The Hostage

by Jennifer Hor

He was just sixteen kilometres away from the town of Oak Ridge when he hailed yet
another car and two young women stopped for him.
Like most people he had met so far in Australia, these women were friendly and curious.
"How long have you been backpacking here? Why don't you stay with us at the farm for the night?
We'll drop you off in town in the morning if you like"
"That's very kind of you", he said, overwhelmed at the offer, "I hope I won't be
inconveniencing your folks in any way."
"Of course not!" one of the women laughed as the other swung the car around and began
driving away from the town he had been hitch-hiking towards, "you won't be inconveniencing us at
all! Anyway, look at the clouds in the sky. The midday weather report did say there was going to
be a late afternoon thunderstorm. We'd better hurry."
The young man peered through the side window. Already thick grey clouds were moving
quickly over the hill-tops. He leaned back in his seat, his finger idly tracing a line over the worn-
out upholstery. No, no way he would want to be caught in a sudden thunderstorm. He was very
lucky to have got a lift and shelter for the night.

They arrived at the farmhouse just before the storm clouds roared.
"Just in time for afternoon tea!" the driver cried. A warm smell of ginger drifted toward
them as they hurried in through the door. Hailstones were already beginning to fall.
He was ushered into the kitchen to meet a third young woman who taking hot biscuits out
of the oven while the kettle whistled loudly on the stove. Funny, he thought, all these girls look
very much alike. Perfect golden blonde hair and bright blue eyes the same far distance apart on all
their faces. There were quick introductions, the girls' names struck him as unusual, he put down his
backpack and was taken on a quick tour of the rooms. Thalia who was cooking the biscuits called
that tea was ready so everyone rushed back into the kitchen.
"I like the biscuits", he mumbled between mouthfuls, "very spicy flavour."
"My grandmother's recipe", Thalia said, her eyes lowered, "it's got a secret ingredient". The
other two girls, Erato and Urania, giggled and nudged each other.
The herbal tea was sweet and relaxing. Very relaxing. Too relaxing. His head began to
wobble and spin. Things swam before his eyes. His arms and legs felt heavy. "Uh-h ... is there a
place where I ... can ...?" His voice tailed off and he slumped in his chair, deeply asleep.

When he woke up, he found himself in a tiny, narrow concrete cell. There was not
furniture, not even a bench or ledge to sit on. He felt the hard floor against his skin and realised he
was completely naked. He tried to move but his wrists were hand-cuffed together behind his back
and attached to the end of a chain whose other end was attached to the shackles around his ankles.
With a great effort and by rolling over to a wall for support, he managed to sit up. The door to his

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cell was in front of him, the handle high above his head. He shuffled and rolled his way across the
floor and rattled the door with his head and shoulders. It was solid and moved very little. He
squirmed again and managed to bang the door with his feet. He thumped and thumped and
thumped all he could. He tried yelling: "Hey, what's going on here! Where am I? Anyone out
there? Help me!" over and over until hoarseness and exhaustion overtook him. There was no
answer from outside.
After a long interval, he heard faint sounds outside the door. Then the handle turned. The
door swung open. Two figures in black from head to leather-booted toe advanced upon him. He
looked up and glowered at the hidden faces above him. "What the fuck's going on here?" he yelled,
"who are you and why are you keeping me here like this?"
One of the figures lifted a slender stick and poked him on the thigh. A sharp lance of pain
bolted through his leg and up the side of his body into his chest and arm. "Owwwwww!" He fell
on his other side heavily, gasping for breath, rolling about and exposing his buttocks and other leg.
"Owwwwww!" Another sharp spear of pain ripped through his buttocks and into his belly and leg.
His bowels convulsed and the smell of faeces wafted into the air. He heard female laughter above
his head. There were some slight muffled noises, whispers, then foot-steps and the sound of the
door slamming behind him. He was alone again.
He turned and moved his body painfully. He saw an object on the floor near the door. It
was a baby bottle with milk inside. After the pain and spasming in his body had subsided, he
realised he was hungry. He inched over to the bottle, grabbed the teat with his teeth and gulped
down all the milk. Then he lay on his side curled up. All he could think of was the smell, the mess
on the floor and having something to clean himself.
The time crawled by. Seconds stretched into minutes. He tried yelling again. "Help me!
What's going on? Someone help me? What are you doing to me? Where is everyone? Why am I
here?" The time continued to pass.
He heard the door open again. He turned and saw two black figures moving towards him.
He opened his mouth but one of the figures moved a stick menacingly to his face. He closed his
mouth quickly. The figure with the stick snorted. "He's a fast learner, isn't he?" a female voice said.
The stick brushed against his sore arm and he yelped. He fell over into his mess. The two figures
laughed.
"Do you want to be fed?" a second female voice demanded.
"Can't I have a towel?" he whispered.
"What was that? Do you want to be fed or not?"
"I need a towel", he persisted.
"Answer the question!" the voice snapped, "do you want to be fed or not? Or would you
rather be punished?"
His stomach gnawed at him. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the black figures
holding a container. "Yes", he mumbled, "I want to be fed."
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"You will ask for permission then", the second voice said.
"But – ", he started. The stick came towards him again. "Please", he whispered, "Could I
have something to eat?"
"Should we feed him?" the second voice asked the first.
"No", was the answer, "look at the mess he has made. He is worse than an animal. He will
only mix the food with his waste."
"Please", he begged. The owner of the first voice moved towards him and poked him in the
arm with the stick. Pain exploded in his arm from his hand to his shoulder and across his chest,
then up his neck and into his head. Stars and lights danced before his eyes. His mind was
completely dizzy. He jerked and rolled on the floor, spreading faeces over his body, heaving for
breath. The figures laughed at him.
"In this place", the first voice said, "you speak only when you are spoken to. Is that clear?"
"Ye – yes", he stammered.
He heard foot-steps and the door slammed behind him. When his mind cleared he opened
his eyes and looked around his cell but there was no food container on the floor, only the empty
milk bottle. He began to cry softly.

The time ground into him relentlessly. There was no day or night in his cell. The ceiling
light burned brightly into his consciousness the whole time. He was tired but unable to sleep. His
stomach grumbled continuously. His skin itched from the dried urine and faeces.
He lost track of the passing days. The black figures made more visits. They forced him to
beg for food and drink each time. He was made to beg for a bucket if he wanted to relieve himself.
He learned he wouldn't always get food or drink or a bucket if he begged so he had to be grateful if
the figures deigned to fulfil his requests. His jailers might sometimes poke him with the stick which
didn't always zap.
Once in a while his jailers would unshackle his ankles and walk him to a bathroom where
he would stand in a shower cubicle, wrists still handcuffed behind his back, while icy water rained
over his long hair, scraggly beard and aching body. His jailers taunted him: "What a tiny dick! Not
a man at all, is he? Look at his puny body! Is he actually male, do you think?" They would jab him
with a wooden stick and laugh when he collapsed or cowered in the corner of the shower, gasping
for air and gibbering in fright.
After the shower he would be marched back to his cell, leaving a trail of water behind him.
Sometimes the cell was cleaned during his absence and the smell of ammonia would be strong. The
jailers would shackle his ankles again and leave him dripping and shivering in the cell. A dog bowl
with mashed banana and baby food might sometimes be waiting for him and he would wolf it all
down, not caring if wet hair got in his way, he was so famished.

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He lost all notion of how long he might have been held prisoner for. Hunger, thirst,
tiredness, dizziness from little sleep and the fear of the prod consumed his mind. When the prod
was used on him, the itching of the sores that sometimes appeared drove every other thought from
his mind and all he could think of was how to stop the nagging itching and soothe his skin.
After an eternity his jailers began to take him out of the cell for short periods, freeing his
ankles and later his wrists so he could shower, shave, take toilet breaks and put bandages and
medication on his sores. He had to beg constantly for permission to do this. If the jailers considered
that he was abject enough, they took him outside the farm building and into a yard to let him
exercise. The chickens pecking and scratching in the yard and the goats nibbling the grass stalks
would pause to look up and inspect the skeletal apparition shuffling around in circles with no
apparent aim.
One day, one of the jailers commented on his appearance. "You've lost a great deal of
weight."
He did not answer so she repeated her comment, this time very sharply. Quickly he said,
"Yes, I've lost a great deal of weight."
"You'll have to behave better and answer when you're spoken to", she said, "and if you
want more food, you must obey all orders. You speak when someone addresses you and you keep
your eyes on the ground. Is that clear?"
"Yes" he whispered.
"We have groups all over the country", she said, "and we're a very lenient lot here. If any of
our other groups had got you before we did, they wouldn't treat you half as well as we do. You're
very lucky here. We let you have a shower and exercise, don't we?"
"Yes, thank you."
It was good to know that the jailers cared about him. He must remember the woman's
advice and strive to do better.

Then the milking sessions began.

This was some time after the jailers started feeding him more food, this time food with
chicken and fish meat that could be chewed. They were exercising him more in the open air as
well. Then one day he was blindfolded and taken around and around the interior of the building. He
was then taken to a room and made to stand with his legs apart while someone rubbed his genitals
and collected his semen in a container. As he was young – the jailers had gone through his
possessions and discovered his age from his passport – the strange ritual took place about once or
twice a day, every day. When he was exhausted and lying on the floor, stinking of dried semen, he
would feel someone stroking his arm and hear one of the jailers talking to him. From experience,
he learned to associate that voice with the name Clio.

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"You're a good boy", Clio said, "you may get an extra helping of stew tonight. You are
doing the best for our group."
Heart-warming news, that. The greatest joy in his life was knowing that Clio was happy
and pleased with what he had just done.

Clio started to explain a little why he had been abducted and what she and the other jailers
– there were nine women keeping him in the building – had planned for him.
"We are one of many groups under a secret organisation called The Company of Nine. Our
goal is to save humanity from its own greed and destruction by creating a new kind of society
based on love, loyalty and respect for one another, our fellow animal and plant travellers and the
planet. To do this, we have to purge ourselves of all the old beliefs and attitudes we've all grown up
with. We live in isolation from Western society, we farm this land and we re-educate ourselves
about human nature and our relationships with one another. This is why we sometimes must do
things which may hurt you and cause pain and humiliation. It is part of your re-education so you
can be born into a new life."
Ah! The electric shocks, the kickings, the enforced starvation, the lack of sleep, the shame
of lying in his urine and faeces for hours and sometimes days ... yes, it all seemed to make some
kind of sense. Breaking down a person's old identity so a new one could be instilled and nurtured.
All these punishments had been necessary to make of him a new, improved human being. He felt a
lot happier than he had been since his abduction.
"And we are also creating a new species of human, one free from the poison of all known
societies, the cultural conditioning that makes us desire material things and pursue status and
wealth, which in their turn lead to pillage, violence and waste. That is why the milking sessions are
necessary. We need you to assist us. Do you understand that too?"
Yes, yes! He understood.
"I can't tell you much more about The Company. We can't risk having valuable secrets and
knowledge spread about carelessly by people new to our ways, people who could twist that
knowledge into rumour, destructive lies and hatred for their own selfish gain. Serve The Company
faithfully, obey all its rules, and eventually you'll learn more about we're doing and planning for
this small part of the world. Our example will gradually be the ideal that others will want to follow.
You will have your place in what we aim to achieve. That place could be the highest level in The
Company which is Communion with the Spirit Father. Then again, you might not rise at all, you
could just be a lowly foot soldier. That depends on your loyalty, your faith, your self-discipline and
willpower. Do you believe you can rise to that level and achieve Communion? I believe you can if
you have the will."
Yes, yes, yes! If Clio believed he could do it, then he would. He would do anything for The
Company. He would die if he had to. "Yes, yes, yes!" he blurted out.
Clio squeezed his hand and at that moment he was the happiest man in the world.

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His jailers gave him jobs around the farm: feeding the chickens and collecting their eggs,
milking the goats, mucking out the animals' sheds, tending the vegetable and herb garden. Clio said
these chores fell within the first level of training and serving The Company. If he performed these
jobs well, he would get occasional benefits such as an extra snack between meals or an undershirt
during the winter season. As his regular meals were rarely enough to sustain him even without the
physical work, his mind was preoccupied with performing his tasks to the extent the women
demanded of him and any thoughts of escape or otherwise thwarting his captors never occurred to
him. If Clio or the others found fault with anything he did – and that was often in spite of his best
efforts – they would punish him with the stick, cancel all his privileges and lock him up in his cell
for long hours with his hands and feet bound together. Later they would take him out to the scene
of his supposed crime and he would see the occasional smashed egg, the dead chicken or the hole
in the gate caused by his lack of attention or the lapse in his diligence.
According to Clio, there were nine levels of training and work that he had to undergo to
achieve Communion. Each level was much harder than the one below and few people had
advanced beyond the fourth level. It was common for people to drop back one or two levels if a
certain level was beyond their capabilities. "But I believe you can go all the way to the ninth level
if you try hard enough and harder again!" she told him, stroking his hair. "I have faith in you. Do
you have faith in yourself?"

One day his jailers locked him in his cell for half a day because once again he had left a
gate unlocked and some of the animals had wandered out. He thought he had locked the gate but
no, the jailers said the gate had been left unlocked and it was his responsibility, no matter who was
the last person to use the gate, to ensure it was locked. Now the ceiling light was burning down on
him, its harsh glare condemning him for his oversight. After several hours though, he had an
inkling that something was not right and Clio should have come and let him out. What was going
on?
He heard heavy foot-steps and strange deep voices outside the door. He rolled away from
the door and into a corner. Something definitely was happening. The door shuddered and then
convulsed violently. Someone outside was banging on it. It heaved and bulged repeatedly and then
– WHAM! The lock flew off and three large men in uniforms of varying shades of blue tumbled
into the cell, their caps flying off their heads in crazy directions.
"Holy shit!" one of the police officers cried when he saw the prisoner, "that girl was right –
there's that English back-packer who's been missing for three years!" He scrambled to his feet and
examined the frightened young man cowering in the corner. "It's all right, son, we're getting the
ambulance right away!"

During his stay in Oak Ridge's sole public hospital, the young man's mind roller-coastered
through nightmares and flashbacks that left him sweating and screaming at nights and unable to
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sleep for more than a couple of hours each time. During those times his heart pounded loudly until
it seemed ready to burst from his chest. He cried and called for Clio, he sucked his thumbs and
fingers until they blistered and needed bandaging, he curled up into tight little foetal balls and
urinated into the bed sheets. The nurses assigned to his care – and he went through many – aged
faster in the weeks they had to work with him than they had done in the years they had worked in
the hospital before his arrival. His parents flew out from London and raced to the hospital. They
wept to see the pale skeletal stranger with the dull eyes, blank look and hollowed-out cheeks who
looked nothing at all like the son they thought they knew.
One day when he was resting in bed and his parents had left for a brief time, a police
psychologist came to visit.
"You are very lucky we found you in time", she told him after some polite conversation
about the weather, his family and how the nurses were feeding him. "We had known for some years
there was a strange group operating in these parts, kidnapping young men like yourself, especially
if they were backpackers or travellers with no connections to this area. But we never had any leads
to go on and the men were never ever seen again. That was until the last couple of months when
one of the women involved in your abduction contacted us."
"What?" He half-rose from his bed.
The woman nodded. "One of your abductors contacted us on the sly and told us what her
group was up to and what they were going to do to you. Did they tell you anything about a
communion?"
"Um – yeah." He frowned. "They said something about Communion with the Spirit Father.
"Immediately he felt guilty. He gulped and licked his lips.
"It's all right, it's nothing to be frightened about." The psychologist patted him on the hand.
"Are you able to say anything more about what they told you?"
"Um – they said it was the highest level of achievement after someone goes through nine
levels of work and training."
The woman nodded. "Ah yes – that was to take you into their confidence so you would
work for them and want to stay with them. And the stories they told you about other groups like
theirs – those were to intimidate you so you wouldn't try to escape. Not that you could, in the
condition they kept you in. But they did have something in mind for you once they had no more
use for you."
"They did?"
"They would have taken you to a hill-top, tied you to a stake on a pile of wood and then
they would have waited for a storm so a bolt of lightning would hit you and you would burn. That
would have made you their sacrifice. That's their idea of Communion with the Spirit Father."
"Wha-a-at?"

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"They killed two other young men before you in that way. Both of them starved, tortured
and fed pseudo-religious propaganda just as you were. The women would sedate them and take
them to the top of a hill where they were gagged and tied to a pole and left during an electrical
storm. Later the women would come back for the bodies and dispose of them somehow." The
psychologist paused. "Do you know anything about ancient Greek mythology?"
"Uh – no. Why?"
"The women mentioned the The Company of Nine, didn't they?" He nodded so she went
on. "That's a reference to nine women called the Muses in Greek mythology. Their father was Zeus
the god of thunder and lightning. I've done a bit of reading in this area and I know that in some
European mythologies the god of thunder and lightning had a connection with hill-tops and oak
trees. And of course this area here is called Oak Ridge and there's a hill just outside the town called
Little Mount Helicon. It's named after the mythical Mount Helicon where the Muses lived by the
English settlers who came here to establish sheep farms. I hope I'm not boring you? This stuff is
really just a superficial cover for whatever this group was planning all along secretly. Are you
feeling all right?"
"No." He was starting to feel a bit sick in the stomach. "How – how did you know where to
find me?"
"The girl who contacted us gave us the location of the farm and your prison cell. So we
waited until she told us when to come – she said she would unlock a gate and get you in trouble so
you'd be put in your cell and out of harm's way when the police raided the farm. All the women
now except Thalia are in a prison in another town on charges of abduction, murder and illegal
possession of firearms."
He felt the insides of his stomach slowly start to turn around. "Thalia?"
"She's in protective custody at present. She admitted putting sleeping tablets into your
drink when they first brought you to the farm. The other two young men were drugged the same
way as you were. Do you need the bucket?" He nodded so the woman looked down on the floor,
found the bucket and gave it to him. While he retched and vomited into the bucket, the
psychologist got up and walked over to the window to gaze outside. When he had finished, she
went to the bathroom and got a glass of water for him. He used it to clean his mouth and spat the
water into the bucket. She took the bucket into the bathroom and then waited for him to wipe his
mouth with a tissue. "Are you OK now?" she asked kindly. He nodded. "You know, you needn't
feel bad about what you've been through. You've been starved, you've been subjected to sleep
deprivation, you've been shocked repeatedly, you've been forced to rely on your kidnappers to
survive. A lot of people wouldn't have been able to endure what you had to gi through. And you're
alive still." She patted him on the shoulder. "It'll take you a long time to recover from everything
you've had to go through."
"Yes," he mumbled.
"The trial may not start for another six months or so. Do you think you might want to
testify?"
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"Testify?!"
He must have looked and sounded very shocked because the woman started quite suddenly.
She studied his face carefully. "I don't suppose you fully believe everything I've said so far?"
He had taken in everything she had told him. He shook his head.

He didn't testify at the trial. He didn't even go to the court-house with his parents to watch
the trial. From what his family told him, the woman Thalia had led police to the grave sites of the
two young men and the prosecution had decided to rely on the forensic evidence their remains and
the graves themselves yielded. Thalia had also given the police the cattle prod and the hand-cuffs
that had been used on him. He didn't want to press any charges against his abductors. While the
trial dragged on and on, his puzzled parents flew him back to the UK so he could convalesce in a
clinic close to home. He didn't read, see or hear any reports in the news of the trial's progress and
refused to say anything when his mother told him that a guilty verdict had been handed down and
some of the women had been given ten years in jail. People told him the sentences were too light
for what they'd done but he stayed blank-faced and tight-lipped.
He stayed in the clinic for several months while his family set about reconstructing his old
life for him. After he left the clinic, he worked as a packager at a hardware store operated by a
friend of his father's until he saved up enough to study part-time at a university. Working and
studying filled up his time and his family made sure nothing of his gap year was ever mentioned in
his presence. After several years of studying at the university and the physical work in the
hardware store, he got his degree and went to work at a large corporation in London. There he was
absorbed in the minutiae of his job tasks and scrabbling his way up, down and sideways through
the intricate system of friends of friends, contacts gained at the coffee bar and the urinals, the
guarded language of memos and emails, the coded pressure of handshakes and shoulder pats, the
shared glances over the tops of computer screens. After three years of this, the corporation posted
him to its Australian branch in Sydney where he met a pleasant girl with dark hair who soon
became his wife and the mother of a little boy.

Fifteen years passed.

He had to see a sick friend in Canberra so he decided to drive down there. He kissed his
wife and son good-bye after breakfast and set off. Once he had crawled out of the city's masses of
cars and trucks, he put his foot down on the accelerator firmly and his car began flying down the
freeway with a roar of raw joy. The countryside quickly became very familiar. He felt he was in a
different world. Funny, he had lived in Sydney all this time – what, was it more than ten years
already? – and yet he'd never been down to Canberra even once. There had never been any pressing
reason to go there: until his friend moved there for work reasons, he had never had any contacts
there, no family , no other relatives, and neither did his wife. Now that he was actually going there,
things seemed rather strange. He saw a road sign indicating Oak Ridge and for some reason he
decided to turn off the freeway and go down the road that would take him through the town and
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back onto the freeway. It would add only an extra 30 minutes to the trip. His friend was already
being cared for by his wife and their relatives and friends living in Canberra. Seeing how much
Oak Ridge had changed over the past twenty years or so would be a pleasant diversion in a trip he
really hadn't wanted to make and only did so because his friend was not expected to live much
longer and the wife had insisted he go "because he helped you so much at work".
On the way to Oak Ridge, he saw a car on the side of the road. A tall young man was
standing by the car with its front hood, watching a woman peer down at the engine. He decided
he'd pull up behind them and see if he could help.
"Hi there, you need any help?" he called out to them.
The couple looked up and saw him. "No, we're fine, we're nearly finished but thanks for the
offer." The woman smiled at him. Her hair was a sunny golden blonde colour and her eyes were
too stereotypically bright-blue. I've seen her before, he realised. Even her voice seemed very
familiar. Spicy ginger biscuits. Almost at once, his mind blanked out the memory of eating biscuits
with this woman. He blinked and when he opened his eyes again, the outlines of the round biscuits
were slowly fading from his vision. Seeing that the two didn't need his help, he smiled back and
waved, then began to move the car slowly past them. The young man waved to him. Funny, he
thought, the young fellow looked much like his own son, only taller, skinnier and more angular
about the face.
He drove into Oak Ridge. He passed the hospital which still looked much the same as it did
when he stayed there twenty years ago. This was when he had his ... mental breakdown during his
backpacking trip. The greyish-pink colour of the building stirred up an unpleasant memory of
talking to a psychologist. He cruised along the main street, found a parking spot and saw a café
nearby. A quick espresso would do. He went inside the shop, found a booth and placed his order
with the teenage waitress. While the coffee machine wheezed and hissed in the background, he
leaned back and looked over to the side. Two women in the booth opposite were talking and
arguing loudly.
"Damn! The radio said there'd be thunderstorms this afternoon. That means we can't go up
to Little Mount Helicon. Derek wants to take pictures of the town up there."
"Why do you both have to go there anyway?"
"Because the lady at the tourist bureau said that's the best place to get a view of Oak Ridge
town and the valley."
"Well, can’t you go tomorrow, when the weather might be better?"
"We can't, we have to be in Wollongong tomorrow. Today's the only day we can do it."
"What about another time? Why today anyway?"
"There can't be another time." The first woman looked around her then leaned over to her
companion and spoke in a lower voice. "Derek's doing this for research. He's been studying stories
about a weird religious cult that apparently used to sacrifice people on top of the hill. The other day
he was talking to some retired detectives and they did say a couple of people with connections to
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the cult did die up there but they wouldn't tell him any more because the cases were still classified
police archives. So he needs to go there ASAP before the police find out what he's doing?"
"Really?" The companion gaped. "That sounds incredible! I never heard of any cult here. I
knew there were some murders on Little Mount Helicon but I thought that's all they were, murders
by some whacko psycho nutcases. I never thought there was a cult involved."
"Well I guess Derek will still want to go up, depending on when the thunderstorm starts
and finishes but ..."
He strained to hear more of the conversation but the teenage waitress came by to present
the women with their bill and they quickly broke off their talk to haggle over the amount.

Twenty minutes later he was walking down the main street and he stopped at the
community information centre. He walked in and began to browse through the information leaflets
sagging on the rotating stand. He saw pamphlets on Little Mount Helicon and several other hills in
the Oak Ridge district. There were maps of walking tracks and photographs of birds and flowers
unique to the region. He began to stuff some of the Little Mount Helicon leaflets into his suit
pockets.
"Can I help you there?" He turned around and saw a woman, evidently the customer
service clerk, standing before him. "Or are you just happy to browse?"
"No, I'm OK browsing", he said quickly.
The clerk nodded and turned to go. "Oh, look at the sky! We're in for a major thunderstorm
this afternoon!" He turned to see where she was looking and already the dark grey clouds were
huddling over the hill-tops surrounding the town. Sparks of lightning could be seen flashing from
one cloud to the next.
He left the centre and walked back to the car. He got in and stared at the maps of the town
and the hills before him on the steering wheel. Memories, long dormant in his mind, were starting
to assert themselves before his eyes. He knew that blonde woman and that young man now. They'd
be going up to the summit of Little Mount Helicon this afternoon. That Derek, whoever he was,
would also be there. Quickly he tossed the maps aside and clipped on his seat-belt. At last he had
something to do, something to find out and settle. Going to Canberra could wait.

THE END

Approximately 5,880 words

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