Cargo Cult (15 page)

The Agent looked around itself at
the bright swathes of stars. “It is the Bellarno-Hengh Arm of the
galaxy, Master.” One of the galaxy’s four major arms, billions of
stars sweeping out an arc tens of thousands of light years long,
home to a hundred thousand intelligent species yet most of it
completely unexplored. A long, long way down the arm, well beyond
all the major centres of civilisation, a red light glowed and the
image zoomed and panned, sweeping them through the billowing clouds
of dust, deeper and deeper into the swarming stars, zeroing in on
the red glow, closer and closer until it became a shape, a volume
of space, a tiny piece of the stupendous immensity of the
galaxy.

“I do not know this place,” the
Agent said.

Closer and closer until they could
see the tiny shape was filled with stars. Then they were inside the
shape and around them were perhaps a hundred stars. Still they
swept on, through the great distances that separated the stars so
far from the galactic centre, heading for one star in
particular.

The Agent saw it was an ordinary
star, nothing special, and, as they zoomed ever closer, it could
see the star had planets, as one would expect. Then they were
speeding towards one planet.

“This is Vingg,” the Lalantran
announced. “Named after the founder of its current civilisation: a
creature called Vingg. Home to a race of rather ordinary
creatures.”

“Of what interest is this place to
me?” The Agent wanted to know.

“We believe the Vinggans have
violated Galactic Law and have built sentient machines.”

“Then we must call them to
account.”

“Not yet. The Vinggans appear to be
unaware of what they have done. It is possible they do not even
know. We have mind-probed several of them and all we find is
obsession with their religion and total conviction that they are
the most physically, morally and mentally superior race in the
galaxy.”

The Agent was shocked. “But Master!
It is well known that the Lalantrans are the most intelligent race
in the galaxy.” Its metallic grey eyes flashed silver. “Let me
destroy them, Master.”

The Lalantran blushed a pale green,
a sign of its amusement. “The Vinggans themselves are no threat to
us. It is the machines they may harbour that are the real risk. The
other members of the Council of Elite Species are not convinced.
They do not see things as clearly as we do and will not sanction a
full investigation. So we must act alone.”

In an instant the image around them
disappeared and they were once more in the dark, cold cave. “That
is why we created you, our Agent. You are to leave at once for
Vingg. Find evidence that the Vinggans have perpetrated this crime
against all of us. If we are right, this has already gone on far
too long and life in the galaxy may be in grave danger.” The
Lalantran indicated an exit at the other side of the cave.

“I will not fail you, Master,” the
Agent promised. Then it prostrated itself again and, with no
further word, left the cave.

That had been many long weeks ago.
The Agent had travelled to Vingg and dealt with the insufferable
creatures there, getting nowhere. Then it had moved off-planet,
watching the activity of the Vinggans with its Lalantran
technology, talking to subject species on the new Vinggan colonies.
In the end, it had seen the truth of what its masters had
suspected. The Vinggans were the idiotic pawns of a far higher
order of intelligence. The machines, whether created on Vingg or
having come from elsewhere, had become their masters. They built
themselves into spaceships to give themselves mobility and strength
and they controlled all the sources of power and influence
throughout Vinggan space.

Yet, although its observations and
the reports of its informants—voluntary or otherwise—made a
coherent and compelling picture of Vinggan subornation, the Agent
knew it needed something more substantial to convince the Council
to act. So it had decided to capture one of the machines and bring
it home to its masters.

In the silent darkness of space, it
had waited and watched, waited and watched until, at last, the
perfect opportunity had presented itself. A lone cruiser, one of
the hated sentient machines, left the system, alone, heading for a
remote colony world.

The Agent had powered up its slim,
black starship and had slid into the wake of the
Vessel of the
Spirit
.

And so the Agent came to arrive in
the Sol system. The black ship’s powerful engines pushed its
velocity up to match the motion of the Sun relative to the Vinggan
star. Then, like a black bird of prey it swooped into orbit around
the Earth.

Its sensors showed the Vinggan
machine sitting quietly on the surface of the planet below and the
Agent scanned the surrounding area to try to understand its
mission. The planet was completely unknown to the civilised worlds
so the Agent studied what it could of it from its emissions.

It was clearly a primitive world,
shining like a light-bulb in the radio frequencies but all of the
normal communications channels were silent. There was a little
incoherent noise in the X-ray region and in a few other areas of
the electromagnetic spectrum but nothing else. How strange that the
Vinggan machine had come here. Perhaps it was the local sapients
that were worth the visit?

It began to gather data. They were
called ‘humans’: bipedal, warm-blooded, monocephalic. Their
technology was simple. All that seemed special about them was their
vast numbers. Over seven billion of them inhabited this little
planet. Many races with a hundred colony worlds had fewer members
than that. Perhaps the Vinggan machines were looking for a source
of fast-breeding slaves to exploit. Yet that did not fit with their
careful, secretive methods to date.

What the Agent needed was a human
to study.

-oOo-

Shorty, sporting several new little
burn marks on its woolly, brown hide, stopped trying to be a
smart-aleck and just told the damned machine what it wanted to
know.

“We’re Pappathenfranfinghellians,”
she said. “From the planet Frofrifrathalionion in the
Parapolpippohoppifra sector.”

The ship didn’t recognise any of
the names but did not interrupt. It could tell from the creature’s
heartbeat rate and other physiological indicators that it was
probably telling the truth at last.

“We work for Tentacles Farach. She
runs most of the rackets in the Cheggar asteroid belt. She’s
Organisation top brass. You know what I’m saying? Connected all the
way to God.”

The ship looked at the scruffy
collection of marsupials in the control room. “So, you kangaroos
are with the Mob,” it said, trying not to laugh.

Shorty saw nothing humorous in it.
“Yeah, we were doing all right. It was a sweet operation. We’d had
most of the drugs and prostitution for a while and I’d just taken
over the gambling from Three-Eyes Prochh after she’d had a bit of
an accident with a bulldozer.” There was a snigger from the other
kangaroos and Shorty went on. “But Three-Eyes was a moron. The
Sector Police had infiltrated her operation. They were all over it.
I think that bulldozer did her a big favour ‘cos six months after I
took over, the Secs pulled me in and charged me with every damned
crime they had in the statute book and they had evidence coming out
of their wazoos!” She shook her head at the injustice of it all.
“They even did me for murdering Three-Eyes! Like that wasn’t a
public service!” She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “What the hell.
It was a long time ago.

“They sentenced us to five hundred
years exile on one of the prison worlds.”

The ship spoke up. “This planet is
one of the Frofrifrathalionionian prison worlds?”

“Yeah. I don’t even know which one.
They’re all the same. Backward places in the middle of nowhere,
where there’s no danger of ever, ever contacting civilisation or
getting a ship off-planet. What a shit-hole! Can you believe we’ve
been here three hundred years already?”

The ship was curious. “And do all
Pappathenfranfinghellians look like you?”

“What, like freaks on springs you
mean? Of course not! They pick a local species and do a
transformation. Partly it’s so you can serve your sentence without
freaking out the native sapients. Partly it’s so you have another
humiliating indignity to suffer. Partly it’s just so the different
groups of jailbirds can’t recognise each other. For all I know,
every piece of wildlife on this whole planet is a
Frofrifrathalionionian prisoner!

“We’ve tried making contact with
the humans but they’re so stupid you wouldn’t believe it. Anyway,
they prefer to shoot their animals rather than communicate. I lost
a few good guys that way. It’s best to keep out of their way
completely.”

“So all you want,” said the ship,
“is to call your friends back home and get them to send a ship to
rescue you?”

“That’s it!” said Shorty, eagerly.
“That’s all we want. Just one call. You could do that for us,
couldn’t you? I’d make it worth your while. Anything you want.” She
thought about it but couldn’t really imagine what it was a ship’s
computer might want. “There must be something you need. More memory
blocks? Faster gizmos? You tell me. Anything at all.”

“Actually,” the ship said, “I could
do with a live human or two.”

“Aren’t you the girl from that
film?”

One of the Garden Club women had
come forward in the bus to sit next to Joss.

“I know nothing of films,” the
alien replied, curtly, not much enjoying the close proximity of a
member of such an unstable species. “I am Joss. I wear the grey
clothes.”

“I’m Carol. Pleased to meet you.
Only my friend Gail was saying it couldn’t be you but I said it was
’cos my boy Craig is a big fan. He has your poster on his wall. I
don’t really watch your films myself but my husband seems to like
them. Anyway I wondered if you wouldn’t mind just signing this for
my Craig. He’d be ever so pleased.” She held out an electricity
bill and a ballpoint pen. “It’s all I had on me,” she apologised.
“I’m sure you’ve signed worse things than that!”

Joss looked at the bill, then at
the woman. “Go away,” she said.

“Yeah, clear off!” shouted the
bud.

Carol’s eyes shot down to Joss’
huge, talking belly and widened to their maximum. Then, clutching
her electricity bill, she carefully backed out of the seat and
backed down the aisle to the back of the bus. She tried to tell her
friends what had happened but, like all the other Gardening Club
members, they were staring raptly out the back window. In a huge
cloud of dust, fifteen or so police cars were chasing them, sirens
blaring and lights flashing.

At the front of the bus, Braxx was
growing impatient.

“What do you mean, we’re lost?”

Clutching the big steering wheel
with white-knuckled intensity, Marcus felt the sweat trickling down
his face. “I’m not really a bus driver,” he wailed. “I don’t know
where this place is. Perhaps if I could stop and look at the map,
or ask someone.” He had a sudden mental image of himself making a
wild dash from the bus, the weird women shooting their ray guns at
him, the Kanaka Downs Garden Club watching with their faces pressed
against the windows as he scuttled into the bush. “I only know
Brisbane and a couple of towns on the regular routes,” he
complained.

They were well off the main roads
by then, barrelling along little country roads never intended for
gigantic luxury coaches. The police cars had started appearing
behind them while they were still in the city. At first they had
just followed, keeping their distance. Then, as they reached the
motorway, the sirens had started and they had begun shouting
through megaphones for the bus to pull over and let everybody off.
Marcus, of course, would happily have complied had the woman in the
wedding dress not stuck her ray gun in his face and told him to
keep on driving.

It was as if he had been kidnapped
by a bunch of identical, beautiful idiots. They didn’t understand
the simplest things.

“Why are those vehicles following
us?” the woman in white wanted to know.

“Er, it could be because you shot
up half of Brisbane and kidnapped a coachload of old age
pensioners,” he replied. “Just a wild guess.”

“What do they want?”

“I think they’d like to ask you why
a small army of sex-goddess fashion victims has hijacked a garden
club outing and ordered it to drive out into the boondocks.”

“We don’t have time for their
questions. We are on an important mission. Keep driving. Wait! What
in the name of all that’s holy is that?” Braxx was pointing out the
side of the bus across the fields to where a mob of twenty or so
kangaroos were grazing.

“Just a few roos,” said Marcus.

“Look everybody!” shouted Braxx,
pointing and beaming. The other Vinggans looked out the side
window.

“What is it?” asked Carol’s friend
Gail, in a whisper.

“Just some roos, dear. You know
what tourists are like.”

Then a couple of the roos took off,
heading across the field in long, lazy bounces. The Vinggans
whooped with laughter, shouting, “Look at that!” and “Have you ever
seen anything so ridiculous?” The other kangaroos joined the first
two and soon the whole mob was bouncing across the field. The
Vinggans were screaming with laughter, hanging onto each other as
they fell about, weakly wiping at their eyes and pointing out the
antics of the bouncing marsupials to one another. One of them
shouted “Boing! Boing!” and the hysteria rose to wild heights.

Sitting at the front, with Braxx
hanging onto him for support, Marcus ground his teeth and drove on
in silence.

-oOo-

Detective Sergeant Michael
Barraclough trailed along after the squad cars, only glimpsing the
bus from time to time through the dust. No-one could work out where
they were heading. An incident room had already been established
back at HQ and the Commissioner himself had been on the radio
asking Barraclough for his opinions “as the senior officer on the
scene,” as he’d put it.