplished on the outer slopes of the walls of Lake Dianne but the size of Lake Dianne was such that Pukely felt they could easily begin the inlet of the water to the lake before the outside slopes were sealed because the filling of the lake would take a huge amount of time and he was always aware of the fact that adverse weather was always a possibility that could stop progress at any time and he wanted to take every opportunity to avert any hold – ups if possible.

So the drilling rig was moved to site and placed in the only area of the lake bottom that had not been sealed, the well head was put in place and the operation was set to begin.

Fortunately the drilling site was not in the deepest part of the lake and it was anticipated that the initial flow of water could be diverted to the deepest part of the lake by hose from the valve set at the top of the inlet pipe to the lowest section of the lake, this would allow the last section of the lake bottom to be dry and sealed when the rig was removed.

The drilling began and the Go – Ann men helping John did most of the work under the supervision of John, Pukely knew that John was not a young man anymore and Pukely wanted the Go – Ann to learn everything about the art of drilling that they were able to learn from John.

Pipe after pipe were fed down the hole after the drill head, the water from the huge tanker that had been moved into place to provide the water for the drilling rig poured down the pipe to the drill head to keep it cool; they had to drill down nearly sixty five metres before they hit bedrock, and another five metres to water; they were at the limit of the drilling rig when the water started to surge up the pipe.

The drill was extracted and the valve clamped to the pipe as the water thundered up out of the pipe and up into the air approximately seven metres high, the cam Lock was already fitted to the pipe valve so it was only a matter of closing the valve, fitting the hose to the Cam Lock and re opening the valve, this was quickly achieved and the water began to flow through the hose and off to the deepest part of the lake.

The crew were all saturated with water but their happy smiling faces was all that was required to show the joy they felt with another success under their belt.

The rig was quickly dismantled and by the efforts of the drilling and sealing crews was loaded onto the huge flying platform that was the workhorse for the cattle stations it was soon on its way back to the Three Willows Station where it was stored.

The sealing crew left the unsealed section of the bottom of Lake Dianne exposed while it dried out, tomorrow they would return and finish sealing the area around the inlet pipe and that would complete the sealing of the bottom of the lake.

The sealing crew then moved their equipment to the wall and there they would begin the long task of sealing the outer wall and especially the overflow from Lake Dianne that had been prepared and levelled for this purpose.

The huge flying buckets were moved to the site of the excavation on the Red Desert station where the soil for the sealing medium had been excavated and the crews of the buckets were ready to finish the new lake site there.

Pukely sought Dianne, who, with her two assistants was still struggling around the inside of this new excavation trying to find a water flow.

Dianne explained to Master Pukely that she had found two very small amounts of running water but they were very small and very faint, indicating that they were very deep, deeper than any she had found before, they may seem very small she said but it could be the huge depth of the find that made them sound so, Dianne was not able to determine anything else for master Pukely on the site.

‘Can you determine how deep Dianne’? Pukely asked.

‘I would say about twice as deep as the water in the Lake Dianne site Master Pukely, but that is the only water I could find’, Dianne said.

‘Thank you little sister you have done marvellous’, Pukely said.

Dianne and her assistants then flew back to Fenton in an air-car, Dianne to the hospital for a nice hot shower, something to eat and a sleep, her assistants to their homes for a similar fate.

Pukely flew his air-car to the Three Willows Station and confronted John Tobin with the news; ‘How are we going to drill to the depth Dianne has indicated John’? Pukely asked.

‘We will have to buy a bigger drilling rig Pukely, we have no other choice’, John said.

‘Okay’, Pukely said to John, ‘Let me know how much and how long before we can obtain the rig we will need’.

Leaving John to search for the new rig Pukely flew back to the Steps Hangar to check on the progress of the new flying ship that was being built there.

This ship would allow Pukely and his selected crew to start the search around the world for more of the Go – Ann shells.

The craft they were building seemed enormous, Pathan, Lerain and Staca were Astro Engineers trained in the shell with all the knowledge that the Go – Ann had accumulated about spacecraft over centuries; the difference for the trio here on earth was to locate the minerals that were the basis of the compounds that created the material for the craft.

Annie had discovered most of the minerals and was working side by side with the trio of Astro Engineers by supplying the chemical formulas for the materials; she was a genius with the compounds and met every challenge when the need arose for each step of construction.

They started to build with the thought in their mind that Pukely and whoever he took with him on his search would not only be trying to find the shells around the world but may have to escape the attention of the air force of any nation that he ventured inside the border of.

For this reason the ship would have to have capabilities far in excess of anything that a foreign air force could dare to challenge him with, this meant in essence a speed capability and the ability to fly to heights that may include going into space where they knew air force planes could not venture.

Immediate, extreme speed was his safeguard, so the repulsion logs used for the propulsion on this ship must be the best ever made by the group, and built into the ship so that the thumper, which were the armament protection devices, could protect the ship till the speed could get the ship to safety.

The thumper was a devise that was like an invisible shield around the ship, it was built inside the twin body shells of the ship and was used to repel any foreign object from entering a zone one kilometre from the ships surface, and its primary purpose was to repel matter such as meteorites and stop them from damaging the ship.

The design of the ship was direct from those programmed into the minds of the three Astro Engineers and although the ship was on a smaller scale to the ship their ancestors had used to come to earth from Gosses Annswette thousands of years earlier it was going to be as good if not better.

Pukely knew that the people who were building this ship were doing the building as a challenge to prove to themselves that the ship they provided for him to circumnavigate the world on his quest was so good that it was assured to protect him and his crew and bring them back home safely.

The world was always in turmoil, one nation suspicious of the other, it was a dangerous task that he had set for himself and his crew to venture inside the borders of other nations looking for the shells, but unfortunately he could not see how he could contact other of his people that may still exist on earth if he did not carry out the search.

The ship was made from the new compound discovered by Annie, the material when it finally set was like polished black granite and as hard as steel.

The outer shell of the ship was built of this strong material, inside this shell was mounted the thumper on the front, back, top, bottom and both sides, the thumper panels were built into the ships shell.

The engineers knew that it was not necessary to mount this amount of panels for the thumper to work; any four panels could protect the ship with ease, but no chances were to be taken with the lives of the crew so they built in the extra panels.

Spacers were placed all around the inside of the ship and the second shell was built to conform exactly to the outside shell shape; the thumper panels were sealed forever inside this double shell and would automatically activate as soon as the repulsion logs were activated.

The bottom two metres of the ship was constructed to be made into two huge tanks, one tank was in the front of the ship and covered half the length, this was for the storage of fresh water; the latter section of the bottom of the ship was for the waste water.

The ship was sixty metres long, twelve metres wide and ten metres high.

The outer shell was thirty centimetres thick, the spacers were ten centimetres deep, and the inner shell was fifteen centimetres thick.

The inner walls and ceilings were lined with Rotatube panels and the ship was fitted with equipment that would be used for cooking and refrigeration, one whole room was dedicated to the preservation of food under refrigeration conditions like a cool room, another was similar but the temperature was low enough to freeze food the Go –Ann had again discovered a means of achieving these conditions by use of melding materials together and passing energy through the walls to create the cold atmosphere.

The installation of these things to the ship had come so natural to Pathan, Lerain and Staca they had not even hesitated in the construction of the ship when they carried out the installations.

Similarly the installation of the heating and cooling of the ships interior itself was achieved by the installation of special panels throughout the ship that were temperature sensitive and just tuned the ships temperature to an even level without interference by any manual adjustment.

When Pukely later asked Pathan how he knew to install the special panels or how to make those panels he just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘It was in the training program that each of these elements were required for safe life support and must be installed, so we just made them and installed them’.

Pukely asked no further questions; day by day he watched as the beautiful ship took shape, it filled the hangar and the amazing thing was that not long after the building of the ship commenced a group of Go –Ann men and women not involved in the construction of Lake Dianne or Lake Success just appeared on site, some with their children, and commenced to work under the telepathic instructions of Pathan, Lerain or Staca and were involved in the construction of the ship.

The whole community was proud and happy with the life on the stations, they wanted for nothing, they had the best hospital and dental service that could be found anywhere in Australia, and each weekend they enjoyed the weekly dancing that they now held in the great hall in Fenton so as not to disturb Pukely and his family.

Each week the ladies from the stations arrived at the dance dressed in the latest fashions they had created at the Drovers Range Station, where they were manufacturing the sought after silk/wool fabric.

The dance gave the ladies the opportunity to show off their latest creations and they took to the dance floor with the most beautiful gowns that could ever be imagined, there was gowns in every colour of the rainbow and they were worn by every woman from all of the stations, those women not directly involved in the production of the garments just went to the Drovers Range Station at their leisure and fitted the new gowns to suit their size and took the gowns home for the next dance.

No member of any station was ever refused a gown when she desired a new one; the females making the gowns were happy to get to show off their achievements in design and eagerly gave them away to all the stations females.

Pukely saw all the advances they were making on the stations and at times he boarded an air-car with Bandit and flew around the stations just looking at the marvel of all they had achieved.

Colben would be upset if Pukely did not take him along, so Pukely also took Colben on his circuits sometimes telling him as they flew of how they had started off with just the beautiful Lake Iris and how much he loved the marvellous achievements the family had created on the stations since the beginning.

Sometimes Pukely was engaged for days on end in the hospital operating on back trauma patients, the list of people waiting for the operation seemed to grow continually instead of diminishing, and the volume of wheelchair bound patients was never ending.

They had decided to operate only one day a week on back trauma patients at the beginning but the amount of people waiting for the operation encouraged them to proceed to two days a week, then three days a week until finally they began to operate five days a week to try to reduce the list of waiting patients.

Eventually they had to stop the operations for a period of time because they began to overwhelm the Rehabilitation Centre with the volume of patients they sent there for final treatment and Ester advised the doctors that she was unable to handle any more patients.

In preparation for when the oil began to flow through the pipeline to the Brisbane refinery Pukely had the architects begin on a town full of holiday villas on the opposite side of Lake Iris, he had planned to construct these villas for many years to accommodate visitors to the Kings Cauldron Station or the Manor House so that he would no longer have to impose on the generosity of the Go – Ann residence of Fenton moving out of their homes to accommodate such visitors.

The architects finally designed a row of villas that faced the lake just behind the tree line that Pukely had earlier planted all around the circumference of the lake, the villas had a slightly obstructed view of the lake, but from the back of the two story villas they had a beautiful view of the surrounding hills and valleys with the glorious covering of waving seas of Hucerne grass as far as the eye could see.

The Hucerne had achieved all the expectations of the trio Nasha, Petris and Mala who had designed the plant, and it had spread like wild fire out and over the stations and the cattle loved the grass.

The Desert Sands Station was beginning to be covered with the new grass also and now with the completion of Lake Dianne and a ready massive supply of water the station was almost ready to begin to stock up with cattle.

For months on end teams of workers from the crews on the stations had been erecting chewing sheds all over the station.

Chapter 2

When the crews excavating Lake Dianne were on their rest day, R3 had been going to the Lake Dianne site and borrowing one of the huge air-buckets and then flying to where they had been scooping out the red sand to use as the sealing medium.

R3 had been excavating large volumes of the same red sand and depositing the sand around the Red Desert Sea wall onto the outer slopes.

This was how he was burying the outer wall slopes under tons of sand and creating a level pasture from the top of the sea wall to a distance of about one kilometre out from the wall, this new area he decided he would plant with Hucerne, and about sixty metres from the top of the sea wall he would get Stanley to start to plant the giant Blue gum saplings to get a row of trees to grow all around the sea.

Looking down onto the sea wall from an air-car the sight that presented itself was of a wall of stone five metres wide with a gently sloping pasture of grass and trees on one side and the water of the sea on the other, it looked wonderful, and R3 began to think that he may even cover a greater portion of the stone top and get the grass to grow there also.

Colin saw what R3 had achieved as he was flying in his air-car over the Red Desert Sea and immediately sent the crew with the buckets to finish the project that R3 had begun, Colin then had the crew begin to use the massive amounts of material that they had excavated to create Lake Dianne to cover the outside slopes of Lake Dianne in a similar manner.

The sealing of the outer slopes of Lake Dianne was still being carried out so they could only begin on the area that had been sealed, but Colin could see the immediate effects it made when the slope was covered and the area around the lake was built up to be flat pasture for a good distance from the Lake wall, like R3 he determined that as soon as the outer slopes were completely covered he may get some of the top of the wall covered also thereby covering the stone wall completely by soil and grasses.

The work that they carried out on the slopes took quite a lot of the crews’ time so the excavation of the new lake was held up for several weeks.

Colin had allocated one of the huge buckets to work with the surveyors and they had begun to finally establish a wall around the red sand excavation.

The new excavation was about half as big as the Red Desert Sea, it was sixty kilometres long, ten kilometres wide it was decided to make it five metres deep, Colin called it Lake Success until somebody decided to change the name.

The crews set forth again, another lake another challenge, and thanks to Dianne another source of fresh flowing underground water albeit awfully deep.

The locations of the water as determined by Dianne were clearly marked so the crews began to create the wall of Lake Success and with the guidance of the surveyors the tagged stakes made the outline of the new lake a reality.

While one team was sealing the outer slopes of Lake Dianne with the fifteen centimetre formwork another team began to use the thirty centimetre formwork to start sealing the top of the wall on Lake Success.

Colin determined that the work on Lake Success was to be at a far reduced rate than what had taken place to create Lake Dianne, Lake Success was to be a pastime more than a Project and the crews that had been working at full pace to complete the construction on Lake Dianne were to spend much more of their time on recreation for at least the next three months.

Colin told Pukely of his decision and Pukely agreed, the crews on the lakes had been working at a fast pace for a long time and even though they enjoyed the work they were entitled to a bit of rest.

Working in the hot desert sun day after day will sap the energy of the most ardent workers and the enthusiasm of the most dedicated.

Lake Iris became a Mecca for the men and women of the crews to again begin a period of no work and total enjoyment, sailing, swimming and of course the ever present archery competitions.

Work was always needed on the stations; while some of the crews were able to enjoy the luxury of the period off work from the new lake, others were involved with additional work caused by the calving season which had just begun on the stations.

Jan and Nina were heavily involved in the calving season, many of the new cattle having their first calf always had problems and they had to be assisted with the delivery of their first calf, this was a very dangerous time for Jan and Nina, the cattle were unpredictable.

A young cow trying to have its first calf would stand and turn around and around in circles, trying to get to the birth canal and not understanding what was happening, eventually it would sink to the ground when it became totally exhausted and this is when two or more members of the station’s crew would pounce onto the cow and hold it to the ground while either Jan or Nina would go to the birth canal and assist the baby calf to enter the world.

On most occasions they were totally successful and unless they arrived too late to attend to the young female cow the baby calf was born a healthy baby offspring.

Seldom did they lose a mother cow but on a very odd occasion the baby calf would perish.

The new mother cared not at all that the two women had assisted her with the birth of her offspring, normally a short period after the birth the cow was on her feet again and as soon as she was steady on her feet she would attack anything or anybody near her new baby, this was the nature of the animal.

The fact that the family now owned so many stations Jan and Nina were kept extremely busy in the calving season, the reason for this of course was that the majority of the cattle in these northern stations were either pure bred or cross bred Braham.

Braham cattle had a large lump above the shoulders of the front legs and this was the reason for the majority of birth problems with cross bred cattle, the benefit of the Braham cattle however was they had a greater resistance to the dreaded tick venom and especially the Pink Eye, that was an absolute dangerous and expensive nuisance.

Fortunately the tick serum had proved a success and the Hucerne that Nasha, Petris and Mala had now successfully been able to produce was being tested and was hoped to contain enough of the toxin to give not only a natural immunity to the cattle from the dreaded ticks but in fact kill any tick that bit into the cattle feeding on the new strain of Hucerne.

The new strain of Hucerne was being planted on several hectares of land and isolated from the cattle until it could be cropped in volume, when the cattle were eventually let in to feed on the new Hucerne they would be studied over a period of months and then their blood would be analysed and checked for toxin, if it was found to be present the cattle would be exposed to ticks and the results further investigated.

If this new Hucerne was a success, and the toxin in the blood did not adversely affect the quality of the meat, it would open a new era of cattle breeding in the northern stations, free from ticks in cattle and the extremely expensive anti tick treatments that were mandatory by government regulations.

Ticks were a plague on many other animals in the northern districts of Australia and all birds and animals would benefit from a killer toxin in the blood of cattle that was hoped that would go a long way to eliminating ticks in the future.

For twelve months Jan and Nina had been pursuing a cure for Pink Eye; Nasha Petris and Mala had also been trying to find a cure; together the two teams had been working steadily on a chemical immunisation serum and also a type of plant that may be able to give them a means of defeating this dreaded disease.

They had jointly compiled thousands of hours of research into the disease and at present were working on several compounds and feed varieties that they hoped would eventually lead them to a suitable solution to the problem.

Finding a solution to each problem saved the family a host of money both in the value of cattle saved and the lessoning of the work load that the station crews would have to carry out each and every day.

Chapter 3

The huge holding tanks for the oil were near to completion; when the location had been selected for the tanks Pica and Valerie had calculated that the foundation they had been asked to supply for the holding tanks would have to be at least one metre thick so they had R3 excavate a hole with one of the big flying buckets and had set a formwork to take a foundation of that thickness.

The surveyors had set the levels for the foundation and had rechecked the level after the formwork was in place, the silk /wool was then placed inside the formwork and because the red desert sand had proven to be such a perfect medium to use for foundations R3 had supplied several buckets of the sand to fill the formwork so that the foundation could be made.

There was some doubt as to whether the energy panels would have the power to consolidate the sand into a foundation because of the thickness of one metre, Pica doubled up on the amount of energy panels they attached to the silk/wool to try and compensate for the thickness.

With several people assisting with the activating of the energy panels the moment arrived to try; Pica gave the signal and all the panels were switched almost at the same moments.

It took almost half an hour for any indication of the energy panels working before the familiar glow began very slowly to become visible, almost another hour before the glow reached a stage where they were reasonable sure that the hardening was truly taking effect, and they left the energy panels attached another hour more to make certain that the process was at the stage they were confident it had succeeded.

They were to build four large oil storage tanks twenty metres apart as a normal safety measure so that if one tank caught fire the others would be safe from the fire, in theory.

Now that the tanks were in position and almost ready Pukely notified John that he could move his new larger drilling rig to the oil field site and commence drilling, it was hoped that the four oil tanks would be filled before the pipeline was completed and there would be no hold ups with delivering the oil to the refinery.

The foundation for the new pumping station was laid and the large energy panel to drive the pump was mounted in a shed directly next to the pumping station; when the pump was installed Valerie attached the wiring from the shed that housed the energy panel to the pump and all that was required was the switch to be activated and the pump would be in service.

The new drilling rig arrived by the platform from the Three Willows Station and the crew soon had the large well head in place and on this occasion instead of using concrete to set the well head in place Pica was again called upon to put a stone foundation around the well head which he did by using the red sand medium again, and it worked terrific only it hardened immediately instead leaving it for the normal two or three days for normal concrete.

Pukely brought Dianne to site and they had a discussion with John about the actual location of the oil and the depths that they would have to drill to be able to continually extract oil from the field.

Following the location of the drill head the drilling was commenced, it was easy work for the new larger drilling rig and after twelve days of drilling through rough terrain they reached the depth of three hundred and twenty metres when they struck oil, it caused the rig to shake and shudder and finally spouted nearly twenty metres into the air, John’s crew withdrew the drilling rod and closed the valve on the stem pipe then the connecting hose was attached that connection to the first storage tank and the first oil from the oil field began to flow into the tanks.

When the tanks were built they were installed on huge one metre thick stone foundations with forty percent of the tank below ground level, a long wall was built to the top of each tank on which the inlet pipe from the oil field was run.

The outlet pipe of course was from the bottom of the tanks and each tank was connected to the other with a pipe so that the pumping station was in fact pumping from all the tanks at the one time.

It was possible to pump from any one tank individually and isolate the other tanks, but initially it was decided to allow the flow from the tanks to be with open valves between tanks.

John’s crew were elated to have the oil flowing from the first well into the tanks, but they wasted no time in setting up the next well head and the drilling rig was moved to the new site and begun to drill with little waste of time.

The oil field was huge so the holes were drilled hundred of metres apart so that a fire or other accident at one well head would not affect the neighbouring well head.

The proposal was to drill four holes first and connect each hole to a separate tank, it was known that the pressure that drove the oil to the surface would slacken after a period of time and the oil would have to be pumped from underground but they intended to capitalise on the oil coming out under pressure for as long as it lasted.

Colin had arranged for a row of steel posts to be erected around each tank and attached to the foundation, the Go – Ann engineers had then installed a stone roof similar to the roof that they had built over the Steps Hanger, they were also lined underneath with a row of Rotatube panels from east to west and north to south to provide twenty four hour elimination over the tanks.

Colin and John had prepared for the time when the pressure underground would slacken off and the large Lifter Pumps could be installed; four of these large pumps had been purchased and move to the oil field and they were to be installed immediately the oil stopped flowing enough to allow their installation.

The surge from the pressure was short lived and the flow from the four oil wells had hardly been enough to fill the enormous storage tanks before it slowed and finally almost stopped altogether.

A crew of contractors had been employed to train the drilling crew on the correct method of installing the Lifter Pumps and getting them operational.

The pumps were installed but the crews had no power to connect to the pumps to get them operational, the Go – Ann had arranged a small portable shed to be brought to site and placed next to each pump, there were cables protruding from each shed that Valerie then attached to the electric motors that were to drive the large Lifter Pumps.

To the surprise of the contracting crew the motors began working and the pump began lifting the oil out of the underground reservoir and into the tanks.

Four Lifting pumps, four portable sheds and four operating motors, the oil pumping operation was underway.

Finally the tanks were all filled, the pipeline was finished and the oil was ready to flow.

JB insisted on Pukely and his crew coming down to Brisbane to hold a celebration at the commencement of the first oil flow from the pipeline, it was to be an occasion that JB wanted to exploit to the fullest, not only because it would make the state independent with oil but it would be generating revenue for the state with every litre passing though the pipeline, a very clever vote winning endeavour.

The pipeline at the Brisbane end was opened and Colin opened the valve at the station end, this allowed the oil to flow by gravity through the pipeline all the way to Brisbane.

The pressure of the oil pushing down inside the huge tank on the outlet pipe ensured that the oil would follow the point of least resistance and this was the outlet pipe.

The oil surged through the pipe on its course to Brisbane the air came gushing out the Brisbane end of the pipe in a roar, rapidly the oil pipeline filled as the holding tank on the station emptied, there were two other pumping station along the route of the pipeline to give the oil a boost as it travelled along the pipeline, neither of these stations were operational as the pipeline was filled with the first load of oil.

It took nearly six hours for the oil to travel the hundreds of kilometres along the pipe and eventually flow into the holding tank at the Brisbane refinery, then the flow was turned off at the Brisbane end awaiting the opening ceremony.

Pukely and Iris accompanied by Colin and Jan and of course the two children Colben and Lina arrived at Brisbane and was met at the airport by government representatives and were driven in their cars to government house, there they again made their acquaintance with JB the premier and his wife who was also to attend the opening ceremony with almost all the other government members and their families.

The celebration was to be held at the refinery, all the media were present for this historic occasion, newspaper reporters and television crews were there from all over Australia to witness the opening of the pipeline and the first flow of oil from the new oil field when the premier turned the valve that started the oil flowing.

A huge marquee tent had been erected and caterers were around handing out drinks and small finger foods till the big moment was to take place, Pukely and Iris were inundated by the media asking about the funds from the oil being used for the patients going through the back operations and the rehabilitation centre, and how was the money going to be used in future in this process.

Iris advised all the media that the current levels of operations were going along as fast as could be safely handled at the present time, the amount of patients had been increasing and were being rehabilitated at a continually growing rate, the money from the oil would ensure that we can continue to process the amount of patients that is currently handled and hopefully allow the family to possibly increase the amount of patients in the future.

‘Is it true’, the television reporter asked with the focus on Iris, ‘that there is no charge levied for any operations or rehabilitation of any patient on the King’s Cauldron Station, no matter how rich or poor the patient is’?

‘My husband , Doctor Pukely Goodman, has decreed that no charge shall ever be levied for any treatment to the cancer, or back trauma patients that are treated at the Fenton General Hospital, he has in the past used the funds received from the operations of our cattle and sheep stations to pay all the expenses for the patients care and where necessary will pay the expenses to have the patient flown from any place in Australia to the station for treatment where the patient lacks the funds to pay the travel expense himself, the funds from the oil we will now use to ensure that that situation continues’.

The steward then announced that the ceremony was about to begin and would everybody please take their assigned places.

JB then faced the television cameras and began his speech; he advised the public that the new pipeline was writing a new chapter for Queensland, the people of Queensland were going to benefit not only from the royalties for the oil taken out of the ground but a levy on each litre of oil flowing from the oil field to the refinery would also be going to the government coffers to help further with the infrastructure throughout the state which would of course eventually benefit every Queenslander.

He then walked over to the great valve that controlled the oil flow in the pipeline.

When JB had begun his speech Pukely had sent a telepathic thought to the Go – Ann he had positioned at each of the pumping stations and to be ready, when the premier walked over to the valve and took the handle into his hands he sent the thought out to activate the panels and start the motors on the pumps.

JB gave another short speech as he grabbed the valve wheel and then he began to turn the valve wheel to release the oil through to the refinery, there was a counter near the wheel which measured the volume of oil pumping through the pipeline and the television camera focused on the counter as the flow from the pipe, now under continuing pressure from the pumps began to cascade through the pipeline and into the refinery tanks.

The family was now able to really use the money flowing to build the new holiday villas and the new town Pukely had planned for the Go – Ann he hoped to find by his searching the world.

It would take perhaps several months before the new funds from the oil would reach the family bank account but he was way ahead with the planning of the next venture that he knew he would need if he was successful in finding more of his Go – Ann people.

Chapter 4

The family held their meetings on the last Friday of each month in the hall at the Manor House.

It was an occasion for a delightful dinner and a time for all the wives of the station managers to get together and discuss all those things that women like to talk about when they meet and have a spell away from the menfolk.

The menfolk held their monthly meeting and each station manager, as had been the case since the family had bought the stations; read out a report on the situation on his station.

The consensus was that the calving was going as well as could be expected, the numbers of breeding cattle were growing at an ever increasing rate and there were fewer fatalities than had ever before been the case in the calving season.

‘The search for a Hucerne strain of grass with the inbuilt toxin has now been achieved we believe’, Pukely said, ‘a test paddock has been sown and in time we will let a small herd of cattle into the fresh Hucerne and let them eat the new strain’.

‘As you are now all aware we have a serum which when we inject it into the cattle works through the bloodstream and kills any ticks that bite the cattle, after the serum has had time to enter the blood stream of the cattle’.

We are also now trying to create a serum we can use to stop the dreaded Pink Eye, from infecting our cattle.

‘This disease has been a menace to our stations, and the cattle losses have been quite significant, trying to find a cure has been very difficult and we have been constrained from bringing any other breeds of cattle onto the stations because of this very menace’.

‘Soon we will have to start to increase the volumes of cattle on the Red Desert Station and the Desert Station, the current Hucerne strain has taken on as we predicted and the paddocks are flourishing beautifully with great waves of luscious green/blue plumage’.

‘Lake Dianne will be a major source for water to supply the water storage facilities throughout the stations and we have the huge tanker on hand to quickly refill any tank that needs refilling’.

‘When we have discovered a inoculation that will eradicate the dreaded Pink Eye disease from our stations I will be asking each of you about selecting a preference for the breed of stock we will then introduce onto each of our stations, it is the desire of the family to have the best cattle stations in Australia and the way to achieve this aim is to try each breed of cattle available and see which is the most successful and which will give the best results in regards to body weight per beast’ Pukely continued.

Ernie then stood and gave a summary of the amount of stock that had been shipped in the month under the supply contract that was in place, ‘This has been a good contract’, Ernie said, ’for both the station and the buyers are content with the cattle quantities we are currently supplying.

‘There is now two large stations that have very little breeding stock and we need to start to bring these stations into our breeding programs, so we will have to decide if we keep going with our current cross breed of cattle or experiment with other breeds and see if they can be successfully raised without being wiped out by the Pink Eye disease’, Ernie said.

Alan Priest was the manager of the Rocky Gully Station; his station was one of the stations that were the worst hit by the Pink Eye infection each year and he said to Ernie, ‘I believe that we should go with the current cross breed of cattle and wait till we can discover a means of controlling or eradicating the Pink Eye before we introduce any other breeds to this area, the amount of work in controlling this disease is enormous and we can do without the extra work load at this time’.

Ernie then asked the question, ‘Do you other managers agree with Alan’?

The consensus was that they should stay with the cross breed cattle so the decision was carried.

It was agreed that some of the stations should initially contribute breeding stock to start a herd on the other two stations and that they would leave the quantity on the stations as they were until a cure for the Pink Eye disease could be discovered.

Chapter 5

Another new sport was introduced to the Go – Ann by a visitor from Brisbane; it was the sport of paraflying, a parachute was attached to the back of a speed boat by a long trailing cord and as the speedboat sped off the parachute with a person hanging underneath in a harness took to the air and the person was flown all around the lake suspended under the parachute.

Soon Pukely was asked to bring a parachute expert from Brisbane to the workshop at the Drovers Range Station to teach the females there how to make these parachutes for the paraflying.

Pukely had Jane check around and soon paraflying parachutes in every known colour was being produced at the Drovers Range Station and used on the lake behind a specially designed speedboat, built and powered by the same cylinders that were used in the air-cars.

The Go – Ann had another sport to get involved with and they loved enjoying the thrill.

The Go – Ann knew and showed by the way in which they cared for their future that they considered their children to be the heart and soul of the community.

At a very young age every Go – Ann child was taught to swim and sail, each occasion when one of the young children entered the water a couple of the older children were always present to observe and care for the little ones.

The children were keen sailors and Pukely has purchased some very small sailing boats to suit the smaller bodies, plus some small catamarans also for when the children became more adept with their sailing.

The strict rule of course was that any child who commenced sailing must always wear a life vest and if they failed to wear a vest when sailing on a boat they would be banned from sailing for a month.

It was one of the small children who first noticed the snout of something sticking out of the water when she was out sailing on one of the small boats with one of the older girls, she pointed the snout out to the older girl who immediately called all the boats back to shore and after warning the children not to go anywhere near the water because it was a large crocodile in the water.

The older Go – Ann girl sent a telepathic thought through to Pukely warning him about crocodile in the water and Pukely sent a mental thought through to all those with telepathic power to be alert there was a least one crocodile in lake Iris.

R3 arrived at the lake shortly after he received the thought and so too did Hap.

After ensuring that the children were all safe and accounted for they boarded one of the large aluminium boats and began to cover the whole lake looking especially around the shore to see if they could locate any skid marks on the shore.

They found the sign they were seeking on a distant part of the lake shore and returned to the shore where R3 had left his air-car.

They flew to the King’s Cauldron station and collected the crocodile hunting gear and returned to the aluminium boat to await the night to go hunting.

Chapter 6

The new strain of Hucerne with the toxin gene incorporated in the makeup had had sufficient time to grow and expand, so Ernie decided to release a small herd of twenty head of cattle into the fenced in enclosure and let them feed off the new grass.

A low level water tank had been provided for the cattle as well as a chewing shed, so they had all the things that were normally provided for them on the open range and they should settle in perfectly.

The problem that Ernie faced with the new Hucerne feed for the cattle was whether the toxin in the feed would invade the meat on the cattle and make it unfit for human consumption, and if the first herd of cattle on the feed proved to be okay would the toxin build up over a period of time in the breeding herd and make later cattle unfit for human consumption.

Ernie hoped that the cattle would be able to eat the new strain of Hucerne and that at a certain level of the toxin in the blood the liver would dispel the excess toxin as waste from the cow’s body.

It was to be an ongoing project of raising the young heifers and steers on the new Hucerne, having the steers sent off to be slaughtered and the meat tested by both their own team of Ernie, Jan and Nina and compared to the meat from cattle raised on the normal strain of Hucerne and also having the meat tested by the government laboratories to confirm their own findings.

There was only twenty hectares of fenced off paddocks for the new Hucerne and the twenty head of cattle that were the test herd, and Ernie was also concerned that it might be an ideal situation for an outbreak of Pink Eye to develope in the constrained herd.

Ernie was so concerned that he had two of his crew visit the holding paddocks at least twice every day, they were to keep a close watch on the herd of young cattle and report the slightest change of character that was shown by any member of the herd so that immediate action could be