Cloud of Universal Light - chapter 1 At nightfall, on the third day of their negotiations, the company executive and the two feuding union leaders finally reached an agreement. This ended the demarcation dispute that had stopped work on the mine. Thirty hours of table-thumping, and they'd reverted to the status quo. The Amalgamated Miners Union would continue to cover the below-ground workers, plus those who drove vehicles over 34 tonnes gross weight, while the United Mineworkers of Queensland would cover surface workers and drivers of smaller vehicles. It would all flare up again in a year's time but, for now, peace had been achieved. Tomorrow morning, the 300 men (and a few women) would be back at work in the nickel mine.
To celebrate the agreement, the two union leaders - who in private life were good friends - had invited the company man down to the bar of the grand century-old hotel, the neutral territory where they'd negotiated away the last three days. In the dark, fusty bar, they shouted each other round after round of the bland local beer, discussing politics and corruption. The more they drank, the more they agreed: the old hard-left AMU secretary, the young right-wing QMU man, and the middle-aged executive - who claimed to equally despise all politics. The unionists, nodding at each other, agreed not to question this ridiculous statement.
On a shelf high above the bar, a TV set was going. Most of the night it showed horse-races and football matches. Everybody ignored it. But when the late news came on, everybody in the bar stopped talking, to concentrate on one item.
It was the leader of the newly-formed Haters' Party: Richard Hamilton, a big-boned man with thinning yellow hair and a cynical grin. "So what are your policies?" an earnest female reporter asked.
"Policies!" he snorted. "We don't have policies. We just hate everything - and that includes you." He thrust a fist in the reporter's direction. As she shrank back in fear, he grinned.
"Bloody bunch of fascists," the AMU man commented.
"They're a joke," the QWU man added. "I don't know why anybody takes them seriously,"
"Shhh!" said the handful of others in the bar.
"Mr Hamilton, what's your relationship with the 1957 Movement?" the reporter asked.
"They hate everything that happened after 1957. So do we. But they think everything that happened in 1957 was great. We think it stinks!" Richard Hamilton roared with laughter.
"I remember 1957," said the AMU man. "The year I started work. Bloody dangerous times - but happier, in a way."
"I wasn't around," said the QWU man.
"I was!" said the executive. "Just! That was the year I was born."
"So you should join the Movement, Bram," said the QWU man.
"That bunch of idiots?" said the executive. "No bloody fear!"
Suddenly it was 11 p.m. The bar was closing. In the Queensland outback town, the night life had just come to an end. The union leaders stumbled up the creaky stairs to their rooms, and the executive stepped out through the gothic-style front doors.
The winter night was cool and still, and for a full minute he stood in the colonnaded porch, at the top of the hotel's front steps, surveying the main street.
Feeling decidedly wobbly, he clutched the brass handrail with one hand and his briefcase with the other. He was scanning the street for his rental car. At this shockingly late hour, only three vehicles were parked in the street. Two near-identical cars, and a van.
The only thing he could remember about his rental car was that it was grey. In the purple glow of the street lights, everything looked grey.
Is my car the whitish-grey Falcon over the road, behind the van? he wondered. Or the bluish-grey Falcon down the street on this side?
There was another possibility, he realized: that his memory was playing up again, and his car wasn't grey at all. His memory had been giving trouble lately. He'd bee forgetting the names of common objects, and of people he'd known for years. I've been working too hard, he told himself.
This was his nineteenth straight day of work. It was no picnic, being a Human Relations Manager.
As he cast his eye back and forth between the two cars, comparing them, he noticed somebody sitting in the van parked opposite. Waiting to collect the barmaid, perhaps.
I'll try the car on this side, he thought. If the keys work, it's mine.
As he crossed a side alley, a man came forward from the shadows and stood almost in front of him. The Human Relations Manager stopped, a little afraid. The other man spoke, in a croaky, whiny voice - a loser's voice. There was nothing to fear. "Got a couple of bucks for some smokes, mate?"
"Sorry, mate!" he snapped, and strode on. The old man slunk away. Probably aboriginal. It was hard to tell, in the dark.
Now, at his car, he fumbled in his pocket for the keys. He dropped them. Though he managed to successfully open the driver's door, he bumped his head on the doorframe while climbing in. He cursed, slamming the door, blaming the beggar.
Across the street, somebody in the van observed his unsteadiness.
He could, of course, have taken a room at the hotel where the negotiations were conducted, but he liked the illusion of getting away from work. This peculiarity of his was fortunate for those who watched him.
When the executive arrived back at his motel room, he tripped on the front step. He wasn't used to drinking so much beer. In fact, he hated beer, but to keep the respect of the unionists, you couldn't afford to look weak - and the climate here in north Queensland somehow made beer more drinkable. He was so tired, all he wanted to do was sleep.
Slamming the flimsy outer door behind him, he headed for the bathroom. In a hurry to relieve himself, he didn't notice that the bathroom door was almost closed when he entered. Nor did he notice any faint scuffling sounds, as he pushed the bathroom door open with his palm, and ran his hand over the wall, in an unsuccessful search for the light switch. He remembered that it was in some unlikely place, not next to the doorway. Too bad, he thought, unzipping his fly - a street light shining through the high window behind him faintly illuminated the toilet bowl.
Just as his flow was reaching its peak, a polite voice behind him said "Mister Bram Thorzin?"
"Shit!" he muttered, whirling his head around. He felt terribly vulnerable, caught in this position. Though he had a vast amount of beer to void, his urination stopped instantly, almost in fear.
A neatly dressed woman stepped out from behind the shower curtain. She was holding a black notebook.
"Bram Thorzin?" she repeated.
"Yes, that's me," the man said, recovering from his initial shock. "What the hell are you doing in here?" If he'd been sober, he'd have been furious that she was hiding in the bathroom, spying on him as he pissed, but in his befuddled state he wasn't so easily surprised.
He zipped himself up rapidly, remembered where the switch was, and flicked the light on - but it didn't work. The bulb had gone.
The woman must be from the motel management, he guessed: she knew his name and had got into his locked room. Whatever did she want, jumping out at him like that?
"Bram Thorzin!" she repeated, almost ecstatically. "I've been dying to meet you for years."
"Me?" he said, puzzled and suspicious. "Why me? Who are you, anyway?"
"My name is Indigo," she said, bringing forward her notebook and a pen. "Mister Thorzin, may I have your autograph, please? It's all I ask of you. I'd be honoured."
"Well, I guess so," said the executive, as she shepherded him out into the light of the bedroom. All he wanted to do was get rid of her. She was Chinese-looking (though with a strong Australian accent), in her early twenties, wearing a white blouse and navy-blue skirt. She had round black-framed glasses, which didn't do a lot for her earnest, spotty face.
"I've never written an autograph before," he said, taking the pen she offered. "How do you want it - just the signature, or some sort of comment as well?"
Curious, he turned back a few pages, to see how previous autographs had been done, but her hand shot out and grabbed the notebook.
"I'm sorry. Those pages are private. Just the signature, for now, thank you." She laid the notebook down on top of a chest of drawers, one hand clamping it open at the blank page.
"What do you mean, for now?" he asked, completing the signature. He was trying not to breathe beer on her; she seemed so proper, and so young.
As he handed the pen back to her, another figure silently emerged from the shower cubicle behind him. He saw a white cloth pad appear in front of his eyes, and noticed a sickly smell.
In the few seconds before the anaesthetic overpowered him, he heard a polite young man, a great distance away, saying "We're genuinely sorry about this, Bram Thorzin, but you'll...."
They dragged the inert body onto the motel bed.
"Pooh!" said Indigo, smelling the breath. "Is that beer, Viddy?"
The young man was concentrating on preparing the injection.
"Probably. After all, he was in that bar for hours. Are you getting his clothes off, Indigo?"
"I'm TRYING to, but he's not co-operating. I'll need your help to get his pants off."
"Okay, remove his shirt first, but hurry. The chloroform will wear off in five or ten minutes."
"Oh bother, I've torn his shirt. But it's nearly off now."
"It'd be funny if he's not the right one," Viddy commented, swabbing the upper arm.
"I'm sure he is - the signature looked like the real thing." She took a much-folded photocopy and compared it with the autograph. "They're exactly the same," she said, exaggerating a little.
"But all that proves," said Viddy, not looking at her as he performed the injection, "is that this guy is the one from Brisbane. Here we go, Bram Thorzin. Just relax while I squeeze it in. That'll keep you under for a long time, I hope."
"What are you doing now, Viddy? Why are you putting his head on the floor? We have to take great care of him!"
"He won't feel a thing. Upside-down is the easiest way to get their pants off. One of the few useful things I learned in that stinking psychiatric ward."
"Hmmm," said Indigo, a minute later. "This is a rather big one, isn't it, as those things go? Not properly tucked away, and sort of untidy looking, too."
"Keep your eyes off that particular organ, Indigo - we don't want you getting ideas. It's the moles we need to check. They're meant to be on the right groin."
"Look! They're here! It's him! It's definitely him!" She crowed, delighted.
"Keep your voice down, or the motel people will hear us. It's him, all right. Just like the book says: three moles in a triangle."
Indigo bent down, and kissed the mining executive on his groin. "Our very own Bram Thorzin!" she whispered. "Viddy, he's come to us at last."
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