The Rangers have split up, and those who left to return to Narkindie are instantly in deep trouble. Boomer and the others have returned to Max Bungarra's underground bunker, deep in the Australian Outback, where Professor Peter Lasseter is keen to conclude his deal with the giant termites, collect his reward of gold dust and get back home. Can they trust him? Will he still try to decode the third computer file and hand it over to the Termite Queen Goora as she demands, or will he sell it to the Military Government in exchange for the medicine his terminally sick grand-daughter so desperately...