by Stuart Atkinson

Chapter Seven: Fly Away Home...

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Eager to enjoy fresh air and  natural light again after the cluttered, almost claustrophobic jumble  of the market, Fee wished she could walk back to the Museum, but a glance at a streetmap told her it was several miles away, and although she could have managed it without even breaking into a sweat her wristwatch told her she was already so far  behind schedule she had no time to hike there. Grudgingly, she stood on the sidewalk beneath the grinning gorgon and hailed a taxi  instead. 

Adelaide was beautiful, but the drive back through the city centre, heading  west, passed by in a blur. She didn't notice the buildings, people or  cars passing by her window, didn't even glance out of it once; her  mind was elsewhere - back in the market, back in the old woman's tent.   

Back with The Picture. 

It was more than just a snapshot from some medieval artist's  imagination, it had *meant* something, Fee knew it. And she was sure  the woman knew it too. Just as she was sure the woman had, without  actually coming out and saying it to her face, been warning her not to  dig any deeper.  

Well, tough, thought Fee as her taxi pulled up outside the Museum;  anyone who knew her knew that once she was on the scent of something,  nothing in the world, certainly not an old woman, no matter how  mysterious or sinister, could stop her. When she got back home - if  she lasted that long, she was itching to get started - she'd start  digging alright, and keep digging until she found something.  

She sank back into her seat, savouring the feeling of having something  to Do again. It had been fun out in the Nullarbor with her father, and  they'd had some success - a lot of success in the end, to be fair -  but that was done now, history, and as they'd rode the bus back to  civilisation Fee had stared out the window and wondered what she would  do once they got back home, back to the Real World. Now she knew. Now  she had a mission again, and the sooner she got back online, and  started trawling the web for information about that blasted picture,  the better. 

Passing the driver his fare through the window, she turned  on her heel and took her first look at the South Australian Museum. 

It was much bigger than she'd imagined, an impressive building by anyone's standards. In fact, it appeared to be two very different buildings joined together, one old, made of pale stone - with a tall, sharply-pointed tower in its centre and a handful of arched windows staring out over the green courtyard - and the other of ultra-modern design, all black metal framework and endless panes of clear glass which reflected the surrounding garden and paths. It was as if a big old library, or court house, had been fused with an airport terminal, but, like everything she'd seen in the city, worked beautifully.  

The landscaper had done a good job, ensuring that as visitors arrived at the Museum they walked through a pleasant courtyard bordered by widely-spaced palm trees with a lovely fountain at its centre. The water in the fountain made a graceful arch, which glinted in the afternoon sun like silver, and as Fee walked past it she envied the people sat around it reading papers, eating ice cream and enjoying the lovely day. If she'd arrived earlier she'd have joined them. Maybe if we come back, she told herself, and headed for the open main door. 

Thanks to its air-conditioning, stepping into the lobby was like entering a cool cave. In stark contrast to the stuffy, office-like lobbies  of many museums she'd been in - and as a self-confessed museum addict  she'd been in a lot - it was a joy, a wide open space, bright and refreshingly cool. Again she found herself wishing she had more time to enjoy the Museum, but a glance at her watch reminded her she was late, no time to dawdle. 

But then she saw it, and stopped dead in her tracks. There, on her right, mounted on a large brilliant-white stand, was one of the biggest meteorites she had ever seen.  

Easily five feet across and two feet high, the black-brown meteorite dominated the room without effort. It was huge, and marked with so many pits, ridges, knobs and nubs it looked more like a giant slab of volcanic rock than a starstone, but the sign on the display stand told the true story.  

"Mundrabilla," she read quietly to herself, kneeling down beside the sign, "three tons... yeah, I can believe it..." she smiled, wondering how on Earth they'd moved it into position. Maybe they'd built the Museum around it...   

Fee stood and moved aside to let a young mother and her daughter get closer to the meteorite. Figuring it wasn't her place to interfere - and not wanting to get caught up in a long argument, as usually happened - Fee bit her tongue when the woman told her child it was a "shooting star", and left them to it. 

"It looks like a hedgehog..!" the girl giggled, patting the meteorite with her tiny hand. looking back over her shoulder Fee smiled; yes, she had to admit, the girl was right - with its countless short spikes and elongated 'snout' it did look like a hedgehog. Fee smiled at the girl, who smiled back before her mother pulled her away, announcing she wanted to find something "more interesting". Fee watched them go with sadness, and as the girl cast a final, helpless smile at her Fee wondered how much of the Museum the poor child would actually get to see. Maybe she should follow them offer to take the girl around -  

But no, it wasn't her problem, she had to find her father.  

Turning her back on the Mundrabilla for a second time she scanned the walls for a sign, or a map, something to help her search of him. Instead she found herself staring at a huge whale skeleton,  suspended from the  ceiling just past the entrance to the Museum's shop and cafe by transparent - and therefore invisible - cords, making it  appear as if the skeleton was floating in mid-air. Of which species of  whale it was, she didn't know, all she knew was that it was Big, and  filled her field of view as it stretched off to her left and right.  People milled around the skeleton, dwarfed by it,  some staring  up at it with looks of disbelief, others leaning forward to read off  the information boards set out beneath it. Children ran around in its  shadow, gazing up into the forest of ribs and bones with expressions  of wonder on their faces, wondering, she was sure, if it was real or  just make-believe. It looked so impossibly huge, Fee wasn't entirely  sure herself. The skeleton behind the whale was a turtle's though, she knew that much. 

Around the edge of the foyer other visitors were busy checking maps,  looking at wall displays and posters advertising attractions within  the Museum, and planning their educational day. Casting a quick glance  at the Museum layout map on the wall beside her Fee sighed, wishing  she had more time to explore its maze of rooms, galleries and halls.  It looked like it was packed to bursting point with things she wanted  to see... but, like the white rabbit from Wonderland, the wall clock  above the nearest archway was screaming out at her how late she was, so  she made a mental map of the route to the "Meteorite Gallery", took a  deep breath of the wonderfully-cool air, and set off into the depths of the Museum to find her father. 

It didn't take her long to find the Gallery - the Museum was laid out  clearly and in a refreshingly common-sense way - and as she entered it  there, as she'd expected, was her father, standing in front of a  chest-high display case, deep in conversation with one of the Museum  staff. Another glance at her watch told her she was well over an hour  late. Great, just great... 

She made her way over to him quietly, trying not to alert him to her  presence as she threaded a path through the meteorite-packed display  cases and stands, navigating her way like a rat through a maze, and  reached his side ready to begin her grovelling apology - 

"Aaaah, you must be Fee?" her father's companion said, turning towards  her before she had a chance to speak. He had a pronounced Australian  accent, but it was much less harsh than many she'd heard since arriving, almost  musical. She liked him straight away. "I've been hearing a lot about you!" 

Yeah, I'll bet you have, Fee thought glumly, as her father turned  towards her now, wearing an accusing scowl, like how bad I am at  telling the time -  

"I'm Ben," the man announced with a knowing, mischievous smile, cutting in to prevent her father from speaking, "I'm the Museum's - well," he stopped himself, "forget titles, let's just say I'm in charge of the meteorites here." Fee nodded, grateful for his informality. "I'll be taking your Finds, on behalf of the  Government, hopefully for the Museum's own collection." 

"Pleased to meet you," Fee said, shaking his hand and smiling gratefully at him for coming to her rescue. He smiled back, the gleam  in his eye telling her he was glad to help. "What do you think of our  goodies, then?" she asked brightly. Beside her, her father let out a  small sigh, sensing his chance to scold her had slipped away. She'd  got away with it again. 

"I was just telling your old man here," Ben continued, glancing back at her  father, "how excited I am about your new pieces. The larger one is  exceptional, very nice indeed, we'll give it a good home here - " 

"And I'm sure you'll make it worth our while financially, too..!" Fee  smiled brightly. Beside her her father let out a weary groan this time, not a  sigh. She knew what he was thinking: here we go again... 

Ben heard him and raised his hands in submission. "No, no, she's  right," he grinned, for which Fee warmed to him even more, "it's only  fair and right that you be rewarded for your hard work - and your  honesty; too many meteorites have been lost to robbing ba- " He stopped himself again. "... lost to unscrupulous hunters  and poachers," he corrected himself. "I dread to think how many have been smuggled out hidden  in shoes or whatever."  

There was an edge to his voice as he spoke, a  subdued but very real, personal sense of anger in his words, and Fee  guessed that meteorite smuggling was something he was passionate  about. "That's why we take care of people like yourselves who play by the rules," he concluded, a little more happily. 

"Oh, we always do that, don't we dad?" Fee beamed, taking her father's  arm and looping hers through it. He smiled his well-practised,  tolerant smile, silently vowing to take his revenge later, knowing of  course, as she did, that he'd do no such thing. 

Then Fee remembered the meteorite tucked into the pocket of her shorts. Could she be accused of smuggling that out of the country? No,  surely not; she'd bought it fair and square from the market. Well,  alright, Maybe not totally fairly, or squarely, but certainly in good  faith - well no, she corrected herself again, not actually in good  faith either, as the dealer hadn't actually known what it was... but  she *had* bought it from a third party, so she was in the clear.  Probably.

Hopefully.  

Possibly..? 

Better not to think about it, she decided, and searched for a way to  change the subject. 

"Any preliminary information about our finds?" Fee asked; she'd been  wondering where the starstones had come from ever since she'd found  them. There was always the chance they'd found something... exotic. 

"A little," Ben answered, nodding, "and I know what you're wondering  but the answer, sadly, is no, they're not from the Moon or You Know  Where...!" Despite her disappointment, Fee grinned at that cryptic  reference; hunters never spoke the Red Planet's name when talking  about unidentified meteorites, it was considered to be bad luck, or  tempting fate, like actors saying the word Macbeth before going on  stage. Finding a "Red" meteorite was every meteorite hunter's dream, a  guarantee of fame - and not a little fortune, too - but this time, it  seemed, they'd struck out. Oh well, she thought, Maybe next time... 

Ben looked at her as he spoke. "The larger one - the one I believe you found? - is a standard octahedrite," he explained, and Fee nodded. A basic iron meteorite, that had been her guess, too -   

"Actually, not unlike your precious Quinn Canyon iron, Fee..." her father  added, and she flashed him a meaningful, private grin, remembering  their visit to the Chicago Museum of Natural History the year before,  where she'd had her photo taken standing beside the 3,000lb iron  monster. It was one of her favourites, and with all its bumps, knobs,  cavities and ridges had always reminded her of a huge, chewed toffee.  

"And the other one?" she asked, a little impatiently, "the one Dad found?"  

Her father smiled at that, pleased that she still thought he believed he  really had stumbled across the meteorite - unaware that she was  smiling for exactly the same reason. 

"Aaah," Ben answered, "now, that's a different story." Fee's  pulse quickened just a little. Not Red, she thought, okay, what else,  then?  

Ben's eyes glowed as he hit her with the punchline. "I think  your father brought me a nice, shiny new Pallasite, Fee." 

Fee's eyes widened. "A pallasite? Really?" That was good news; if a meteorite wasn't Red then being a pallasite wasn't a bad consolation prize. Their insides were mixed-up jumbles of both iron and stone, usually large crystals or bubbles of olivine, and when sliced open and polished up they looked beautiful, the olivine crystals embedded within the iron like lemon peel baked inside a sponge cake. 

"Yeah," Ben continued, enjoying having such an interested audience, "I'm pretty sure that's what your old man found. Got a nice slice of one just like it over here, if you want a look..?" He walked towards a curiously-darkened display case near the far wall, and Fee and her father obediently followed, Fee dropping her bags on the floor. When they got there Fee looked inside - and saw nothing. The case looked empty.  

She turned to Ben, puzzled, and he smiled back as he held up a "wait a moment" hand - Suddenly the display lit up from within, and looking inside the case Fee gasped.. 

It wasn't a whole meteorite, or even a piece of one, it was a wafer thin *slice* of meteorite, the size of her outstretched palm. Displayed erect on the top of a transparent plastic pillar, surrounded by blacked-out glass, the slice was backlit by a small but powerful bulb, and as light shone through its transparent yellow and gold rock crystals Fee gasped again. It was like sunlight streaming through stained glass. She couldn't speak.  

"That was my idea" Ben confessed, "putting the light on a time-delay so people are caught by surprise... nice to see it worked again..!" he grinned at her, winking. She forgave him in an instant. Inside the case was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen in her life.   

"This is a slice of a pallasite that fell in Chile's Atacama desert," Ben explained, dropping effortlessly into a Lecturer's spiel, "a whole load of them came down near a place called Imilac, quite a shower," he continued, and in a heartbeat Fee decided that one day she'd go there to find one of her own.  

"Beautiful, isn't it?" he asked her, and all she could do was nod dumbly. The pallasite slice was hypnotisingly lovely.  "Aaah, but they look like nothing on the ground," he told her, "just bits of twisted metal scrap really. This one," he said, nodding towards the display case, "is a slice from one of the larger ones. Found it myself, ten years back... This is After," he said, "but if you look down there," he continued, pointing towards a piece of softly-lit card in the bottom of the case, "you can see what it looked like Before..." 

Fee knelt down beside the case and peered into it. The card had a small photo on it, of a strange-looking, spiky orange-brown... something.  

"I thought I'd found a fossilised prehistoric onion bhaji!" Ben joked, and Fee laughed with him. The thing on the card looked nothing like any meteorite she'd ever seen before. "But she polished up nicely, don't you think?" Ben smiled proudly, and getting back to her feet again Fee nodded in agreement. The Imilac slice was breathtaking. She wanted one. She wanted one Badly. 

"One day, Fee," her father said softly, sensing her longing as he rested a hand on her shoulder, "no rush..." 

"And I'll make sure you get a piece of the one you found," Ben assured her kindly, "promise." 

"Okay," she said weakly, realising for the first time just what a treasure she'd found - and given away.  

She forced herself to turn her back on the Imilac and went to retrieve her bags, but she'd only walked a few steps before another display case caught her eye. It was tall and square, like the free-standing fish tanks she'd seen in restaurants and  hotel foyers around the world. But this  time it wasn't a light that came on as she passed it, but an alarm bell, inside her own head.  

"Ah, you found them...!" Ben smiled, coming up behind her. "You said she was good," he laughed, turning to her father, "you were right, she can even sense Carbs through glass..!"  

Fee said nothing, she was too busy staring through the case's glass at the quartet of meteorites held within. They looked strangely familiar. Puzzlingly familiar -   

"Oh hell..." Fee breathed, and closed her eyes, unable to believe what had happened. Suddenly the meteorite in her pocket felt like it weighed a ton. 

It was a mirror image of the ones in the display case before her. 

The four dark rocks  huddled close together, as if for warmth, and were illuminated by a hidden  spotlight. Dark grey, and rounded, like all meteorites they looked unremarkable on the outside, boring even, but Fee knew that was a smoke-screen, celestial camouflage; she knew that the rocks' dull, cracked outer crust concealed a fascinating  interior, and indeed one of them had had a corner ground off, allowing people to see the small,  rounded inclusions dotting its interior.  

"One of our best displays," Ben beamed proudly, "this is our Carb Collection, worth - well, I can't say outloud how much they're worth," he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "they'd fire me. But trust me, it's A Lot..." 

"You called them Carbs," Fee repeated, "what does that mean..?" 

"Short for Carbonaceous chondrites," her father replied, starting to feel a little left out of the exchange. 

That stirred memories. "Ah, I remember now," she sighed, "Allende, that's a Carb, right?" 

"Right," her father confirmed, and it was his turn to smile proudly at the Museum man.   

It all came back to her. Carbonaceous Chondrites were stony meteorites which had very primitive chemical constituents, and  were therefore very, very old. That alone made them valuable to researchers - and hunters too, of course. But they were more than just "old rocks"; they contained  traces of water and, most important of all, organic  molecules and material too, often called "The stuff of life."  

Many people thought that meant they contained fossils, or traces *of*  life, but Fee knew better. She knew that their hidden interiors were  so precious because they contained some of the rare chemical  constituents of life, amino acids and the like. That made them very  rare, and among the most scientifically valuable meteorites of all.  

Some scientists even thought that Carbs were like space seeds, sewing  life across the Universe, and had Maybe even brought life itself to  Earth back at the dawn of time. Others disagreed. It didn't matter  either way. They were just very special, among the Holy Grails of meteorites. Hunters scoured the world for them, spent years, and small fortunes, searching for them.  

And she'd bought one, for a few dollars, from a market ten minutes just drive away from the Museum. 

"The Murchison fall in 69, out near Victoria, brought  us hundreds of Carbs," Ben said, adding wistfully "I've often wondered if there were Carbs out there on the Nullarbor..."  

Oh, there are, Fee thought, suddenly very aware of the hard rock hidden in her pocket, or at least there were... 

What the hell did she do now? she wondered. Should she tell them what she'd done? If she didn't, if she took it home, would she be guilty of smuggling, or, worse, stealing? That was clearly a very touchy subject with Ben, and she understood why.... but she'd bought it fair and square hadn't she? Surely she was the legal owner..?  

Perhaps, but was that enough? If she didn't come clean, would she be as bad as the Hunters who didn't Do The Right Thing and just flew home with their pirate hordes of buried treasure?  

Would she be as bad as her mother? 

Maybe she was wrong..? Maybe the rock in her pocket (how heavy it felt now!) really was just a rock..? That would solve a lot of problems... but she didn't want it to be just a rock, and in her heart she was sure it wasn't...  

She didn't know what to do, so she peered into the display case at the nested clump of starstones. They looked like a cluster of tiny dragon eggs -   

The image snapped her mind back to The Dragon in The Picture. She had to find out more about that. The rock in her pocket could - would have to - wait.  

"So our trip was worthwhile?" she asked, edging away from the display case, keen to put distance between herself and its contents. But she couldn't resist one last look through the glass: the stuff of life, indeed,  thought Fee, staring at the meteorites; go back far enough, and we  could even be related... 

"Very worthwhile," Ben replied approvingly, adding, with a wink, "as the cheque  in your father's pocket will prove." Fee hid the relief she felt, but  her father knew what she was thinking. 

"See," her father pouted, "I told you I'd take care of it...!" He tried  to sound hurt but, as usual, didn't quite manage it, and Fee just  laughed.  

Standing there, seeing her father smiling, knowing they'd made some  money, Fee sensed her Australian adventure drawing to a close. It had  been a good trip all round, as far as she could tell, but it was time  to go home. 

"Well," Ben said, checking his watch before turning to Fee, "I have a  meeting with the Funding Panel in an hour, so if you can spare your  father for a few more minutes, I'll finalise the paperwork then let  you go, I know you have a plane to catch..." 

Fee nodded. She was impatient to get going - Scotland was calling out  to her very loudly now, as was her computer back home - but she could  hardly bemoan another delay when she had been so late herself.  

"It'll give you a chance to look around the wonderful collection Ben  has here," her father suggested helpfully, and automatically, out of  habit, Fee scanned the hall. It was crammed full of display cases,  their glass tops shining bright with reflections of the ceiling- and  wall-mounted lights, and Fee knew without looking that each case would  contain starstones from all around the world. Usually she would have  been impatient to roam amongst them, to see as many of the exhibits  and specimens as possible, but not today. Today she had something else  on her mind.  

Ben seemed to pick up on her distracted mood. "... unless there's  something else you'd like to see in the Museum?" he asked  thoughtfully. "The galleries are full of animals, some really amazing  things - and upstairs there's a huge gallery of aborigine artefacts,  if you're interested? The video wall show is pretty spectacular...?" 

Fee smiled weakly. "Thanks," she said, "it all sounds wonderful..." 

"... but..." Ben said knowingly, as her father looked on with confusion all over his face. 

"Well..." she began awkwardly, "I was wondering if there was a place I  could get online?" She heard her father groan, ignored him. "Just for  a few minutes?" The Museum official raised an eyebrow quizzically, not  quite understanding. "It's just, I'd like a chance to check my email,"  she added quickly, feeling bad about lying to him but sensing an  opening she couldn't afford to ignore. If they had a computer  available... 

"Fee," her father sighed, "you can check your email back at the hotel," he said. "We'll be there soon - " 

"No, we'll be in a rush to get to the airport," she countered, fearful  that the opening was slipping away, "and besides, everything's packed  away now, it would take too long to get it all out again..." She  looked to Ben for support, and he smiled back at her. 

"No worries," he said in his bright and breezy Australian twang, "I  think we can arrange that. You can use the computer in Philipa's  office, she's away in Darwin but she wouldn't mind, I'm sure... not  that I'll tell her, mind!" he added with a grin. "Come on, I'll take  you there," he said, and took off towards the far end of the hall,  towards a high, wide door marked "The Wonderful World Of Minerals". 

"You're up to something," her father whispered into her ear  as they  followed Ben out of the Gallery, "and don't flash those lovely,  innocent-looking eyes at me, I'm not as big a pushover as our smitten  Australian friend there, I know all your tricks." He changed over to  his best Obi Wan Kenobi voice. "You have no power over me..." 

"I don't know what you mean..." she smiled sweetly, holding in the  laughter she was dying to release, instead taking his arm again, "I'm  just trying to save us time, that's all - " 

"Yeah, and I'm a kangaroo's uncle," he said, but let himself be led on  by her. "I know you're on to something," he said accusingly, "you've  got that look in your eyes again." 

"And what 'look' is that?" she asked, fluttering her eyelashes at him,  knowing full well it would melt him where he stood; he was always  embarrassing her by telling her what beautiful eyes she had. It was  payback time.  

It worked; his frown turned into a helpless smile, and he shook his  head, accepting defeat. "Okay, okay, you win," he sighed, relishing  the warmth of his daughter's smile, "I'll just keep out of the way  while you play secret agent again." 

"Good," she said approvingly, giving his arm a squeeze with hers,  "because if you don't then you won't get your present..!"  

"What present?"  

"Well," she replied in a low voice, "if I really am a secret agent,  then if I told you what it was, I'd have to kill you, wouldn't I?" 

"Oh, Fee...!" 

"Ha ha!" she laughed, tossing back her long black hair. 

And with that they vanished into the depths of the Museum, laughing  together. It had been a good day. 

Ben closed the door behind him, leaving Fee alone with the computer  while he took her father a little further down the corridor to his own  office. She waited until she couldn't hear their footsteps anymore,  and was completely sure she was alone and would not be disturbed, then  booted the machine up. It was old, older than her own PC, and slower  too, by quite some way, but it would do for a quick peek around.  

Fingers dancing over the keys too fast for an observer to follow, she  went online, entering AOL as a Guest User, and within moments was  looking at the Welcome screen of her favourite historical data search  engine site.  

"Okay," she purred, stretching her linked-together fingers until they  popped and cracked, like a concert pianist preparing to play, which  wasn't too far from the truth, "let's see what we can find..." 

It felt good to be back online, watching pages appear and disappear,  scrolling up and down, jumping from one link to another,  then the  next, yet another... She hadn't realised how much she'd missed it. As  her father had said, only half-jokingly, every creature has its  natural element, and where fish had water, and birds had the air, Fee  had the World Wide Web. It was as familiar a place to her as the  streets of Edinburgh, or her own room. She knew where to find things,  how to contact people, it was second nature to her.  

Like many net-users she hated the term Cyberspace, and wished the  journalists had never invented it, but if there was such a place as  Cyberspace then Fee was a citizen of it. More than that: it felt like  she'd been born there.  

In fact, Fee liked to think of herself as a Cyberspace Coloniser, or a  Settler even. Like many "newbies" she had arrived there unsure, more  than a little afraid, wary of going online after reading - or having  read out to her - countless horror-stories of net perverts, violent  psychopaths and cyber-stalkers. That first week she had felt like  Little Red Riding Hood, lost in a huge electronic forest, with virtual  wolves stalking her among the shadows... but soon she'd lost her fear,  and, with the help of others had found Her Place on the Web. Now,  after several years of intense surfing, the Web was as familiar to her  as her own reflection, and using it was as natural and everyday part  of her life as breathing or walking. She felt a part of it, almost as  if she was physically wired into the vast, invisible matrix of  information streams criss-crossing the Earth.  

And now, with friends scattered around the world, dozens of them,  people known only as screen-names or email signatures, but as real to  her as the flesh and blood people she met every day in the so-called  real world, she never felt alone, ever. It was comforting to know that  whatever time of day it was, wherever she was, she could go online and  find a friend there too.  

"Lonely" was a word she hadn't used - and a feeling she had never  experienced - for years. There weren't many people who could say that.  Not Offliners, anyway. 

With the initial thrill of reconnecting to the net starting to fade, a  little, she settled down to work. It seemed best to start her search  by checking the database's collection of castle images, so she called  up the page and entered her request. Narrowing down the search  paramaters to "single turret" and "flat ground" reduced the number of  candidates by almost three quarters - most castles had several  turrets, and were built on hills to allow their troops commanding  views of approaching armies - but even so it took her ten minutes to  scroll through the thumbnails.  

"No... no... no... no... " she said to herself, as one after another  images of castles flew off the top of the screen. "No... no... "  Eventually she reached the bottom, and let out a weary sigh. Nothing,  not even a close match. She wasn't too surprised, though; it had been  a long shot, a very vague kind of opening search, but she had to start  somewhere. Time to try a different angle of attack. 

Opening up a new window with a casual clicking of fingers upon keys,  Fee activated another search engine, asked it to direct her towards  sites with fantasy art images, and was soon exploring the collection  of a girl from Japan clearly obsessed with dragons. Fee scrolled  through gallery after gallery of dragons, a bewildering variety of  them: dragons on mountains, in caves, attacking villages, curled up  sleeping on huge piled-high hordes of gold and jewels...  

"No... no... nice, but no..."

 Fee's eyes widened suddenly. Finally, a page with dragons and castles!  She kept scrolling, passing a dozen different thumbnails, each one a  disappointment but giving her hope that the *next* one might be the  one -  

Then there was no more Collection left. She had looked at almost two  hundred images, but none of them were what she was looking for, not  even close, and now she was at the end of the page. Nothing. Zero.  Blank.  

She sat back in the chair, let out a deep breath. Twenty minutes had  passed, nearly, and all she'd found were some pretty, but useless,  pictures. Normally she would have just kept going, accepted the  disappointment as part of online life - it was the only way to stay  sane when wading through the data stream - but she knew her father  would be coming for her any moment, his business with Ben, the Museum  and the Australian Government finally concluded, so she felt  unnaturally impatient and frustrated. At home, she knew, she would  have more time - and a faster computer too. But home was several  thousand miles, and a 24 hour flight, away. She wanted to find  something, anything, now. Not tomorrow, but Now! 

"Okay," she said to the computer, talking to it just as she talked to  her own, "let's see where else - " 

Just then a banner at the bottom of the page, just beneath the hit  counter, caught her eye. It was an advert for a fantasy figure model  manufacturer, and showed a beautifully-painted model of a knight, or a  warrior of some kind, swinging a broadsword at a fearsome beast,  shield raised to protect him against its terrifying fangs. It wasn't a  dragon - it had no wings, and far too human a face, suggesting it was  a demon - but that didn't matter, that wasn't what had caught her  attention anyway.  

The banner had a background of dark red, with no writing visible upon  it but vague hints of a hidden, or at least camouflaged design of some  sort. Because the design was drawn in an only just slightly darker  red, making it as dim as a watermark, it was hard to make it out, but there was something about its hinted shape that set alarm bells  ringing inside Fee's head.  

Quickly, sensing a breakthrough, she clicked on the banner, jumping to  the company's website. The screen promptly filled with promotional  blurb and thumbnails of its model range, some painted, others bare,  grey metal, but she ignored them, concentrating instead on the banner  spanning the top of the page. It was a larger, more detailed version  of the banner she had first seen - exactly what she had been hoping to  find.  

"Now we're getting somewhere," she thought outloud, and saved the  banner as a graphics file, ready to use later. After emailing herself  a copy of the company's website address, just to be sure she wouldn't  lose the scent and could continue the hunt when she got back home, she  shrank down the AOL window to the size of a stamp in the bottom left  corner of the screen, and dragged the icon representing the saved  picture file over to an image manipulation program. With practised  ease she opened it, enlarged it until it filled the screen, enhanced  the colours -  

"Gotcha...!" she smiled triumphantly, as a familiar shape swam up out  of the red background. "Gotcha..." she repeated, feeling relieved and  excited at the same time. It was a break, at least, something to keep  her going until she reached home and could look properly. 

It was a dragon, alright, but not just a dragon. It was The Dragon,  The Dragon from The Picture.  

So, she thought, quickly reassembling the scattered pieces of the  puzzle, the artist who created the banner must have used The Picture  as reference material... that suggested he either had a copy of The  Picture, or access to a copy, or at least knew where a copy might be  found online... if that was true, then she could start to track down  information about it... and follow the trail back to the location of  the castle itself where, if her suspicions were correct, there might - might - be meteorites just waiting to be found... 

"That's a lot of 'might's, Fee," she warned herself, but didn't care.  At least now she had a lead of some sort to follow-up. She had no idea  where she was going, but she had started. And it felt good. 

A glance at her watch told her she'd been online almost half an hour,  and she knew she had to work fast or risk being cut-off by her father  before she had followed up on her break. It took her just a few  moments to enlarge the picture enough to enable her to make-out the  artist's name, locate his own personal website and, finally, email him  a "Please help me!" note asking if he could give her some information  about the picture he had based his design on. Hopefully his reply  would be waiting for her when she got home.  

"Not bad for an old timer, thanks," she said to the computer, "I'll  leave you in peace now." Her work done, she went offline and hit the  power off switch - just as the office door opened. Her father stood  there, head tilted to one side.  

He held out his hand to her and she took it, allowing herself to be  lifted up out of her seat by him, and they stood together in the open  doorway with their arms around each other, enjoying a last, precious  moment's peace before setting off on the last leg of their journey.  

"You finished in here?" he asked her quietly, speaking into her hair. 

Fee heard the computer shutting down behind her, pictured the screen  fading to empty black, and smiled against his chest. "I am now," she  replied, then, suddenly feeling very, very tired, looked up at him and  added: "Let's go home..." 

An hour later she was sound asleep under a soft, blue-grey British  Airways blanket, oblivious to the roar of the 747s engines as it  lifted them off the runway and carried them up into the blue,  afternoon sky. As the huge plane turned its back on Adelaide, on  Australia, heading north, her head lolled sideways in slow motion,  gently coming to rest up against the window beside her. But she saw  nothing of the fluffed-pillow clouds or the sapphire-hued ocean  beneath them; in her dreams she was hiding in the shadow of a castle,  a single, stone turret, listening to the sounds of screaming and  crying as a huge shape passed overhead, hurling down flaming rocks... 

"I'll find you," she murmured in her sleep, eyelids twitching as she  dreamed, and her father smiled.  

Such an imagination...

© Stuart Atkinson 2003