Chapter 6

Patrick was visited again that night.

It was a very large serpent with multicolored scales.

“Are you the Rainbow Serpent?”

“No, little one. You could only see a bit of that one. Even Odin could hardly budge a coil. I am of this world, of the visible rainbow. The great one is of the heavens.”

“Are you bent on destruction?”

“Are you bent on violating, disrupting, besmirching? Should we erase this globe and try again?”

“I have no answer.”

“No. Several thousand of your years ago, Yahweh spoke to Noah. He spoke to Lot. Flooding cleansed part of the earth. Fire destroyed several towns. Over the past few years, fire destroyed part of your island. Flooding has restored parts of the rivers. Do you think your fellows will change?”

“I doubt it. Greed and self-interest rule.”

“So. Do I and my fellows destroy everything? Do we look on as you mar and deface our works?”

“Is it better if you destroy your own works? How can I answer if you have no answer?”

“That is well asked. Tell those of your government that there will be a shaking in the south-east. And another in the north-west. More rivers will flood their obstructions. The coal works will also flood. And insects will rise from the ground.”

“Very well.”

“Now sleep.”

Over breakfast, Rachel asked “Who will you tell?”

“Wyatt. And Representative Hammond. And Craig Ardler.”

“He will make sure the bands know.”

“I expect so. Perhaps I should tell the folks in Parramatta, too. And Sam. And Henry.”

“You could take out ads.”

“Not funny.”

“What do you think is meant by ‘coal works’?”

“My guess is that enormous mine begun in Queensland. There are a bunch of ‘impact reports’.”

“Bet they’re verbose and useless!”

“They usually are. But sometimes they’re quite informative. When I was at the Ministry years ago, I found that the reports were revealing – especially of the gap between theory and reality.”

“And reality always wins.”

Patrick looked on-line. “Here, listen: ‘A water monitoring strategy has been prepared. The strategy proposes the installation and monitoring of a total of 43 groundwater monitoring bores. The installation of 16 of these groundwater monitoring bores, located on PLs 191, 196, 223 and 224 has been completed and groundwater monitoring has been ongoing within the bores.’ That’s not going to mean anything up in Queensland!

“Look at the consequences of the Burrinjuck Dam. Even here in New South, the report over a decade ago said ‘The unnaturally cold water released from the dam, up to 10°C (50°F) colder than it naturally should be, is believed to have directly contributed to the disappearance of the freshwater catfish from the Murrumbidgee between Burrinjuck and Wagga Wagga.’

“So I’d assume the mining will pollute the water table and devastate the vegetation and wildlife.”

But ‘nature’ intervened. A previously unmapped aquifer was tapped by a test bore and the mining site washed out. Rachel read the newspaper article to Patrick.

“‘ ... with the flow depositing several items of machinery and tons of rocks into the Isaac River.’ Do you get that?”