---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Old Valley Road Hotel.
By Wombat. ------------------------- Any constructive comments are appreciated. I'm at 'bungala_wombat@yahoo.com.au'. ------------------------------------ Chapter 7 - 'A Rainy Day' Part 11. ------------------------------------
------------------------------------ Part 71: A New Community ------------------------------------
After Paul had become a superman, both Scott and Derek took part in Paul's education. They made many side trips in time that expanded the few days since Paul's uplift to supermanhood into a subjective time of many months. They did many of the things that Derek had done with Scott previously between Christmas and the New Year. Paul was an eager student willing to learn all he can. He even managed to master the cryptoscopic sense. He was impressed by Derek's wisdom and knowledge.
After they had returned to the normal time-line, Derek bought Paul a big second-hand Honda flat six cylinder motorbike, a Valkyrie or GL1500C. A long low slinky machine, it had been imported from the US. The six-cylinder engine would attract a lot of attention, particular as it had ape hanger handlebars, moderately discrete as they were in the Honda style.
People started arriving early in the New Year at the Old Valley Road Hotel from the Mount Remarkable Community to help start up a new community.
First to arrive was Lou along with Fox and the rest of his former street-kid gang members, Chainsaw, Red, Roo, Hambone, Razorback, Spanner and Butch. All eight of them were now supermen and Roadknights.
Chainsaw initially had been massively built but he had decided to reduce his size to about the same size and build as Peter Kursky whom he admired, 150 kilograms (330 lb.) and 190 centimetres (6'3"). All were riding big motorbikes.
Brenda drove over with them in a fawn Toyota Land Cruiser four-wheel- drive towing a covered twin-axle trailer packed with stuff for the new Valley Road Community. A lot of things were going to the Valley Road Community via Somewhere Else.
A couple of days later a second group arrived. This consisted of Elizabeth and Peter Kursky and two of their sons, Harold or Harry and Don. The German Shepherd Dog Hannibal belonging to Don also came with them. Elizabeth Kursky and the other women in the group took turns to drive the green Nissan diesel Patrol four-wheel-drive towing a covered twin-axle trailer full of stuff and also a white Toyota Land Cruiser. The group took with them Rex, the elderly German Shepherd Dog and Cleo, a German Shepherd bitch. The three dogs belonged to the Kurskys. They also took with them a six-month-old German Shepherd pup named Khan whom they were going to give to Scott.
Hannibal and Khan travelled in the Land Cruiser and spent virtually the whole journey from Mount Remarkable hanging their heads out of the rear passenger windows. Dribbles of dog spit left trails down both sides of the vehicle.
Rex travelled in air-conditioned comfort snoozing on the back seat of the Patrol. Cleo travelled with him. She was a mature bitch of nine years old. Her breeding days were over.
Peter and Elizabeth gave Scott Khan, the six-month old German Shepherd puppy. Scott was overjoyed to receive the puppy. He had long wanted one. He was surprised though by Khan's size. The puppy was a big dog, bigger than most other dogs in the town.
Scott decided not to tell his family that he had acquired a young German Shepherd Dog. His mother was not fond of dogs, especially big dogs. However, Khan was a dog bred by the Kurskys from Wray stock. He was a great-great-grandson of old Rex and he had an excellent temperament, happy, playful, friendly and outgoing. Scott was sure that Khan would win over most of his family with his lovely nature.
Also in the group were Wolf or Wolfram von Hohenstaufen, Jenny and Kevin Yates.
With them were Chris or Christian Wadnapanjarra and his son Gabriel, the son and grandson of Jim Wadnapanjarra who was the most experienced stockman living in the Mount Remarkable Community and a full-blood Aboriginal with the dark black skin that his son and grandson had inherited. The Wadnapanjarra family were careful to maintain their full-blood Aboriginal heritage as there were not many full-blooded Aboriginal people left. The clan was like a noble family.
With the Wadnapanjarra family members came Gabriel's current mate and recently uplifted Aboriginal superman, Marty.
Along with them also were Fiona and Doug and their young son Kieran.
With the second group arriving from Mount Remarkable were another two men. One was Abdullah Malik, who was the Australian-born son of refugees from the Iraq of Saddam Hussein. Two of his uncles had been murdered by the regime's henchmen and Abdullah's father was warned by friends that he too was in danger.
Abdullah was big at 195 cm (6'5") and 170 kilograms (375 lb.) of solid hard muscle. Aged in his late twenties, he was born and raised in Sydney and had been living in the King's Cross House until he moved to the Mount Remarkable Community several years ago.
The other was Hung Lo, the Australian-born son of Vietnamese refugees who had fled to Adelaide in South Australia from the military regime of President Nguyen Van Thieu in South Vietnam when his politician great-grandfather, also Hung Lo, was imprisoned and died in custody in mysterious and suspicious circumstances. US Senator George McGovern had characterised Hung Lo Senior as the last true democrat in South Vietnam. Hung Lo was also named after his illustrious ancestor the rebel Vietnamese general who drove the Ming Dynasty Chinese overlords out of Vietnam in the fifteenth century AD and became Emperor of Vietnam.
Hung (pronounced 'Hoong') was taller than the average Australian man at 185 cm (6'1") and weighed in at 130 kilograms (287 lb.) again of solid hard muscle. He was much bigger than the majority of his countrymen. His relatives in Adelaide put his size and powerful build down to the healthy Australian diet.
Hal came with the group to stay at the new Valley Road Community for a while in order to give any advice or assistance necessary. All the men rode big motorbikes. With him came three of his sons, Mick, Peter and Tom.
Rory McPherson came with them too. Not only was he well versed in the art of building dry stone walls but he was an excellent mechanic very knowledgeable about motor cars. He was a man with many skills and abilities including woodworking, carpentry, gardening, brick-laying, cooking, metalwork, piano-tuning and others.
Doctor Vera Schwarzenberg also arrived with the group. She had trained originally at the Vienna School of Medicine (now the Medical University of Vienna) in the early 1920s before World War 2. She practised medicine in Vienna under the Nazi regime and, because of her Austrian aristocratic and very non-Jewish lineage, was able survive the Nazi purges of her profession. Her grandfather was the Prince (Fuerst) of Schwarzenberg with extensive lands in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) and Franconia in Germany during the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a girl and a teenager Vera herself had been a princess. She had been regarded as very bold and unusual for studying medicine by many in her extended family. She, her grandfather and all her extended family kept their princely titles until all titles were abolished by the government of the new Austrian Republic after World War 1.
All of Vera's Jewish colleagues and friends were transported off to concentration camps and very few survived to return. In the process she developed a profound revulsion from everything that Nazism stood for.
The fact that her Jewish colleagues were now regarded as 'Untermenschen' (subhuman) angered her and horrified her. Suddenly Jews were regarded as no longer fit to be in human society and therefore were transported off to the 'Konzentrationslager' or 'Vernichtungslager' (concentration or extermination camps) to die in their millions.
She remembered vividly that day in March 1938 the 'Anschluss' (Annexation) took place and Austria was incorporated into the 'Grossdeutsches Reich'('Great German Reich'). She remembered watching from the window of the hospital where she worked the passing parade of goose-stepping German soldiers marching through Vienna down the Ringstrasse (Ring Road) with Adolf Hitler doing his effeminate version of the Nazi salute while standing in his six-wheeled Mercedes Benz surrounded by SS men and German soldiers. Her heart felt heavy as she watched the large crowds waving their Nazi flags and cheering Hitler with unbridled enthusiasm. Those people cheering their hearts out in the Ringstrasse appeared to regard Hitler as their saviour, their messiah.
Vera had completed her training as a specialist physician and she had continued working in the hospital where she trained while building up her private practice. She herself was training doctors to become specialist physicians.
Standing with her at the window watching the parade of German soldiers was young Hansl, one of her trainees.
"Dreadful, isn't it?" he commented. "It's a dark day for Austria. 'The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.' Plato said that. And it is happening before our eyes."
Someone in the cluster of doctors cheered Hansl. Vera felt acutely uncomfortable but she said nothing.
After the 'Anschluss', Vera's Jewish friends and colleagues started disappearing. It was rumoured that all Jews were being rounded up by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps.
Some months later Hansl disappeared. Vera never saw him again. She heard many rumours that Hansl had been arrested by the Gestapo. Some said that he was tortured and sent to a concentration camp where he died from his injuries.
She had a nasty fright when she returned to her office after a request broadcast through the hospital public address system. When she went into her office, she found waiting for her two men in grey trench coats who showed her badges with Nazi insignia. They addressed her as 'Your Highness', a title that had not been used since the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire two decades previously. She found that intimidating. They questioned her closely about her relationship with Hansl and her Jewish friends and colleagues who by then had almost all disappeared. She declared vehemently that her first priority was the care of her patients and her second was the training of her charges to become good physicians. She declared that she was not at all interested in politics. After more than two hours of intense questioning, the two men left her with a warning not to associate with undesirable persons and to report anyone with anti-Nazi sentiments.
Vera was uncomfortably aware that she had narrowly avoided being arrested by the Gestapo agents for she was sure that was what the two men were.
Hansl's words on the day when Hitler paraded into Vienna hung heavily in her mind for many years. She realised that there was at least one Nazi informant amongst her trainees. She resolved to be very careful.
The following year she was accosted by one of the men one Sunday in Stephansplatz near Saint Stephan's Cathedral in Vienna. She had just been to Mass at the cathedral. He showed her an official-looking badge with Nazi insignia. He addressed her as 'Your Highness' and asked her to accompany him to a coffee shop nearly. He said they needed to talk. Over a cup of coffee he asked her why she had not reported anyone to the authorities for anti-Nazi sentiments. She replied tartly that she never listened to gossip and she was aware that some people said the most dreadful things about others. She did not wish to condemn a person to the concentration camps merely because someone had a grudge against that person. The man laughed and said that Vera was a real aristocrat.
Vera never married. Somehow her deep revulsion against Nazism overflowed onto men in general. Nazism seemed to her such a deeply masculine male-dominated thing riddled with sadism and savagely repressed homoeroticism. Homosexuality was so savagely repressed that two men kissing or even holding hands in public were likely to be arrested and transported off to a KZ (concentration camp) and almost certain death after a farce of a trial. It appeared to Vera as a case of gross reaction formation. It was rumoured and she found out for certain many years later, man to man sex was common in the SS.
She was convinced that there was something definitely queer about Adolf Hitler. He was such a primping posturing poseur.
Not long after the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and the outbreak of World War 2, she was courted assiduously by a young SS officer, an 'SS-Obersturmfuehrer' (SS first lieutenant) who would not take no for an answer. Vera was surprised by his advances because she was forty years old and about fifteen years older than he was. Her only retreat from his persistent wooing was to busy herself in the care of patients. She made herself so involved in the care and welfare of her patients that she ensured that she had no time for dalliances with men. However the SS officer used to catch up with her in the hospital cafeteria and insist that she have coffee with him. Other people noticed the SS officer being friendly with her and became wary of talking to her. After about six months the SS officer gave up on her.
More than a year later Vera received notification that she was to be awarded an 'Ehrenzeichen fuer deutsche Volkspflege' (German Social Welfare Medal of Honour) for her devoted service to the health and welfare of her many patients in her now large medical practice. After the award ceremony, the SS officer who had been courting her came up to her and said that the award was something for her to remember him by. He had been promoted to 'SS-Sturmbannfuehrer' (SS-major) and he was now married. His young blonde wife was with him and he introduced her as Ursula. Vera never saw him again afterwards.
Vera was sorely tempted to throw the medal away but she did not dare for fear of being arrested by the Gestapo. She knew she was being watched. It seemed that her every movement was being monitored. She felt obliged to wear the medal. When the war ended and Vienna was occupied by Allied armed forces, Vera was interrogated by some American soldiers. She gave the medal to a young American army sergeant for him to keep as a souvenir. He had been kind to her.
Vera migrated to Australia in 1949 and gained her qualifications to practise medicine in Australia. She was a general practitioner based at Melrose in the Mid-North of South Australia for many years. Her practice stretched south to Wirrabara and north to Wilmington. She lived in Melrose in a cottage at the foot of Mount Remarkable.
Then more than twenty years ago in the late 1970s she 'retired' to the Mount Remarkable Community near Melrose soon after it was founded. She too became superhuman. She gained a deep and profound holistic knowledge of the healing arts, both medicine and surgery. Even before she joined the Mount Remarkable Community she was using herbal medicines on those of her patients who consented willingly.
While Vera was still the general practitioner at Melrose, she came to know a woman in her thirties who had bought a house in Melrose at the foot of Mount Remarkable and lived in it. The woman was an artist. Her name was Sieglinde which immediately alerted Vera that the woman was of German extraction. They became friends. Sieglinde's mother Ursula came to stay with her and Vera was invited to Sieglinde's house for dinner with Sieglinde and her mother.
Ursula told Vera that Sieglinde was the daughter of a Nazi SS officer. Ursula had separated from him towards the end of World War 2 when she found out that he had a male lover who was a fellow SS officer. He told her that nearly all SS men enjoyed sex with other men and had other men as lovers. It was a common practice within the SS. That was just too much for Ursula who had to endure her husband's long absences because he was working in the concentration camps in Poland, which ones Ursula never knew. It turned out that Ursula's husband was the SS officer who had courted Vera so assiduously in Vienna all those years ago. Vera had been introduced to Ursula after her medal award ceremony in Vienna by the SS officer who had courted her all those years ago.
Ursula commenced divorce proceedings against her husband but by then the Great German Reich was being overrun by the Allied armies. Her husband ran off to Argentina with his boyfriend abandoning Ursula and his baby daughter Sieglinde in East Germany. Ursula managed to evade the advancing Russian armies and made good her escape with baby Sieglinde through what was then Czechoslovakia to Vienna. From there she migrated to South Australia, just about as far away as she could get from war-ravaged Europe.
Vera commented that Ursula had been used as a cover to convince people of the SS officer's heterosexuality. Ursula agreed. When the SS officer had courted Vera, she had harboured deep suspicions about his motives. She was at least fifteen years older than he was and she was a doctor of medicine from a very aristocratic Austrian lineage. There was no doubt that she was Aryan. Ursula said that at the time she herself was very young and innocent. She was completely overwhelmed by the handsome young man in his SS officer's uniform. She was eighteen when they were married and she was the daughter of a Ritter (Knight or Baronet) from an old Austrian noble family.
Many years later after Ursula had obtained a divorce through the South Australian courts, Sieglinde was contacted by her father who was living in Adelaide under an assumed name. If his presence had become known to the Australian authorities, he would have been arrested as a war criminal and deported to West or East Germany, Poland or even Israel. If he had been deported to Israel, he would have almost certainly met the same fate as Adolf Eichmann and been sentenced to death by hanging. He saw Sieglinde briefly and told her that she had grown into a fine woman. Sieglinde's father also told her that he had hidden a fortune in the toilet cistern of the house he had been renting. He had to leave Australia quickly because he feared that the police were after him but he gave all the money he had hidden to Sieglinde.
As soon as her father had left Australia to return overseas, he did not say where, Sieglinde went around to the house and found the money hidden in a large plastic bag in the toilet cistern. She and her mother took the pile of banknotes to a bank in Adelaide. The young bank teller was surprised by the mountain of damp banknotes heaped in front of him, forty million Argentinian pesos. He called over a more senior bank officer who looked at the two ladies sorrowfully as he valued the pile of money at twenty one cents. He did offer that they may be able to get more from a numismatic shop or a collector.
Ursula started laughing strangely as she said in German, "To you, my dear, your father is worth only twenty one Australian cents. To me he is worthless."
In the end Sieglinde and Ursula took all the banknotes to a numismatic shop in the central Adelaide business district where they were given four dollars for the lot.
Sieglinde had been married to an Australian man of English-Scottish descent but the marriage had ended in divorce. Their relationship started to break up when her husband criticised her choice of a career as an artist. They fell out of love. That was before the Australian divorce law reform in 1975. Her husband obliged by getting another woman pregnant and Sieglinde divorced him. She was unable to have children.
Hansl had stayed in Vera's mind ever since he had been disappeared in 1938. He struck her as a brave young man, truly a good Austrian German. Vera found out after World War 2 that Hansl had indeed been tortured to death by the Gestapo. After her interrogation by the American soldiers, she asked to find out what happened to Hansl and the Americans gave her access to the Gestapo records. She had read the horrifying account of his torture meticulously recorded by his Gestapo torturers. They accused him of being a 'homosexual', a 'Soldatentante' ('soldiers' aunty') and they wanted him to admit it and give the names of his lovers. Hansl refused. He said it was all lies and was tortured further. Bitter tears ran down her face while she read the account.
The torture to death of Hansl was one good reason for Vera to leave Vienna and emigrate to Australia. While she was the local doctor for Melrose, Wirrabara and Wilmington, she had erected a stained glass double window in memory of Hansl as a brave man martyred by the Nazis in the little Catholic church of Saint Augustine in Wirrabara. She was a regular worshipper at that church.
She felt an overwhelming sense of guilt at remaining silent during the Nazi occupation of her beloved Austria but she knew full well that she was being watched, the hospital was full of Nazi informers and that if she so much as put a foot out of line, she would have been whisked off by the Gestapo in the dead of night and thrown into a concentration camp. She probably would have been tortured too like Hansl and died. She felt that she was a coward but she really had no choice but to do nothing but attend to her patients and her students. Hansl was taken away and tortured to death by the Gestapo for a very minor infraction, a few words. But those words were enough to precipitate his fate. Even though Vera had made her confession to a priest at Saint Stephan's Cathedral and he had absolved her, her guilt and sense of shame stayed with her in some form or another the whole time right up to when as an old woman she went before the Lord God and pledged herself to serve Him for eternity. He absolved her completely of her guilt and bestowed superhuman powers upon her.
Vera told no-one of her guilt except the parish priest at Wirrabara especially after she arrived in Australia. Nobody in Australia knew of her feelings about Hansl until she had the stained glass windows erected in the church. Often she would use her key to enter the little church late at night, light a candle for Hansl and pray before the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She begged the Holy Virgin to intercede for Hansl. She would stay on her knees for several hours, only interrupting her prayers to light another candle when the previous candle went out. The dark church was lit by only the light from the one votive candle.
Much speculation swirled around the district about the mystery surrounding the local doctor who had arrived from a faraway foreign land. The mystery deepened when she had the stained glass double window erected in memory of Hansl. People speculated that he might have been her lover back in Vienna and they felt very sorry for her.
She made another confession to her parish priest. He absolved her but refused to impose any penance like the priest back in Saint Stephan's Cathedral in Vienna. He told her that she must make her peace with God herself. He had done all he could by granting her absolution.
Vera resolutely fended off all questions from fellow churchgoers. The priest made public his views that the memory must be very painful for Vera and people indulging in such speculation were exacerbating her pain and were committing unchristian and uncharitable acts.
It was not after she had become telepathic that she realised that the contents of her mind were open to all the other telepaths in the community at Mount Remarkable. They knew all about her. The initial shock caused her telepathic sense to collapse. It was with much love and support from her fellow community members that she was able to regain her telepathic sense and she went on to become superhuman.
Vera did not want normal people to know that she was over one hundred years old because they would have said that she was far too old to practise medicine. She had been born in 1899. That was one reason she departed from Melrose and came to Ringtail Springs. The people in the Melrose, Wirrabara and Wilmington district were speculating on just how old she really was because she was middle-aged when she arrived as the new local doctor in the mid-1950s.
Vera had her beloved Boesendorfer grand piano brought with her by one of her friends jumping with it through hyperspace to the old hotel that was now the community house. The piano was installed in the big reception room that looked out into the courtyard. Rory counted piano-tuning as of his skills so he tuned the Boesendorfer to Vera's satisfaction.
Andy Stewart or Scooter, the prior of the community house in King's Cross, Sydney, also came over for a temporary stay.
Derek proposed both Scott and Paul for membership to the Roadknights Motorcycle Club. There were no objections to either man. Both prospects were examined, found to be satisfactory and were admitted to the Roadknights.
Lovedeep Ramanujan decided he would walk all the way from the Mount Remarkable Community to the new Valley Road community. The old man ended up doing a random walk across South-Eastern Australia seeing much of northern Victoria and southern New South Wales. He started by more or less following the course of the River Murray upstream from Morgan. He had no planned timetable but he would end up walking about 2500 kilometres (1600 miles) before he fetched up in Ringtail Springs.
Walking the long distance with a backpack on his back, he morphed into a very fit, strong and muscular young man who appeared to be in his early twenties. He was a six-footer at 184 centimetres (6' 1/2") and 115 kilograms (250 lb.) with thick muscular arms. His upper arms measured 20 inches (51 cm.). He hiked without a shirt on, wearing just brief shorts and hiking boots with thick socks. He pulled on a T-shirt when the occasion demanded it like in a pub where shirts were mandatory.
With his extraordinary good looks, thick black curly hair, thick black moustache, eyebrows and long thick sideburns, skin of a rich golden tan, big soulful dark brown eyes and a chiselled, powerfully muscular body he was regarded as seriously hunky. He was the perfect paragon of masculine beauty. He travelled under the alias Lawrie Newton.
When he morphed, he celebrated his Indo-Aryan ancestry by using the looks that could have come from anywhere from England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece or eastwards through Europe, Turkey, Iraq and Iran all the way to the Indian subcontinent. People thought he might have some Australian Aboriginal blood in him. He spoke now with an Australian accent, having picked it up after his arrival from India.
In the middle of all these events, Scott had gone to check on his house and the welfare of the chooks. On the telephone was a message left the previous day from his father who asked him to ring him back as soon as he can. Max did not say what it was about.
Scott checked his father telepathically who was at Aunt Rosalind's place in Noosa. Max was on the balcony looking out over the sea with the afternoon sun on his back. He was mulling over all that Mick Shanahan had told him during his stay in Noosa and he was irritated that Rosalind had asked him why he was being so moody.
Mick had left Noosa the previous day on the long road trip south down the coast to rejoin his family at Bateman's Bay. He had arrived three days ago and he and Max had been having intensive discussions.
Scott rang his aunt's house for his father straight away. After exchanging pleasantries with his aunt, he was put on to his father who immediately said that he would go down onto the beach in front of the house and use his mobile phone to ring back. He did not want his bloody sticky-beak sister-in-law Rosalind listening in on one of the other phone extensions to the conversation he wanted to have with Scott.
Some minutes later Max rang Scott back from the beach. Scott could hear the waves of the Pacific Ocean crashing on the shore in the background.
Max was concerned about two things. Mick had told Scott everything about his affair with Max's brother, the involvement with Uncle Graham and Max's father dying of a heart attack shortly after administering a savage beating to Mick while Mick was still on crutches. He was also concerned that Scott had told Mick to travel the long distance up to Noosa and tell Max everything that he had told Scott. Max was perturbed that Scott knew that he, Max, knew that there had been 'something funny going on' between Mick and Max's brother Matt.
Scott replied that he had picked it up from the things Max had said within his hearing over the years.
Max asked Scott not to say anything to anybody, to keep these things a dark secret. He pleaded with Scott especially never to say a word to Max's mother.
Scott reassured him that he would never utter a word to anyone. He did not say that the other telepaths already knew but they could be trusted absolutely to say nothing to anyone outside the new Valley Road community.
Max was impressed that Mick was on the wagon and that Scott had got him to swear off the booze for the rest of his life. He hoped devoutly that this time was different because Scott was involved and that Mick would stick to his promise. However, he was cynical because Mick had sworn off the booze many times before and had always slid back into the drink again. As far as Max could remember, the longest that Mick had stayed off the drink was about six months and that was many years previously when Mick's wife Shirley had torn strips off him after a particularly bad bender.
It was a complete surprise when Mick turned up at Noosa in the morning and wanted to talk to Max privately. Max suggested they go down to the pub and have a few drinks while Mick told him what he had to say. Max was pleasantly surprised when Mick dismissed the idea out of hand because he had given up the drink for good. Max suggested that they go to a cafe instead where they could talk in private. Mick was happy with that.
When Max asked Rosalind if Mick could stay at the Kinnear residence for the duration, Rosalind refused point-blank to have Mick in the house. She was absolutely adamant that she would not have Mick nearby.
When Max asked her why, she looked at him with a hard stare and said, "Why do you think, Max?"
She would not say more.
Because of her refusal, Max put Mick up in a nearby motel.
When Max told Scott about this, Scott said, "Well, Dad, it's pretty bloody obvious why Aunt Rosalind didn't want Mick anywhere near her husband. Didn't Mick tell you about the sex Uncle Graham had been having with Mick and your brother before he got married to Aunt Rosalind?"
"Yes, of course," said Max.
"Don't you remember that Christmas all those years ago when we had all Mum's family staying with us back in Ringtail? And Aunt Rosalind got all strange and up-tight and they left in one hell of a hurry? She had that phone call from Shirley Shanahan when Shirley threatened blow Uncle Graham's balls off with a shotgun if he ever went sniffing around her husband again."
"Yeah, now that you mention it, I seem to remember something like that happening. It all seemed quite peculiar."
"Well, I was hiding under the telephone table when Aunt Rosalind got that call. I was hiding from Matt, my brother. I heard every word. Shirley must have been shouting over the phone because I could hear her quite clearly."
"You reckon that Graham still has the hots for Mick even after all these years?"
"Dunno, Dad. Hard to tell. I get the feeling that Uncle Graham has embraced celibacy."
Max laughed out loud.
"And Rosalind is as frustrated as hell," he said through his laughter.
"I guess Aunt Rosalind hasn't been getting it for years," said Scott with a laugh. "And she's bloody jealous of you and Mum, her little sister happily screwing away."
"As far as I'm concerned, that's tough cheddar for Rosalind," replied Max.
After that conversation, Scott told his father that he had moved out of home up to the old hotel on Valley Road. He reassured Max that he would continue to look after the chooks and keep an eye on the house. He would visit the house regularly like he visited his grandmother's house in Church Mews. In fact that was what he was doing that day. It was only a day since Max left the message on the answering machine.
One morning a couple of days later Jessica Hopton arrived from Mount Remarkable in her dark blue Ford Falcon station wagon after an easy hundred-kilometre (60 mile) drive from Wagga Wagga where she had stayed the night. She was a tall slim good-looking brunette aged in her mid-sixties but looked in her thirties. She had been a superhuman member of the community for nearly twenty years. She joined the community at Mount Remarkable not long after her husband was killed in a car crash leaving her with two boys in their mid-teens. Her two sons soon became supermen and Roadknights.
Jessica travelled southeast through Burra and Morgan to Berri.
With her in her station wagon travelled her two dogs, Jasper, a young Newfoundland and Ajax, a ten-year-old German Shepherd Dog, both males. Despite his age, Ajax looked considerably younger.
Nick Hannikainen arrived with Jessica. He rode his motorbike from the community house in Unley Park, a suburb of Adelaide where he had been living a few months after travelling down from Mount Remarkable. From Unley Park he travelled down the South-Eastern Freeway past Murray Bridge to Tailem Bend on the banks of the River Murray where he branched off onto the Karoonda Highway. He had a good high speed run on his powerful 1999 model Suzuki Hayabusa bike fanging along the winding highway up through the Murray Mallee through Karoonda, Sandalwood, Mindarie, Wanbi, Alawoona and Loxton to Berri. There were no police or any radar traps anywhere so Nick happily powered along doing about 180 to 370 kilometres per hour (110 to 230 mph). The road followed the railway line from Tailem Bend to Loxton most of the way. The Suzuki had been modified so that it went like a meteorite.
Nick caught up with Jessica at Berri on the River Murray where they had lunch together in a restaurant overlooking the river. They travelled together the rest of the journey along the Sturt Highway to Ringtail Springs staying at motels on the way. Jessica did not want to stress her two dogs in the hot weather, particularly her Newfoundland. The dogs were much happier with their heads hanging out of the open car windows so air-conditioning was not an option for Jessica.
Nick was actually an alien whose spaceship appeared off Earth over ten years ago before the spatiotemporal discontinuity (STD) sphere went up around the Solar System. The physics of the STD field was described by Doctor Richard Kelvin in his Unified Field Theory but it took a superman, Richard Kelvin himself, to create the reality of the STD field that provided a barrier impenetrable to all objects containing baryons (protons and neutrons). A superhuman could jump around it through hyperspace.
Peter Kursky flew up to investigate the spaceship hanging in space some distance from Earth. He jumped inside the spaceship crewed by two intelligent extra-terrestrial races, small solidly built blue- skinned 'kobolds' about 120 centimetres (4 feet) tall and their masters, small very thin gold-skinned creatures that had large black almond-shaped eyes in disproportionately large heads and were about the same height as the 'kobolds'.
When Peter appeared aboard the spaceship, the kobolds went into a panic, particularly when they discovered he was invulnerable to their weapons. Irritated by his reception, Peter located telepathically their more intelligent gold-skinned masters and jumped into the control area of the spaceship. With his telepathic sense he quickly downloaded their language and was able to convince the golds that he came in peace and will do them no harm. It was tricky for Peter to master even with his super powers because the golds spoke in very high-pitched tones, squeaking like mice. The golds were amazed that he could speak their language so well and were astounded by his abilities. They were astonished that such a primitive-looking creature should have such extraordinary super-natural powers. Peter gave them as much of an explanation as he felt free to.
Peter stayed on the spaceship for a number of days as they exchanged information. He offered to train one of the golds to receive superhuman powers and asked for a volunteer. This was a stiff challenge that Peter took on because the golds were much more difficult to train up than a human as humans were hard-wired to become superhuman.
Only one of their number volunteered. The gold was shorter than the average member of his race at about 100 centimetres (3'3"). He was regarded as an odd little abnormality by the other golds who despised him heartily and excluded him from their social activities. The result was that he was very lonely on the spaceship. His instructors on his home planet considered him an embarrassment who was probably mentally damaged, certainly 'different'. They got him on board the spaceship exploring the galaxy looking for new worlds to colonise. They hoped that on the ship he would learn how to be 'normal'. His name translated as 'Stunted Bush'.
Peter took the gold volunteer back to Earth and the spaceship went on its way. It took him many months to train up the gold but God had no hesitation in granting the gold super powers when the gold came before Him and pledged to serve Him forever. Belief in God or any supernatural beings was regarded as primitive superstitious nonsense in the gold culture but the volunteer had little difficulty in accepting the truth of the reality of God.
When the gold received super powers from God, he morphed into a big young human male but retained a small remnant of his alien looks. He grew to a full two metres tall (200 cm. - 6'7") with a weight of 200 kilograms (440 lb.) and a very lean and extremely muscular build. He had a dense shock of short straight thick golden blond hair that stood straight out like a brush from his scalp. The golden tan skin of his body below his head was completely hairless apart from a small neat patch of golden blond pubic hair. The skin was ultra-smooth with a very silky feel. He had big almond-shaped bright blue eyes with thick dark blond eyebrows and refined, almost faery features with high cheekbones, a high forehead and high cranium (brain-case). The finishing touches were a thick blond moustache and long sideburns.
He had very broad muscular shoulders with spectacularly well-developed trapezius and deltoid muscles, thickly muscled neck, deep broad muscular chest with big thick bulging plates of pectorals, spectacularly muscled back, huge long powerfully muscled arms (biceps measured 28 inches - 71 cm. flexed), a slim very muscular waist with a spectacular bulging eight-pack of abdominal muscle, narrow hips, very strong and well-rounded buttocks and long strong thick and very muscular legs. He had the build of a big, very muscular and powerful athlete like a superbly match-fit heavy-weight professional rugby player or boxer. He had such incredible muscular definition that one could see the striations in his muscles. His long powerfully muscled arms were covered in a network of thick veins. He had a truly eye- boggling physique.
Nick has been described as having a beautiful boy's head on a massively powerful he-man's body. He did retain the power to morph back to his original form but so far he had chosen not to.
Hal had taken a considerable interest in the gold alien being trained up by Peter. When the gold first morphed into a human being, Hal considered that the facial features of the gold cum human did not look quite human but he suggested refinements that turned the gold into an extraordinarily beautiful man but still with the almost faery looks with the high cheekbones and big almond-shaped almost Asiatic bright blue eyes that were almost too big and wide. Hal also suggested that in order to mix with normal human company and explain his looks, the gold claim Finnish descent and take on a Finnish name. He suggested the name Nikolaus or Niko or Nick Hannikainen and the gold alien accepted the name willingly.
Jessica had taken Nick under her wing and showed him the finer points of being human. In other words she was one of the main people to bring Nick up as a decent human being. Peter and Hal helped in being father figures and especially in teaching Nick the arts of manhood.
When the STD sphere was put in place to protect Earth from the Perfect Soldiers, no spaceship could enter the solar system unless a superman came on board and jumped the ship around the barrier through hyperspace. No space-faring civilisation had developed the capability or technology to jump through hyperspace in the sense that superhumans could do it.
The faster-than-light (FTL) drive used by Nick's people was a kind of hyperspace drive but if a spaceship using that drive had hit the STD sphere, it would have been thrown straight across the sphere without going inside it and would have appeared out the other side. It would have been as if the STD sphere and everything inside it was not there at all. It was as if the sphere had been folded into nothingness.
The Perfect Soldiers used a kind of tachyon drive in their spaceships as their FTL drive. If one of their ships had hit the STD sphere, it would have been reflected off in a direction random in space and time. It did have the advantage of faster speeds than the FTL drive used by Nick's people.
If a ship travelling in normal space at near light-speed had hit the STD sphere, the same thing would have happened as with the FTL drive used by the golds. The ship would instantly traverse the sphere to the other side. The ships of the Perfect Soldiers often travelled in normal space at very high speeds, particularly the warships.
Because the centre of STD sphere was fixed on the Sun, it was totally impossible for any spaceship to move the sphere against the two quadrillion teratonne mass of the Sun.
In any case, no ship from Nick's home civilisation returned to the solar system to look for him. In the meantime the golds and their kobold allies had several skirmishes with the Perfect Soldiers who appeared to be intent on expanding into the golds' territory and subjugating the golds.
Nick was quite happy, very happy in fact. He was thoroughly enjoying life with his superhuman company on Earth. He thoroughly enjoyed lots of sex particularly with other men. He revelled in being fucked as well as fucking. He was not in the least bit inclined to return to his home civilisation. He was not at all homesick.
Derek had befriended Nick when Derek had come over to Mount Remarkable with Hal and they enjoyed lots of sex together.
When Scott met Nick, he remarked that Nick reminded him of Kake, a character in the works of Tom of Finland.
Nick felt complemented.
Most people laughed but Brenda had to have a quick telepathic explanation. She saw the funny side too.
Nick came back with a remark that Scott reminded him of the big horny biker with black curly hair and long sideburns in Tom of Finland comics but with extreme huge muscles, much, much bigger muscles than any of Tom of Finland's characters.
He promptly wrapped his big arms around Scott's neck and planted a luscious kiss on Scott's lips. Scott responded eagerly. His cock stiffened.
<+ I need and want a fuck with you really desperately right now +> came from Nick as his cock stiffened in sympathy.
Jessica: << Nick, you're impossible! You're always randy! You're absolutely obsessed with sex. You've become quite a sex maniac. >>
Nick: << Are you surprised after forty-five years of complete asexuality? My people never had sex at all. In our culture sex did not exist. Our kind are reproduced from approved and certified germ cells kept in storage and we are grown from artificial wombs. You could say we came out of a bottle. You humans have heaps more fun having really beaut sex. I so much love being a human male and so thoroughly primitive, yet so awesomely exalted and powerful and enhanced and having way too much sex. >>
Jessica: << I think, Nick, you've become altogether too human! >>
Nick looked at her and beamed. << I take that as a real compliment. Thank you, Jess. >>
He had become a joker and a prankster intent on stirring up a lot of fun and laughter. He was an exuberant rebel anything but sedate.
Derek remembered hearing about some of the memorable pranks Nick had played.
One day years ago when old Rex was a young dog, Nick put the telepathic suggestion into Rex's mind that the German Shepherd Dog could shove his muzzle down the cleavage between Jenny's ample breasts. Rex did so to much laughter. Jenny fondled Rex's head and said "You nuggly old thing." Then she kissed him on the nose. Rex enjoyed all the close attention.
Rex went on to do the same trick with other women but with a mixed reception. Rex learned to differentiate superwomen from normal women and tended to leave the normals alone.
One day though, Harry Kursky took Rex in the back of his utility to the beer garden of the Mount Remarkable Hotel in Melrose. Rex went up to a normal woman at random and shoved his muzzle down her cleavage. The woman, who was drunk at the time, loved it. In fact she wanted to take Rex home with her. Instead Harry promised the woman one of the puppies from the next litter that Rex sired. Peter and Elizabeth Kursky were connected telepathically to their son. They were not happy with Harry's promise but decided they would honour it. Pretty soon many of the women were competing for Rex's attention. When one of the men with the women tried to restrain Rex, he got soundly abused by the women.
Nick was not there at the time but much amusement was had by the Roadknights present.
Another day a couple of years ago, a young normal man who had arrived at the Mount Remarkable Community not long before, was sitting in the common room chatting with some young normal women. He and the young women were all attending one of Hal's courses. His coffee had gone cold.
Nick walked past and created a large wolf spider in the young man's half-empty coffee mug.
The young man picked the mug to take a drink from it and the huge spider crawled out of the mug onto the man's hand. The man screamed loudly and threw the coffee mug and the spider across the room. In doing so his chair fell over backwards, the young man rolled off backwards and ended up face down on the floor behind the chair. The young women rolled around in their chairs screaming with laughter. Tears of mirth rolled down their faces.
Most of the other people in the room were laughing too. However the young man was red-faced with embarrassment as he picked himself up from the floor.
Jenny saw the whole thing.
"Nikolaus!" she boomed across the room. "Did you put that spider in Travis Maginty's mug?"
Nick reddened a little and admitted the prank. The young women said it had been a wonderful prank. It had been way too much fun to watch.
"Well, Nikolaus, you should apologise to Travis for pulling such a dreadful prank on him," Jenny boomed in her stentorian voice.
Nick apologised to Travis. He did so in such a charming manner that Travis took an instant liking to Nick, who reinforced the strong attraction with mind glyphs. Travis even saw the funny side of the prank played on him.
As soon as Hal's course was finished, Travis decided that he would take Hal's teachings further and seek to enhance himself in order to serve God well. He asked Nick to be his tutor as he admired him and was very much attracted to the mighty and beautiful blond muscleman with the huge muscles. He started thinking about sex with Nick. When Nick did fuck him, Travis found it truly mind-blowing. It was the most wonderful experience he had ever had in his life. Nick switched on the telepathic sense in Travis's brain very quickly and in little time Travis has become a superman and a Roadknight. Travis acquired a lean, very strong and muscular build but stayed the same height of 188 centimetres (6'2"). He weighed in at 130 kilograms (287 lb.). He had bright blue eyes and dark brown curly hair. He grew a moustache and long sideburns of the same colour.
Jessica liked to tell the story about when she and Nick were walking together along the banks of the River Torrens in Adelaide. Jessica looked about the same age as Nick, who was wearing a close-fitting white t-shirt, faded blue jeans and big yellow work boots. A group of young men accosted them. They started taunting Nick about his looks, calling him 'Pretty Boy', 'Sweetie Pie' and worse. One of the young men came at Nick rapidly swirling one handle of nunchucks around his head. As he approached he said that he was going to mess up Nick's 'pretty face real good'. He swung the stainless steel handle very fast at Nick's head. Nick grabbed the handle and tore the other handle out of the young man's hand. He ripped the two handles apart breaking the steel chain and then tossed the two handles and chain across the river when they splashed down in the water near the opposite bank at Pinky Flat.
The young man looked on struck dumb with horror as he watched his precious nunchucks sail across the river and splash down into the muddy water on the other side.
One of the other young men came up to Nick. "Those nunchucks cost me mate an awful lot of money," he said angrily.
"Tough," rumbled Nick puffing his chest out and tensing his muscles as he stared down at the man. He looked huge and monstrously strong. He continued, "Doesn't your mate know nunchucks are illegal in this state? In fact they're illegal anywhere in Australia. If the cops caught him with them, he could go to gaol."
He telepathically directed the young man's attention to the Roadknights insignia on his t-shirt bulging out over his left pectoral muscle. The man's eyes widened with fear when he saw the insignia.
"Oh fuck!" he muttered and backed away.
He rejoined the group and muttered, "That guy's a bloody Roadknight."
They all looked at Nick with mingled respect and fear.
"Shit! And Stiffy's still alive!" exclaimed one of the other men.
The group moved away looking back fearfully at Nick and Jessica.
Nick looked at Scott. << Let's go do it, big fella. >>
Scott thought of his bed and Nick thought that was a great idea.
Paul was jealous. Scott was surprised because Paul had already been having lots of energetic sex with Hambone, Red, Razorback and Butch.
Scott suggested that Paul make up a threesome with him and Nick.
Nick looked Paul up and down lasciviously.
Nick: << Ooh yes please, you too, you gorgeous big blond hunk. Love the huge muscles like Scott's! >>
Both Scott and Paul were barefoot wearing just a pair of brief stubbies or workmen's shorts. Nick was still in his Roadknights gear.
Paul readily agreed to make up a threesome. The three men jumped through hyperspace into Scott's bedroom.
Scott created a checkpoint on his bedroom so no matter how much of a mess the three of them made, Scott could easily restore his bedroom to its former state.
The three men rapidly shed their clothes and jumped onto the bed.
Paul knew that Nick intended to give him a very rough fuck. He switched off his invulnerability completely so that he could really be stimulated by the pain and pleasure of rough sex. Nick did similarly but reduced his invulnerability to the level he could feel the pain but still maintain his bodily integrity.
Paul lay on his front with his perfect lean muscular bubble butt and luscious arsehole on display. Nick jumped on top of him and ran his hands over Paul's magnificent muscular body. He positioned his huge ramrod stiff, superman-sized, deliciously force-field lubricated fuck- pole on Paul's anal pucker and rammed it into the anus fast and hard. His big thick cock-head thrust up through Paul's arsehole deep into his colon.
Paul's eyes widened with the sudden rush of pain and pleasure as Nick's mighty cock rammed up repeatedly through the depths of his bowels into his capacious chest right up to his pounding heart. Paul cried out as the whole interior of his torso thrummed with intensely painful stimulation that was at the same time violently pleasurable. Scott was never as rough as this and Paul loved Nick being so rough.
Scott watched with interest as Nick rammed his cock repeatedly in a rapid-fire succession into Paul's anus with much vigour. Paul was crying out with the intensely painful and pleasurable stimulation that he was receiving thundering through his torso.
Scott was intrigued by the moving interplay of the striations on Nick's very lean and powerfully muscled buttocks.
Paul could feel a mighty orgasm building with him. Nick rammed his cock full-length up Paul's anus and stopped because he wanted Scott to enter his arse. He could feel Paul's heart thumping against his cock.
Scott: << You like it rough, Nick? You're gonna get it rough. >>
He jumped onto Nick's magnificent muscular back and Nick gave a hard thrust up into Paul's torso with the sudden movement. Scott positioned his equally superman-sized cock on Nick's anus and rammed it in vigorously all the way up into Nick's bowels through his abdomen and up into his chest in one movement.
Nick cried out with the sudden pain and rapturous joy at the overwhelming thrusting invasion of his deepest innards.
In response he rammed his cock hard and vigorously up into Paul who screamed with the intense thrust.
Scott and Nick fucked the man beneath them with extreme briskness, vigour and enthusiasm. They slammed their mighty cocks repeatedly up the anuses of the recipients as hard as they could. Both Nick and Paul cried out with the intensity of the painful and pleasurable stimulation they were receiving in their groins and torsos from the man fucking them.
Scott put his huge powerful arms around the torsos of two men beneath him and dug his fingers into Paul's thick hard pectoral muscles. He revelled in feeling the hard massively muscular bodies of the two supermen working hard beneath him. All three men became hot and sweaty with the strenuous and enthusiastic fucking.
Paul erupted into a huge explosion of an orgasm. His anus clamped tight on Nick's cock. Nick managed a few more rapid-fire thrusts up Paul's ultra-tight spasming anus before he too exploded into orgasm. The intense and piercing pain in Paul's arsehole drove Paul to the absolute heights of ecstasy. Nick's anus clamped tight on Scott's cock during his intense orgasm. Scott kept on ramming his big thick cock up the ultra-tight anal sphincters of Nick arse and the fierce pain and pleasure magnified Nick's orgasm enormously.
The three men's combined orgasms continued for hours. It was an almost endless wave-train of tsunami-like waves of towering orgasmic ecstasy.
When things started slowing down, they would fuck the man beneath them with extreme vigour until another train of huge orgasms started.
Because Paul had switched off his invulnerability, his anus and his lower bowel felt sore and well used. However, Paul loved the pain and the sexual stimulation it brought.
They continued until late in the evening when it was quite dark.
Paul lay beneath the other two men feeling blissfully well used. He felt thoroughly well fucked.
When Nick finally extracted his huge cock from Paul's arsehole, blood mixed with semen poured out of Paul's gaping wide open anal orifice and pooled on the doona cover between Paul's legs. Paul lay on the bed utterly limp with a stupid, blissfully happy smile on his face. He felt as though he had never been so extremely well-fucked in his life and he was enjoying the feelings of the aftermath. His insides felt as though they had been thoroughly well stirred as in fact they were.
Scott's eyes widened when he saw the blood and semen leaking from Paul's wide open arsehole. However he could sense that Paul was in a state of complete and utter happiness. Paul was enjoying the pleasure of the pain inside him. Scott knew that Paul had the skills to fix the damage inside his torso. Scott had taught Paul those skills himself. It was very easy for a superman to do.
Nick affectionately put his arm around Scott's shoulders and kissed him on his cheek.
"He'll survive," said Nick.
Scott: << Yeah, I know. All he has to do is restore his bodily integrity. >>
Nick thanked Scott for a glorious fuck. They hugged and kissed. Paul lay on the bed completely out of it in a state of semi-consciousness.
Travis Maginty rode in the following day. He rode across from Mount Remarkable with Bat Hoxburgh, a young American man whom Lou had trained up as a superman.
Bat's parents had divorced acrimoniously. Bat could not get on with his mother's new man who was not willing to accept as a step-son a young man afflicted with Down Syndrome. As a result, Bat was taken by his uncle over to Australia to live with his father who was managing a big computer project that his company was undertaking for the South Australian Government. However, his father had also acquired a love interest, a pretty blonde Australian woman much younger than he was. In fact she was only a few years older than Bat. His father had little interest in his intellectually disabled son. Bat was left very much on his own.
One day Bat wandered into an Adelaide pub where he saw a large and very powerfully built American biker with a Kansas drawl. That man was Lou. Bat fell under Lou's spell and Lou took Bat under his wing and trained him up as a superman and Roadknight.
Bat retained the looks of someone with Down Syndrome but he normalised his genetic makeup and removed all the other defects associated with the syndrome. His intelligence was now the same as any other superman. He had bright red short straight hair and blue eyes. His height increased to 185 centimetres (6'1") and his weight increased to 135 kilograms (300 lb) of solid hard muscle.
A couple of days later the question of the prior of the new community came up. Peter proposed Derek who was unanimously elected.
Hal proposed Scott for Deputy Prior. Some had concerns that Scott might be too young at seventeen for such a responsible position but telepathic discussions among the members and their appreciation of Scott's personal qualities quickly resolved the concerns. Vera as the oldest person present put the situation nicely when she proposed that they should give Scott a go and see how he went. She considered that Scott was already a full-grown man and she was quite sure that he would be good at the job. Scott was elected unanimously.
Brenda volunteered to be the office manager and assist Scott with the administrative and financial details.
A semitrailer arrived from Mount Remarkable. The men of the community removed many of the machine tools from the old garage that Derek had been sleeping in and stowed them on board the semitrailer. It then took them back to South Australia when they were reconditioned for use in a new machine shop.
There was so much room in the old garage now that all the vehicles could be kept in there. There was plenty of room as well for people to work on their vehicles.
Another truck was jumped through hyperspace from Mount Remarkable by its driver, a superman. It had twelve Friesian milking cows on board. They were to supply milk for the community. They were happy to be turned loose in a large paddock at the back of the old hotel. Old concrete troughs supplied water by gravity feed from the dam. The dry grass was four feet (1.2 metres) high. A damp area caused by slow leakage from the dam had a thick growth of green grass grazed short by the kangaroos. The cows were used to kangaroos and the kangaroos quickly lost their wariness of the cows.
In the same truck a flock of chickens arrived for the new community. They would provide eggs and occasionally some chicken meat. Scott and Bat resurrected the tumbledown old chook house out the back of the hotel. The wooden framework was still sound. Scott and Bat made short work of affixing the old sheets of corrugated iron back to the framework as well as putting on new chicken wire.
A flock of ducks also arrived.
The workout bike hidden in the secret room upstairs in the old garage was put Somewhere Else, from where it was returned to Mount Remarkable.
The weed-covered car park between the hotel and the garage was cleared and covered with yellow ochre-coloured paving bricks. Many coolibah trees were planted to provide plenty of shade.
The vegetable garden took shape. It was planted out in the layout proposed by Derek and Pan around a central pond. Once the plants had become established, the chickens and ducks would be let loose to keep down insect pests, slugs and snails.
Rory suggested to Scott that he 'do up' or recondition Scott's old orange Ford Falcon utility. Built in 1973, the ute was nearly thirty years old and had a lot of miles on the clock. The 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) Cleveland V8 engine was showing its age. It blew some smoke under acceleration. Rory had trained Fox, Chainsaw, Hambone and Spanner in the art of motor mechanics and he was keen for the young men to gain experience in doing up Scott's utility. Wolf and Abdullah wanted to help as well and offer their experience to the young men.
Travis was a motor mechanic and Rory roped him in to help and to give the other men the benefit of his experience. Bat joined in for the experience.
The old Ford underwent a total restoration and upgrade. The V8 engine was completely rebuilt and blueprinted in the process. All traces of wear were erased and the engine became like a brand new engine but freed up and ready for racing. The team balanced it so exquisitely that the old V8 could now quite happily rev to 9000 rpm without any danger of destroying itself. They installed longer con-rods with different pistons to bring the capacity up to 351 cubic inches (5.7 litres). The engine developed considerably more power than before like over 550 horsepower (410 Kilowatts). The reason was not only due to the reconditioning but also because high-lift cams, ported heads, a high-flow air-cleaner and tuned twin extractors were fitted and because the engine was converted from the old carburettor system to fuel injection with a computerised engine management system. It was considerably more fuel efficient as well. The utility now sported four large chromed exhausts and it sounded quite different. When idling, it had a low sexy rumble that turned into a thunderous roar when revved.
The gang fitted a five-speed close-ratio synchromesh gearbox with the gearshift on the floor to replace the three-speed box with the gear lever on the steering column. In addition they replaced the vinyl- covered bench seats in the cab with two luxurious light brown leather bucket seats.
The whole steering assembly was replaced with rack-and-pinion steering which made the steering much more precise.
Fat high-speed radial tires on magnesium alloy wheels were fitted. They just squeezed into the wheel arches. The suspension was lowered and beefed up. It was modified extensively to cope with the extra performance with the result that the ute now had excellent handling. Rory's opinion was the utility now handled like a sports car, a remark not far from the truth. Abdullah commented that the old ute handled far better than any Ford Falcon had a right to handle. Lou agreed with him having owned a Falcon station wagon.
The result of all these changes was that the utility had much greater acceleration and vastly improved handling.
A quintet of air horns was squeezed into the engine bay. They were tuned to sound a harmonious chord and were powered by an air tank filled from a compressor fitted to the engine. Hal suggested the chord of D major, a bright musical key that would wake people up. The treble D horn had a particularly penetrating note. The bass D horn rattled windows. The utility now sounded like a very big truck or a diesel locomotive.
The grille was replaced with a Ford Falcon GT style grille with room for extra headlights. Four powerful headlights were duly fitted into the spaces.
A gleaming chromed solid steel roo bar was fitted to the front of the ute. On the roo bar were mounted two large powerful spotlights.
The body was in surprisingly good condition considering its age. The little rust was summarily removed. Travis and Chainsaw used their super powers to completely recondition the body and paintwork. The orange paintwork was gleaming and new like the car had just come out of the showroom. The matt black GT stripes were touched up and looked like new. Matt black blackout panels were affixed to the bonnet (hood) that also had a power bulge with twin air intakes in front put on it to accommodate the new high-flow air-cleaner.
A removable plastic tonneau cover was fitted over the utility's tray. It was lockable and would keep objects in the tray secure.
Just for fun Chainsaw put a Super Roo decal on both front fenders in front of the wheel arches. The decal depicted a speeding kangaroo with alloy wheels replacing the hind legs, an air-cleaner sticking up out its back, a joey (baby kangaroo) in its pouch and four large exhaust pipes sticking out its rear end. The words 'SUPER ROO' were underneath.
The gang installed a high quality sound system that was seriously loud. It was without a doubt meant to be used with the windows down.
The finishing touch was a large decal across the width of the rear window. It showed outlined in white the head of a fierce-looking long-horn bull snorting and blowing smoke from its nostrils. Underneath were the words 'AUSSIE BEEF - PURE MUSCLE'. Chainsaw thought the decal was a perfect fit for Scott. He had created it from a decal he saw on a utility in Adelaide.
Rory laughed heartily when he saw it. The others loved it too.
When Scott saw what had been done to his utility he was enraptured. He could not thank Rory and his team enough for the brilliant work they had done.
The physicist Doctor Richard Kelvin came over to supervise the installation of the new electric power source for the new community. This was called a Kelvin Cell and it harnessed the inexhaustible vacuum energy of the quantum field and transformed it into electrical energy that was essentially unlimited. It provided free electricity for zero running costs.
The Kelvin Cell was placed in the old hotel's lower basement well away from prying eyes. The highly advanced technology was still secret as it still required input from superhumans to line up the atoms of the cell perfectly in the correct structure. That process still needed psychokinetic assistance but a method of manufacture without any psychokinetic involvement was in development.
There had been a problem with instability where the Cell would stop functioning completely. This was cured by redesigning the circuitry.
The problem was cured by building in a rechargeable battery and digital circuits that enabled the Cell to restart itself after a shutdown.
People at Mount Remarkable installed the Cell in a few cars. The Cell was small and quite light. With light but powerful electric motors driving both the front and rear wheels and the suspension beefed up to cope, the cars had truly boot-in-the-back performance.
The Kelvin Cell provided plentiful electricity for the community. That and the highly efficient solar cells installed on the roof of the old garage enabled the community to be completely self-sufficient in energy. As a result, the residents had the old garage disconnected from the mains electricity supply.
The solar cells were extraordinarily efficient at collecting sunlight and producing electricity. They too were designed by Richard Kelvin and their efficiency approached 80 per cent.
Richard was fifteen years old when he met Peter Kursky one night in the streets of North Adelaide in South Australia. Peter trained him up to be a superman and as a Roadknight. That was eighteen years previously. Now he was a big, very good-looking and powerfully muscled super-genius with the same muscular build as Derek, a thick shock of blond hair and lively but penetrating bright blue eyes. He was a senior lecturer in physics at the University of Adelaide.
Doctor Kelvin arrived on his motorbike one hot sunny afternoon wearing shiny black leathers. The black leather jacket was sleeveless to show off his magnificent arms and it displayed the Roadknight insignia prominently on the back.
The bike had a South Australian numberplate reading 'WHO'.
He greeted Scott with "Hello, I'm the Doctor."
Scott replied with "Doctor Kelvin, I presume?"
Richard laughed, put his arm around Scott's shoulders, hugged and kissed him.
"You'll do," he said.
Derek too bought a utility, midnight blue in colour with a yellow pinstripe from people on a farm not far out of Ringtail Springs. It was a 1980 model Holden, one of the last Kingswood utes made. The motor was a 308 cubic inch (5 litre) V8. It was a plain but nice- looking vehicle in good condition. Scott, Rory and Travis went with Derek when he bought it. Rory, Travis and their crew checked it over. What few problems they found, they fixed straight away. They offered to soup up the engine and make modifications but Derek declined the offer. He wanted a utility that he could drive around town without attracting attention.
Scott's utility on the other hand attracted considerable attention. People would turn and stare as his utility rumbled resonantly down High Street.
Derek strongly recommended that Scott get himself a mobile phone now that he was Deputy Prior and no longer living at home. He even offered to pay for it.
Scott accepted Derek's recommendation and acquired a mobile phone from Crazy Dave's, the electronics shop in Ringtail Springs owned and run by David Koh who migrated from Malaysia about a decade ago.
Scott changed the message on the answering machine at his parents' house saying that if people wanted to contact him, they could ring him on his mobile and he gave the phone number. Plumbing emergencies he referred to Percy Plummer. For shire matters he referred enquirers to the Shire Council.
-------------------------------------- Continued in Part 72. --------------------------------------