* * * IMPORTANT NEWS * * * IMPORTANT NEWS * * *

"Oh, right," Hawker said. "Are you going to tell us why?"

The first visitors are now on Isabela Island, Galápagos.

"Big place," said Jude. "How about Chile? I like Chile."

"No, it's Ecuador. You're going to the Galápagos Islands, a thousand kilometres out in the Pacific Ocean."

A new time is coming for our planet.

"Why?" asked Jude. "Where are we going now?"

"Got your sun hats?" said Arla.

Tell your government now.

Don't fight them. Don't be afraid of them. Be friendly.

"South America," Arla said.

Hawker and Jude looked at Arla, and then laughed. "There are a lot of crazy people out there on the Internet," said Jude. "You don't believe this one -- do you?"

"Perhaps it's crazy, and perhaps it's not," said Arla. "But when we email back with questions, they don't answer. The Americans are watching the island by satellite, but they don't want to tell us why. There are two Australian ships going there. The Mexicans are getting very excited, and the Ecuadorians are saying nothing… Something is happening on Isabela. What is it? We want to know."

Arla looked unhappy. "There's something strange going on. EDI is getting emails every day from the Galápagos. They're all about Isabela Island and they all say things like this." He gave Hawker and Jude a piece of paper.

"Whew," said Hawker. He put on his sun hat quickly.

They went across to Santa Cruz Island and down to Puerto Ayora. There they found a boat, the Sea-Lion, to take them to Isabela, about 90 kilometres away. At first, the boatman, Gonzalo, did not want to take them.

From Brussels to the Galápagos is a long way. Hawker and Jude took a plane to Cuba, a second plane to Ecuador, then a third plane out to Baltra Island, in the Galapagos. When they got out of the plane, a wall of hot air hit them.

Jude smiled at him. "Not for two rich people."

On the way to Isabela Island Jude read a book about the Galápagos, and Hawker watched the sea. "Isabela is a very young island," Jude told him. "And it has -- listen to this! -- six volcanoes. One erupted only two years ago."

"Rich?" said Hawker. "It's not our money -- ouch!"

Jude hit him hard on the arm. "We're on holiday," she told Gonzalo. "We want to see the giant tortoises on Isabela." She looked at Hawker. "Don't we?"

"My boat can take ten people," he said. "It's a very good boat, but very expensive for only two people."

"Er, yes. That's right," said Hawker quickly. "We're very interested in the giant tortoises."

"Afraid of what?" asked Jude. "Go and talk to them, Hawker. Your Spanish is better than mine."

Not many people lived on Isabela, and Puerto Villamil was usually a sleepy place. But when the Sea-Lion arrived, there were about fifty people down by the sea. There were two small boats, and on them Hawker and Jude could see chairs and tables, beds, boxes and bags, and a bicycle.

"Oh, that's great!" said Hawker. "Crazy emails, strange visitors in the middle of the Pacific, and now erupting volcanoes! Thank you, Arla!"

Gonzalo called out in Spanish to the people on the boats, then turned to Hawker and Jude. "Lots of people are leaving Isabela," he said. "They are afraid."

Hawker came back half an hour later. "You're not going to believe this," he told Jude. "The people here say there's a spaceship on Isabela. It came down ten days ago, right down inside Volcano Alcedo. And it's still there."

"How do they know that?" said Jude.

"There's an Australian, Dr Jim Miller, up on Alcedo. He works here, studying giant tortoises. He saw the spaceship, and now he's waiting for the visitors to come out."

"So the 'visitors' in those emails are extraterrestrials. ETs. Little green men from another planet. Oh dear," said Jude. "Can we go home now, Hawker?"

Hawker laughed. "No, we can't. We climb Volcano Alcedo," he said. "Talk to Dr Miller. Say hello to the ETs."

"Careful of the spaceship visitors, you mean?" said Jude.

"Oh dear," Jude said again. "I was afraid of that."

Gonzalo took them in the Sea-Lion up to Shipton Cove. There, very early the next morning, Hawker and Jude began their climb up the volcano.

"There is a path," Gonzalo told them, "but it is five hours to the top and hard climbing. And very, very hot. You must carry water -- two litres for one person for one day. You must sleep at the top and come down tomorrow -- but not when the sun is high in the sky. And be careful, please!"

It was a very hard climb. After two hours, they stopped under some trees. They drank some water and looked out over the blue sea. The black volcanic rocks under their feet were hot from the sun.

"I don't know about spaceships," smiled Gonzalo, "but Volcano Alcedo is always a little excited -- she is always doing something new."

"Mmm. Yes and no," said Hawker. Then, "Hey, Jude! Look! That animal, over there by that rock. What -- is -- it?"

"It's so beautiful here," said Jude.

"Oh, wow!" whispered Jude. "It's an iguana -- a Galápagos iguana. Isn't he wonderful?"

The iguana stared at them with its hot orange eyes, and did not move. Its body was about a metre long, and an orange-yellowy colour.

They climbed and climbed, and the sun got hotter and hotter. After three more hours they came to the top, and looked down into the great crater of Alcedo, two hundred metres deep and seven kilometres across. To the north and the south they could see more volcanoes, and across the sea to the west the island of Fernandina -- but they could not see Dr Miller or his camp.

"It looks about a thousand years old," said Hawker. "A very strange animal."

"Everything about this island is strange," said Jude.

It was hard walking over the black lava rock, and once Hawker nearly fell. Jude caught his arm.

"We need to go round the crater to the south," said Hawker. "It's another two hours' walk, the villagers said."

"We'd like to talk to you," said Jude quietly. "About the spaceship down in the crater. Why are you so angry?"

"Europe," said Hawker. "Europe is very interested in this spaceship. Please tell us about it."

Dr Miller looked at them, "Who do you work for?"

"Go away!" he shouted. "You're Americans, aren't you?"

"What are you doing here?" he said angrily.

"We weren't on top of a volcano then," said Jude.

"Why not?" said Hawker. "I carried you home once."

"Because nobody listens to me!" said Dr Miller. "Nobody believes me! The Americans say, 'Oh, crazy man!' The Australian government says, '"Get some sleep!' What can I do? Something very important is happening on this planet, and nobody is listening!"

At last they saw Dr Miller's camp, and ten minutes later they arrived. Dr Miller was short, very brown, and angry.

"No, we aren't," said Hawker. "We're European. How do you do, Dr Miller?"

"Well, we're here now, and we're listening," Jude said.

"Don't break a leg here," she said. "I don't want to carry you back down to the boat."

"Who did the emails come from?" asked Hawker.

They sat on the black lava rocks under the hot sun, and drank hot beer. Below them clouds of smoke and steam moved this way and that way across the crater. And was there, under those clouds, a spaceship from another planet?

"Ecuadorian friends," said Dr Miller. "Over on Santa Cruz. Look, I've got some beer here. You want one?"

"Ah, the emails did get through, then," said Dr Miller.

"But why here, Jim?" said Jude. "Why into a volcano?"

"And why are you angry with the Americans, Jim?" Hawker asked. "I know their beer's no good, but…"

"Sometimes I think I can see it down there," said Jim Miller, "but mostly I can't. It's a great white thing, and long legs came out of it when it came down."

"They watched this spaceship on their satellite. I know they did. They know it's here, but they don't want the world to know. They don't want people like you and me to meet any extraterrestrial visitors. Oh no! They want it all to be a big secret. Then they can be top dog."

"Who knows?" said Jim. "Perhaps they like hot places. Perhaps they need something from the hot lava."

"Can we climb down into the crater?" asked Hawker.

All evening Hawker and Jude stared down into the crater, but they could see nothing through the clouds of steam and dust. Just before the sun went down, Hawker saw something near the top of the crater and shouted to Jude, but it was only two of the giant tortoises. They came slowly past the camp and went away down the other side of the volcano. Later, four more came past, going the same way, moving slowly and quietly over the black rocks.

"Oh, Alcedo does that all the time," said Jim. "Then hot water comes up, and steam, dust -- sometimes a little lava, but not much. That's why there are always clouds in the crater. You can never see anything down there."

"Are you crazy? It's dangerous down there!" Jim said.

Just then there was a sudden noise, a BOOM deep below the ground. "What… what was that, Jim?" asked Jude.

Hawker and Jude did not sleep much. The rocks were hard, and below them they heard again and again the deep BOOM of the volcano. Late in the night they turned their radio on. It was very noisy, but through the noise they could hear a voice from Santa Cruz. Hawker listened hard.

"They're very strange animals!" said Jude.

Jude sat up. "Oh no! We're seven hours away from the boat. Let's get moving! Go and call Jim."

"Please come with us, Jim," said Jude. "Please. You can come back in a day or two."

But Jim Miller did not believe Santa Cruz radio. "It's the Americans again," he said. "They want us all to go away."

"They're talking about Volcano Alcedo!" he said. "They think it's going to erupt in the next twenty-four hours!"

Quickly, they went out to the Sea-Lion and climbed up onto the boat. "Go! Go! Go!" Gonzalo shouted to his men, and before long the Sea-Lion was a kilometre out at sea.

"You two go," said Jim, "but I'm staying right here, and watching that spaceship."

It was a hard climb down. When they got to the sea, they saw Gonzalo with the little boat. "Hurry!" he shouted. "Did you hear on the radio? Alcedo's going to erupt!"

Two hours later Volcano Alcedo erupted. There was asudden great BANG! -- and then clouds of dust flew up into the sky. Red-hot lava came out of the volcano's sides and ran down to the sea. The noise did not stop, and with every bang, rocks flew hundreds of metres up into the sky, then fell slowly back down to the ground. For hours the night sky was filled with great flowers of red and orange light.

"What happened to Dr Miller?" I asked.

"Poor Jim went to the great spaceship in the sky," Jude said. "Five hundred metres of red-hot lava fell on top of him."

It was a beautiful, and a terrifying thing to watch.

"And was there a spaceship in the volcano?"

"Yes," said Hawker.

"No", said Jude.

He looked at Jude, and they laughed. Then Jude looked at me. "What do you want to believe?" she asked. "They weren't very clever extraterrestrials, were they?-- sitting there in their spaceship in an erupting volcano!"

Hawker smiled. "Ah, but perhaps the spaceship left just before the volcano erupted. Gonzalo and I saw something in the clouds of dust -- a white light, moving very fast, faster than the dust. It went up very high."

"Well, I didn't see anything," said Jude. "And that's because there wasn't anything in that volcano!"

Hawker looked up into the blue Greek sky. "How do we know?" he said slowly. "One day someone, or something, is going to visit us from out there. Perhaps that was the first visit, all those years ago in the Galápagos. Who knows?"