'Next year!' This piece of information certainly rattled Floyd somewhat as he looked down at his youthful, though undeveloped, body. 'Jesus! If she's expecting a champion, I sure have some work to do.'

'That might be wise.' Tory thought she'd give him a little extra incentive. 'Ione's perfect incarnation was none other than the great warrior, Boadicea - Queen of the Iceni people in the east of Britain. She was an ally of the Romans until she saw her people overtaxed, her husband slaughtered and her daughters raped. In 61 AD she led what became an almighty massacre against the Romans, and burned London and St Albans to the ground.'

'So you think I might have been her husband then?'

Floyd theorised, fascinated by the tale.

'Almost certainly,' Tory advised, 'though only you can really confirm this for sure by endeavouring to get in touch with your incarnation at that time.'

'Well, I just might do that.' He arose, inspired.

'Thanks for the insight.'

'Any time,' she smiled. Floyd made haste from the room to reach his computers and do a bit of research himself.

24.

SUPERNOVA.

As 2036 gave way to 2037, the night sky played host to some very unusual activity.

The first episode of note occurred on a moonless night towards the end of January. Daniel was plotting his comet's course across the heavens when a few portions of it were seen to split away from the main body and take off on their own course. The comet itself was entering our solar system, its trajectory against the general orbit of the planets, but the splintered fragments it shed headed off in the same orbit as the rest of the system.

'This just doesn't happen,' Dan explained to his colleagues over breakfast. 'If some force had caused the comet to shatter or explode, then it would have been dispersed in all directions ... the bulk just couldn't maintain its original course.'

'Are you quite sure about what you saw?' Noah looked up from sourcing information on his portable computer. 'You weren't smoking any of Floyd's pot at the time perchance?'

'What kind of an idiot do you take me for, Purcell?'

Daniel took great offence at the suggestion. 'I'll have you know I take my work very seriously.'

'Hey.' Noah held up his hands in truce. 'Look, if something of such astronomic importance occurred last night, I'm just wondering why one of the major observatories hasn't reported it?'

'They haven't?' Daniel was stunned. Noah shook his head. 'I have photographic documentation of the event.

They must have seen it.'

'If you're right,' Floyd spoke up, 'the only person who could force a conspiracy of silence of that magnitude is Doc Alexander.'

'Why would he care about the movements of some comet?' Rose queried.

'He wouldn't,' Tory cut in. 'Unless, of course, Dan's comet is not a comet, but say, a space station.'

'A space station!' echoed everyone in the room in disbelief.

'Now hear me out.' Tory stood and paced - this helped her to think. 'Tell me, Dan, could any other heavenly body that you know of split apart in the manner your so-called comet did last night?'

'It's hard to say.' He avoided giving a direct answer.

'There is still so much in the universe we don't understand, that -'

'I said, that you know of.' Tory pushed for an answer, not wanting to get caught up in the 'what ifs' of a left-brain thinker.

'No,' he conceded finally.

'But ... a station could maintain course whilst launching a couple of large, deep-space vessels off in another direction. If I'm not mistaken, this manoeuvre might look an awful lot like what you saw.'

Daniel went pale. 'The vessels would have to be at least a quarter the size of our moon to be spotted from such a distance.' He turned Tory's suggestion over in his mind. 'But, yes, I suppose that could appear as I described.'

'That theory would seem to justify a conspiracy,'

Brian agreed with his sister. 'Do you think it might be Maelgwn and Co, heading our way?'

Tory raised both brows, unable to say for sure.

The comment got Rhun thinking, however, and he looked to Daniel to quiz him further. 'This ... body,' as he decided to call it in the absence of more information.

'Could it have come from the general region of the Sirius system?'

'I can't prove it for sure, but there are factors supporting this assumption. The constellation of Taurus, against which I first spotted the anomaly, appears close by Sirius in the sky. And, the fact is, the star clusters are over sixty light years apart. Sirius is much closer to us at eight light years away, than say ... the star Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus is sixty-eight light years away. Therefore, if one considers the ascent angle a space station might take to approach our galaxy from Sirius, there's actually more chance that it would come from that system as opposed to any other star cluster in the vicinity.'

Rhun clapped his hands together, pleased to hear this. 'The Dragon's on his way.'

'But what of the supernova Maelgwn said would coincide with his arrival?' Tory was not yet convinced.

Rhun shrugged. 'Well, it's over one light year to the Oort Cloud at the outer reaches of our solar system, so they still have quite a way to travel before reaching us.

Father's prophecy may yet be fulfilled.'

One month later the prophecy did come to pass, although once again Daniel could offer no explanation for the occurrence.

What appeared to be a large supernova flare erupted in the vicinity of Sirius. Such a colossal stellar outburst was the result of the collapse of a massive star, much larger than our sun. Stars subject to this kind of behaviour were dubbed red super-giants; trouble was, there were no such stars in that region of space.

Daniel was the only one amongst his kin who seemed even mildly worried about the paradox. 'It just can't be,'

he mumbled, as they all stood on the canyon ridge staring up at the newest, brightest light in the night sky.

'You keep saying that, and yet there it is.' Tory grinned broadly, knowing this was a sign that her reunion with Maelgwn was imminent.

'So what's the official word?' Brian looked at Noah, who was their propaganda hound.

'A supernova.' Noah stated the obvious. 'They're blaming an unknown super-giant in the deep reaches of space that must have remained hidden from us for all these years thanks to Sirius A's bright luminosity.'

'I don't think that's very likely.' Daniel sounded disappointed, as a reasonable theory would have been really friendly right now.

'Why?' Tory was interested to hear his view. 'What do you think it is?' She didn't really have to ask, for she knew his mind, but she wanted Daniel to feel confident in voicing his speculations.

He hesitated, thinking his hypothesis far too outlandish. 'Perhaps it is the first evidence of the eruption of a white hole?'

'You might not be too far wrong.' Rhun considered.

'My father never actually said it would be a supernova.

We just assumed it would be from the phenomena he described.'

'Good point.' Tory realised he was right.

'Well, one thing's for sure ...' Brian threw an arm over his son's shoulder. 'If this means what we think it means, it's a good omen.'

Over the next twenty-four hours, Daniel studied the progress of the eruption of light in the sky.

If this anomaly was truly a supernova flare, a gas and dust-filled cloud should have been zooming away from the imploded star at several kilometres per hour.

Yet, as far as Daniel could see, the bright disturbance in the fabric of space appeared to be remaining perfectly constant. By the same token, if this was a white hole it should have been spewing forth cosmic matter, and this was not the case either. Round and round in his head the theories went, until he was left with only one.

'It has to be a wormhole.'

Closely allied to black holes and white holes, wormholes could best be described as tunnels through space, connecting one part of the universe to another, or connecting this universe with parallel universes and dimensions.

'Well,' Dan decided, after too many hours without rest, 'the only way I'm ever going to prove it is to find out where the wormhole leads. And I've got about two chances of doing that - zero and none.' He leant forward to rest his weary brow on the desk, dreaming of a spaceship with light speed capabilities. He drew a few deep breaths in an attempt to clear his muddled thoughts, and in so doing drifted off to sleep.

She was a beautiful, fair-skinned beauty, with eyes like emeralds, and long locks of flaming red hair. It's time to wake up, she whispered, her sweet smile enchanting him. The wait is over.

'Dan!' Noah came bursting into the room, and on finding the astronomer asleep at his desk made haste to wake him.

'Leave me be,' Daniel muttered, doing his best to slap Noah away without emerging from his dream. 'I'm far happier here.'

Noah wasn't listening to Dan's sleepy drivel.

'You're coming with me, my friend ... sorry.' He grabbed hold of Daniel under the arms and hoisted him from his seat.

Dan was on his feet before he awoke fully, and was none too pleased about his return to reality. 'Jesus, Purcell, couldn't it wait!'

'I don't believe so.' Noah had transported them to join the others on the canyon ridge.

All eyes were upturned to the night sky and everyone maintained a reverent silence, in awe of the wonders they were witnessing.

An enormous vortex spiralled above the Earth, out beyond the orbit of the moon. Its centre was expanding to form a huge glowing corridor through the fabric of space. This brilliant mass shot forth thousands of glowing balls of light, that proceeded to descend toward our planet.

'Well, now I know where the wormhole leads. I suppose it's safe to assume the premise is correct,' Daniel mumbled, even more in awe of the marvel than his crewmates were, as he truly understood how incredible it was. 'Einstein and Rosen were right.'

'Should we panic?' Noah prompted the expert for comment.

Daniel closed his jaw as he considered how to answer. 'The wormhole presents no real threat to us, as it neither sucks in nor exudes matter. It's like a tunnel through space that is constructed of antigravity, or so the theory goes. As for the lights it's spewing, I have no idea.' But then, recalling his dream, Daniel put forward the theory that perhaps they were some sort of craft, which glowed when emerging from light-speed?

'I'd say that's a damn fine theory,' Tory exclaimed.

'Now all we have to do is figure out if these are the good guys, or if it is they who are still making their way to us from the outer reaches of the solar system?'

'No,' Daniel ventured, at the risk of sounding like he knew what he was taking about. 'The wait is over.

This is them.'

A faint rumble echoed across the landscape from the distant horizon, growing rapidly louder as something approached. Though it was still dark, the phenomena in the sky lit up the night far better than the brightest full moon and they could suddenly see what was coming.

As a wave of supersonic airforce fighters passed overhead, Tony got the feeling Daniel was right.

Somewhere in this light wave of alien craft was her husband, and she didn't much like the reception the defence department had planned for him and his company.

When the thundering mass of aircraft had passed, Brian started firing orders. 'Floyd, Noah, Nick. Get down below and find out what the official word is.

Cadfan, track down Taliesin or my father and see if they know what the hell is going on. Dan -'

'I know - telescope.' Dan vanished to do his father's bidding along with the others who had their instructions.

'Tory, Rhun and I shall keep watch out here. I want everybody else underground and out of sight until we know what's really going on. Jen,' Brian made one last request, 'round us up some binoculars and fetch me three Stormers, will you?'

'You got it!' She winked, fading from sight along with Rose, Tom and Patrick.

Brian looked to the heavens where the first wave of space lights had begun to enter the atmosphere. These had turned amber in colour, becoming balls of flame as they plummeted toward the Earth. 'At last, some action.'

'And that could come in a much sweeter form than you imagine.' Rhun raised his brow suggestively.

This certainly put a smile on Brian's face. 'We can only hope.'

The dawn saw the first of the glowing pods crash to earth not far from Watarrka, and several others followed it in close succession. Central Australia was not the only place the strange fiery pods had landed, however.

Every nation in the world was being bombarded by the phenomenon.

'Let's get closer.' Tory willed herself to the old, abandoned ranger station on the outskirts of the canyon in the general direction of where the group of pods had gone down.

She arrived at her destination expecting to see some evidence of a crash site close by, but there was no smoke, no churned-up dirt, nothing?

'Don't do that!' Brian arrived on the scene, fuming.

'From now on you wait for us, understood?'

'What do you think I'm still doing here?' She raised her binoculars to scan the surrounding area.

'I'm serious, Tory. We don't know what we're dealing with yet, so please don't go charging off on your own.'

She wasn't listening. She was madly trying to zoom and focus the glasses on something she'd spied way off in the distance.