A New World
Copyright© 2026 by Edward Douglass Patterson
Chapter 7: Australia Onboard
Prime Minister’s Office
Canberra, Australia
Wednesday, May 19, 1999
Ian Macphater, accompanied by his grandson, Willy Maclaren, was in Canberra to meet with Prime Minister Hunt. The meeting was scheduled to start at 10 a.m. After the phone conversation with Leslie, he discussed what he had learned with Willy, who had been surprised that his sister Beth would be staying in Texas. Ian arrived at the Prime Minister’s offices twenty minutes early, hoping to get in early to talk to the Prime Minister. He used that time and more sitting in the waiting room to organize his thoughts on the changes they would have to make. He wasn’t used to going into meetings so unprepared.Jimmy’s assistant is going to be surprised when Jimmy cancels the rest of his meetings. He would only give me an hour alone with Jimmy. I wonder how fast they can get Defense and the other ministers that I had requested here. The boys had wanted to go up the army chain of command to alert the military, but they finally agreed that we should work top down.
He glanced at his watch.Five after. Well, that self-important assistant is probably keeping Jimmy busy so as to delay the meeting. He was so insistent on knowing all about what the meeting would be about. The short description of the AJ Power Generator had been enough to get the meeting, but not the three hours that Ian had requested.
As the door to the office started to open, Ian heard the phone ring.
I guess Prime Minister Blake is using a hot line. One doesn’t usually hear the phone ring in the top guy’s office unless it’s a line for those that get direct access. Blake must feel it was important enough to stay up to 1 a.m. to call. I hope I can do as good a sell job as John Harvey did.
Through the door, he heard Jimmy Hunt yell, “Get Ian in here now.”
The chief of staff hurried over to Ian. “Mister Macphater, Prime Minister Hunt can see you now.”
Ian took another sip from the glass of water he was holding. He placed the glass down on the side table. He then picked up his briefcase and walked over to the open door. As he passed the man, he smiled and said, “Thank you.”
Before he could step inside, the outer door opened. It was the British ambassador and a military officer. They were both carrying packages.
“Sorry, Ambassador Dickens, the Prime Minister is busy.”
“John, let them through. Charlie sent them. Come back here and we will decide whom else we need for the meeting. Helen, clear my schedule for the rest of the day.”
They entered the office. Prime Minister Hunt was busy talking on the phone with Prime Minister Blake. He was busy writing down notes.
“OK, Ambassador Dickens has brought the packages and Ian has finally been let into my office.” Jimmy Hunt gave a hard look at his chief of staff, John Moore. “It’ll take a while to get things organized. Ian Macphater was only given an hour’s meeting with me. I expect he requested more, but that’s all he got. Now we have to scramble to get the people we will need for this.” He paused. “Yes, I realize he couldn’t come out and say what it was about. It’s good that they had such a direct contact with you. Well, I expect that it will take all day here. Give me a call when you have a moment in the morning, and we can have a more educated discussion on my end. And thanks for the call and the packages.” He hung up the phone.
He beckoned John over. “Sorry, if I sounded mad. This situation is unique. Ian couldn’t tell you how important this meeting is. Here is a list of the people that I want in the meeting.” He handed John one of the lists he had been writing. “Schedule the meeting for noon. No, make it one. Have lunch brought in at noon. Make it enough for everyone on the list. Tell them about the food and that we may be here into the evening. Use the large conference room. Inform everyone that the meeting is top secret. We will be having a follow-up meeting tomorrow evening. It will be a teleconference with Charlie Blake and his people. We will be co-coordinating with them.” He turned to Ian. “Do you have anyone else that you want in the meeting?”
“Dame Alice’s death caught us by surprise. I brought my grandson Willy. He has the best technical knowledge of those that I have available that are also privy to the whole thing.”
The British Military Attaché, Major Eric Lawson, interrupted, “Dame Alice Maclaren is dead?” He was visibly upset.
Ian turned to him. “Yes, she was electrocuted Monday morning. Did you know Alice?”
“Yes, my wife and I grew up in the village where she lived. Lisa went through school with her daughter Kim. I was two years ahead of them. I have known the Maclarens all my life.” Eric answered.
“Jess and the girls are holding up well. You may be able to give some added insight into what we will be discussing.” Ian returned to answering the questions. “My granddaughter Mary was to be our expert in setting up the windows. She isn’t set to return for another week.”
Jimmy Hunt barely followed some of what Ian had said. He could see that the others were completely lost. He turned to John. “John, I need you to get the meeting set up. You are included. I want your advice on what needs to be done. We will be reviewing the information Ambassador Dickens has brought. When you get things going, come back and we will fill you in on anything you missed. You will be in and out of here as we learn what is going on and think of whom or what else we may need.” He turned to Ian. “Where is your grandson?”
“He is in the lobby downstairs. I can call him on the cell phone if you will clear him to come up.” Ian answered.
“Do it.” Jimmy said. He looked at John. “Clear him to come up. Set up temporary top-secret clearance for Ian and Willy Macphater.”
Ian shook his head. “It is William Maclaren Junior. He should already have a top-secret clearance. He is a Lieutenant in the SAS reserve.”
Eric commented, “Sir William’s son.”
Ian nodded his head. “Yes, he takes after his dad and uncles.”
Jimmy looked at Eric, “Sir William?”
Eric answered. “Sir William Maclaren, formerly a Major in the SAS. The most decorated officer in the history of the SAS.” He turned to Ian. “I had forgotten that he had married your daughter.” He turned back to the Prime Minister. “He retired after being wounded in the Falkland War.”
“Yes, he is my head of security. He and Leslie are in charge of our efforts here, but they are in the US.” Ian added.
Jimmy nodded to John, who exited the room. “Now, I do think we have skipped introductions. Let’s do that, then we can look at the information that Charlie Blake sent us.”
For over an hour, they went through the papers and videos that had been sent electronically to the British Embassy. Ian, but mostly Willy, had to explain much of the information. Occasionally, an item was new to Willy, and he offered an opinion but told them he would have to think about it. Willy realized that they had not supplied full information to the government. He kept his comments short and to the point. He was unsure of the reason for supplying only selective information. He decided that his slow response at commenting on new information would be how he would handle the less than full information also. The final item they went over was the agreement with the British government. They took turns reading it aloud. During this reading, he realized what was going on. The document is talking about the one world that the public will be informed of and the three additional worlds that the governments would be exploring. There were more worlds that Uncle Jess and Marie were keeping secret. That was the main secret. That made sense since they had made no plans for exploring more than two worlds. The odds of having land on all five worlds at a location were one hundred to one. It might happen, but it would be stretching them thin to try to explore and colonize more than two.
The part that had Willy the most worried was the possibility of opening up in a volcano. We will have to find a way to open a window only at safe locations. The electrical current that Uncle Jess described ruled out planes for now, even if you could do it without running through something solid. You definitely didn’t want to open a window in flight and have a stream of solid matter move through the window and hit the plane. Siting the window would be harder than they had thought. How can they make it one hundred percent safe for the first opening onto a world? Uncle Jess’s idea of a quick open and close of the window might work, but it wouldn’t be one hundred percent safe. The phone call that grandfather had gotten had sounded like they weren’t worrying that much about siting the windows. It sounded like Brenda would be doing that in Texas. She was pre-med. What expertise did she have? There had been no additional equipment in the technical documents that Alyca had sent, so it was not a piece of equipment. That left only Brenda herself. Could she sense another world? They all could sense each other. Even his Macphater cousins had that ability. He knew that the Maclaren side of the family also had that ability. What if Brenda? Make that both of the twins could sense the other worlds. That meant that it was doubly important for Mary to be here for the windows. He needed to talk to his grandfather about this.
Ian had noted that Willy hadn’t been paying complete attention while they had read through the agreement. He knew that Willy had been following what they had been discussing; he was one of those rare individuals that could have two thought streams going at once. “Willy, is there something in the agreement that bothered you?” Ian asked.
“No, most of the ideas are sensible. The others are just policy. Those will adjust as we and then the Americans give their input. The part about making the windows safe for transit between worlds got me to thinking about what we needed to do. I was just trying to figure out how to open our first window safely.” Willy answered.
“Well, that’s important, but first we need to figure out what the government needs to do and why we should do it.” Jimmy said.
John looked at his boss. He was shocked at what had been said. “Jimmy, you don’t think the government should be involved in exploring a new world?”
“No, John. I am all for it. Nevertheless, by knowing why we should do something, we better understand what we should do and how to do it. Take the simple idea of sharing map data. Why should we do it? Germany won’t be affected by whether we have oceans, mountains, forests, or even a volcano in the Water world accessible from Canberra. By sharing the information, we build trust. We show we are planning to make use of those areas and thus we lay claim to them. By having the information public, our citizens will know how and where to go in the Water world to explore and stake a claim. We share our information and get back much more in return.” He turned to Ian. “Ian, I understand your interest in going and claiming some mining sites, but this is more than minerals. This should be for all people.”
Ian and Willy laughed. “Jimmy, we plan to have over ten thousand colonists settled within two months. We have been screening for people that we believe would be good colonists and would want to move to a new world. That is the hardest task that we have had. The second was the equipment to move the material we will need to a new world. The windows are just big enough to walk through. We will definitely not be able to drive a truck with supplies through a window. We modified our ore moving equipment to move material through the window. Once we knew how we would do that, we designed what we will be moving through the window. We have buildings that we can move in pieces through a window in under an hour. These are prefab buildings that can be set up on a minimally prepared site since we will not have heavy equipment. There were a number of things like that we needed to design without telling people about the other worlds. Luckily we had S-I in England and TDI in Texas working with us. We divided up what needed to be designed and then shared the designs.” Jimmy had raised his hand as though to stop Ian’s comments. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off like that.”
“No, I apologize for thinking that you are in it for the mining claims. You and your family are planning to colonize.” Jimmy said.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.