We kept a low profile in the aftermath—the last thing we wanted was for our quiet way of life to be interrupted by sensation-seeking tourists and scabrous media-hounds—but perhaps inevitably word leaked out that my friends and I had played a part in the opening of the giant pit on the site of the Falls, and the subsequent, if brief, appearance of another golden column in the vicinity.For a few months Magenta Bay was inundated by the curious from across the Expansion. The Mantis was the locus of their attention, and our watering hole the Fighting Jackeral was rendered out-of-bounds as hordes of tourists flocked to the bar. Reporters and film-makers were a more serious problem. They wanted our personal stories and would stop at nothing to get them. After a month of continual pressure from the agencies, we held a council of war and Matt Sommers called for drastic action. A few weeks later he purchased the remaining section of the headland he didn’t already own, and then fenced it off.
