Land Of The Thunder Dragon Read online

Skye ordered a vegetarian burger, with Wayne and Timothy watching the whole process and glancing at each other with wicked intent. Wayne walked forward, opened his mouth, paused, then, “I’ll have,,, the best pizza anyone could possibly imagine.” “Please.” There was the small whirring noise again, then up came the most amazing smelling pizza that he had ever seen, with Wayne’s favourite ingredients, just like he and Grandpa Jack would make in the wood oven at home. He thought back to home and wondered if the wood oven survived the blast. He took the pizza and hungrily tucked in.

  Timothy walked up and asked, “Could I please have,,, the national dish of Bhutan please.”

  The whirring started as Grandpa Jack gasped. Everyone looked his way to see what the problem was. Jack knew what the national dish of Bhutan is, “Ema Datshi,” said Jack as the dish rose up, “Chillies in Cheese Sauce,” he said with a smirk on his face. “The one rule of food replicating is that you must eat what you have ordered, we must not waste any food. Just because you can have whatever you want, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t consume precious resources.”

  Timothy grabbed a fork and tentatively poked at the limp looking chillies, swimming in what looked more like a runny cheese soup, rather than sauce.

  “Of course,” continued Grandpa Jack, “The wonderful people of Bhutan take great pride in this dish, and have competitions as to who can make the hottest, spiciest Ema Datshi. The hotter the chillies, the more revered the chef. And naturally, the replicator is programmed to only recreate the best.”

  Timothy gulped, as he brought the fork with a green chilli up to his nose, to smell it. He could tell how hot it was, just by the smell of it, but with everyone watching, pride would not allow him to back out of at least trying it. He honestly had no idea what the national dish of Bhutan was before he ordered it, and was now wishing he hadn’t been such a smart arse. He gathered his courage and swallowed his pride, as he brought the fork to his mouth and dropped the fiery, greasy chilli into his mouth. He thought that it would be better if he didn’t chew it, just swallow and everything will be ok. Initially he thought that everything was ok, it wasn’t too bad, he’d got away with it, no problem.

  Then ever so slowly, he began to feel a little heat in the greasy cheese residue that lined his mouth. He couldn’t get rid of that as quickly as the chilli itself. Oh No, the heat was turning more to fire, it was like his whole mouth was on fire, as if he had swallowed a burning jiffy fire lighter. Everyone was still looking at him, there was nowhere to hide from their gaze and impending laughter. He reached for a glass of water, which Grandpa Jack suggested was the wrong thing to do. Timothy’s face was glowing bright red, he just had to put the fire out, he up ended the glass into his mouth and swirled it around trying to rinse the fiery taste from it, and he then swallowed and realised his mistake. The fire just spread, from his mouth, to his throat, to his stomach.

  Grandpa Jack realised as Timothy began to pace around the galley in an agitated manner, that it was time to intervene. He walked the two paces to the replicator and asked kindly, “May I have a small bowl of natural Yak Milk Yoghurt please?” This was delivered, and Grandpa Jack handed it towards Timothy.

  “I hate yoghurt,” said Timothy as he imagined steam escaping from his ears.

  “Not any more you don’t Timothy” said Jack, “This is your new best friend.” Jack took the bowl of Ema Datshi from Timothy and gave him the Yak Milk Yoghurt.

  Timothy tentatively took a small spoonful into his mouth, expecting that Grandpa Jack had just set him up for more pain, but as he moved the yoghurt around in his mouth, it was as if someone had placed a fire extinguisher in there, and set it off. The cooling effect of the yoghurt was that instantaneous. He ate the whole bowl as if it was the best thing he had ever eaten, breathing a sigh of relief.

  Meanwhile, as Jack lent back against the wall, he began to demolish the Ema Datshi as if it was the best thing he had ever eaten. He looked up and realised that they were all now watching him, waiting for his reaction. “Waste Not, Want Not” he said as he dropped another luscious chilli into his mouth, “Yumm.”

  Flynn ordered a plain salad sandwich and sat back to eat it and said, “You all know what the replicator uses as its main source of ingredients don’t you?”

  Everyone turned to look at Flynn, as he walked out with his sandwich, to leave everyone to think about that for a moment. “Waste Not, Want Not,” he mumbled with a smile on his face as he headed back to the main cabin.

  Chapter 10

  “To Serve”

  Lauren finished her coffee while chatting with Rajid about the mission ahead. Both of them sat with their bare feet up against the cockpit windshield, gazing out into nothing, visualising what lay ahead for all of them. Jack walked casually into the cockpit and sat, just listening to the chat for a while. Lauren could tell that he was a bit stressed and finally said to him, “Tell me what you are thinking Jack.”

  Jack leant back in his seat, looking up at the cockpit roof, wondering where he should start. “It’s time to tell the kids everything Lauren, they are asking lots of questions. They are probably the most intelligent group of young people on the planet and they won’t tolerate being treated as mushrooms much longer.”

  Lauren thought for a moment, “OK Jack, but I think it will be best coming from you, they trust you completely, but I’m not sure that I have their full trust yet. Understandable really, considering they just lost everything on the day they met me. I’ll come back with you, so that I can answer any questions that they have about me.”

  Jack and Lauren got up and headed back towards the main cabin. Jack said, “I’m not sure where to start Lauren, I don’t want to overwhelm them.”

  “You answered your own question with your previous statement Jack, ‘They are the most intelligent young people on the planet’. At this point you have to trust them with the truth, and start from the beginning.”

  Jack sat down amongst his five grandchildren and asked for them to come close. “It is finally time to tell you guys, what this is all about. We have several hours of just sitting here in the plane, so it is a great opportunity to tell you this story without interruption. First, I will ask you a favour though, and that is to allow me to tell you the whole story, from start to finish, so that I don’t lose my way. And then Lauren and I will get on with telling you what your role is in our coming challenge.”

  David, Skye, Flynn, Wayne and Timothy all looked at their Grandpa Jack wide eyed, and simply nodded their agreement, knowing that this was going to be a great story, one that they had wondered about, and asked about for years, but somehow, Grandpa Jack had always managed to avoid answering.

  “When I was just a few weeks short of my twelfth birthday, my grandfather, also named Jack, and I, were travelling in the Indian state called Sikkim, just near the border of both Tibet and Bhutan. We were part of an English led expedition to climb Mount Jomolhari from the Tibetan side of the Mountain. The peak is on the border between Tibet and Bhutan. My Grandfather was the expedition manager. Despite being an accomplished mountain climber, ‘he had completed the seven summits and had climbed all 14 of the 8000ers,’ he wasn’t to participate in this climb, but to run things from base camp. So, he saw it as an exciting opportunity to take me with him, and teach me about expedition life, as he had great hopes for me as a leader of future expeditions.”

  “The Earth’s population had reached Nine Billion people that year. The debate about climate change and the future habitability of the planet earth had been raging for years at this point. As usual though, no-one was taking any action. While people were suggesting that we needed to ‘save the planet’, this was not the issue at all. The real issue, is whether mankind would survive this change in the earth’s climate. Of course, this also was the issue for many of the Earth’s animal and plant species. The Planet as such, will continue to exist and orbit our sun as it has for millennia, it was life on this planet that was threatened by Humans, stupidly, including our own lives.”


  “After nearly two decades of debating the causes and the potential solutions to this problem, two clear factions had emerged in terms of the solution. Firstly, there were the ‘Futurists’. These were the people who felt that the only solution to save Humans, as a species, was to begin exploring and settling other planets, hence giving us insurance against total failure of Earth’s biosphere. Secondly, there were the ‘Earthers’, who believed that the only solution was to dramatically reduce Earth’s population. But while this would work, you can only imagine the debate and the distress over the arguments as to who would be culled from this planet and who would get to live. There were many who thought that a combination of both would be necessary, but the real threat was that there was a strong likelihood of war between any country or group of countries who decided to go down this path.”

  “Despite all of the talk, various countries just couldn’t help themselves but start to form alliances, all with the motive of being the ‘survivors’. These alliances were forged mostly along traditional grounds, long term allies like the former Commonwealth countries and the United States formed one. Traditionally Muslim countries formed another, Europe another again. With all of these rumblings, all-out war seemed likely. Many thought that war may actually be the ultimate solution to the Earth’s population problem.”

  “Jack Matson Senior, my Grandfather, believed that war, as a solution to our population problem, was the surest and quickest way to end all life on this planet. So, when not indulging his passion for mountaineering, he worked very strongly within the United Nations organisation, desperately trying to keep a lid on any group of nations who started beating the war drum. It was as a result of his position as ‘Director of Peace on Earth’, as he called his job title, that he became aware of a secret.”

  Grandpa Jack continued, as the five kids and Lauren listened, totally engaged in his story. “One sunny and warm winter’s day in Zurich, Switzerland, Jack was sitting outside in the park opposite the new United Nations Headquarters, when an old hunched over person walked up a path leading towards where he sat, using a knobbly old tree branch as a walking stick. He couldn’t tell if this was a man or a woman, as the person was hunched over so severely, but it reminded him of women he had seen in Asian countries who had spent their lives in rice paddies, bent over to plant and harvest their crops and had become permanently disfigured as a result. In Jack’s mind he assumed this was a woman. As she approached, she suggested to Jack, without ever meeting his eye, that he should allow her to sit down alongside him. Naturally, Jack being the sort of person who just loves other people and their stories, was always going to say yes, and made sure that his body guards, who were always present in the background, allowed this lady into his presence.”

  “Jack felt that he didn’t want to be disturbed during this meeting, so he went to turn off his comm set, and found that it was already off. The woman sitting alongside him merely smiled and said, “Thank you for your intention young man, but I disabled it already, just in case.” The woman took Jack’s hand in hers and looked deeply into his eyes, “Yes” she said, as if already knowing the answer, “One Green, One Blue,” and a comforting, knowing smile warmed Jack’s heart. He said that it gave him a sense of hope that he had never experienced before.”

  “You do not need to know my name,” the woman began. “You probably suspect who I am, but let’s just leave it at that. I have a request for you Jack, one that is probably more than anyone can ask. I need you to place your Grandson at great risk in order to save the life on this planet. Can I go on?”

  “Intrigued but very concerned, Jack nodded his consent to continue, afraid of what he might say if he opened his mouth. But he also knew that he would never knowingly put his Grandson, me, at risk. However, it seemed he already was, so perhaps it is best to listen and find out how he could reduce that risk.”

  The old woman continued, “There is an expedition coming up, an abhorrent attempt by westerners to once again conquer the Princess of the Himalaya. This expedition will once again be unsuccessful, but I need you to get yourself appointed to it, in any role, and take your young Jack with you.”

  “You will be contacted by a Lama before you reach base camp. More information will be offered at that time, until then, I can tell you no more.”

  “I need to know what you require of my Grandson, before I would commit to such an idea,” Jack began.

  “It is the eye colour that makes him special, you already know that Jack, this is how we know that he must be the one to reset the device,” she said.

  “But that is where you are mistaken, Jack Junior has brown eyes,” he replied.

  “She looked deeply into Jack’s eyes, to Jack it felt like the old woman was looking directly into his soul, the feeling that those eyes have seen so much. ‘They will change Jack, and at exactly the right time’.”

  “Jack replied, ‘Then use me, if it’s the eye colour that’s important surely I can be of use to you’.”

  “Ahhh yes, but there is the problem Jack, you have lost the innocence of youth, the device will not accept you as it’s master. If we had known about you fifty years ago, we could have,” the woman replied. “But what an amazing Grandfather you would make, to support your Grandson through such an incredible adventure. Dangerous, yes, but not the end Jack, the beginning it will be, if all goes well.”

  “With that, she lent on her staff and slowly got up from the park bench, ‘I can say no more, we will not meet again Jack, Safe Travels.’ And with that, she passed the staff to Jack. He noticed a strange tattoo on her forearm, A snow leopard jumping between two yak horns.”

  “The Old Lady turned and straightened, then walked back down the path with the agility of a young person. Jack just looked on, quite bemused, until she was out of sight. Jack looked down at the gnarly old piece of wood and noticed an inscription. It said, ‘This staff could be quite useful.’ Jack laughed out loud and wondered to himself why it is, that ancient people of the Himalayas find the need to be so cryptic.

  ***

  At this stage of Grandpa Jack’s story, David, while struggling to stay quiet and let him finish, was becoming quite agitated as he realised that this whole story was starting to point at himself, as the one to achieve something that his Grandfather had failed to do.

  ***

  Grandpa Jack continued. “We had been trekking for several days out of Darjeeling in West Bengal. We were East of Gangtok, in Sikkim now, at about four thousand metres altitude on our way to the Nathu La, a mountain pass that is part of the old silk route into Tibet. My Grandfather always insisted on trekking the approaches to a mountain, he believed that it was the only way to properly acclimatise.”

  “We could hear an old motorbike struggling to approach us from behind. Eventually we saw it, coughing smoke and barely running at the altitude, its rider was talking to it and urging it to keep moving forward.”

  “We had been out of communication for about a week, another of my Grandfather’s rules, ‘It keeps us focused on the challenge ahead,’ he told me. ‘No distractions.’ But I could see that he was anxious, I felt that it probably meant that there was bad news approaching on that motorbike.”

  “He halted our column of trekkers, not easily done, but as he always leads from the front, it wasn’t too hard to ask the Yak Herders to pull up their beasts of burden.”

  “The motorbike and rider worked their way through the entourage, eventually reaching Jack senior and myself. The rider dropped the motorcycle, still running and in gear, the back wheel just continued to slowly spin as the engine slowly coughed and eventually died as we all just looked on.”

  “The rider introduced himself as Sanjay, ‘I am the assistant to the Australian Consul in Darjeeling sir.’ Jack Senior raised his eyebrows, thinking that it was unlikely the consul’s assistant would be an Indian National, but decided to shake Sanjay’s hand and asked, ‘What can I do for you Sanjay?’”

  “Oh no sir, it is what I can do for you Mr. Jack Matson
,” replied Sanjay.”

  “While shaking hands, Jack Senior noticed that Sanjay had a tattoo on his forearm, Yak horns with a snow leopard jumping through them, the same as the woman in Zurich. Jack decided to let Sanjay do the talking, but while doing so, he noticed the Yak Herders and the small Indian mountaineering team talking together in a small group. That got him worried.”

  “War sir, war has broken out, and you are all in very grave danger. That is my message sir,” said Sanjay.”

  “War between who, and where?” asked Jack Senior, looking at me with that, ‘don’t worry mate, we’ll handle this’ look on his face. My grandfather always believed that any situation could be controlled, if you believed it to be so, and were prepared to take action on achieving that. I suppose that is why he was chosen to be the ‘United Nations Director Of Peace On Earth’.”

  “Sanjay swallowed hard and then spoke quietly so others couldn’t hear, ‘I am aware of your ‘other mission’ here sir,’ looking at the knobbly wooden staff in my hand. ‘The African Union don’t want you to achieve your goal sir. They have declared war on Australia and India sir, which really means the Commonwealth.’ Jack senior breathed a sigh of relief, the African Union did not have the resources to take on the might of The Commonwealth, he assured both myself and Sanjay, that it would be ok, we were a long way from any potential trouble.”