Cargo Cult (27 page)

“Your weapons are useless against
me,” it said, and Sam was sure she could see a sort of smile on its
horrible face. “Desist, or I will immobilise you.”

The Vinggans stopped firing again
and looked at each other nervously.

“What do you want?” one asked,
tilting its cute little chin in defiance. “And who are you
anyway?”

“It looks sort of human,” said
Klakk, who wore a red satin night-dress.

“There is a human with it, within
its shield,” said Trugg in a gold evening dress.

On hearing this, Sam peered again
at the monster and saw Detective Sergeant Barraclough standing
stolidly beside it. He was a big, broad man, she thought, but he
looked like a child against the titanic alien.

“I will answer all questions when
your leader arrives,” said the Agent who understood the
hierarchical nature of Vinggan society.

“Then answer them now,” said Braxx,
imperiously, sweeping forward in his wedding dress. Despite her
loathing for the odious creature, Sam had to admire Braxx’s nerve
as he marched past his followers to confront the giant newcomer.
Sam wriggled her way in among the Vinggans to get a better view of
what was happening. More Vinggans and a crowd of humans were
filling the hallway behind her and a hubbub of “What’s going ons”
and “I dunnos” arose from them.

Sam suddenly realised that she
could hear gunfire. Lots of it. In fact, it sounded like World War
Three was being fought just out of sight behind the trees. She
glanced around, trying to work out whether all the Vinggans were
still there in the farmhouse. As far as she could tell, they were.
So who was doing all the shooting out there? Could there be more of
these black giants? Perhaps fighting the police?

“I am an Agent of the Lalantrans,”
the big, black creature said.

The effect on the Vinggans was
striking. They were clearly impressed and even awed—an emotion that
Sam had not seen from them at all. A few even seemed a little
scared. They all quickly lowered their weapons, as if hoping that
the Agent wouldn’t notice they’d just been trying to blast it to
pieces. Sam didn’t know what to make of this. Any enemy of the
Vinggans was a friend of hers, yet something powerful enough to
scare a race so technically advanced was probably something she
should be scared of too. The big fella spoke again.

“You have violated Galactic law and
have built sentient machines. I have come to confiscate your
spaceship and to judge your species.”

Braxx, much to the surprise of
everybody there, laughed out loud. “If you want our ship, you can
have it, Agent. If you find any sign of machine intelligence there,
let alone sentience, you can slap my oral cavity with a dead offal
worm.”

The other Vinggans thought this was
hilarious and fell about laughing. “I am the King of Deneb Prime!”
shouted one and they all screamed with laughter. “I hope you
brought your space crane!” called another.

The laughter was so infectious that
several of the humans present joined in too. Sam, however, was just
plain annoyed. She elbowed her way to the front of the crowd and
stomped down the steps to confront the Agent, who had been watching
the Vinggan mirth with its usual calm inscrutability.

“If you’re here to judge them, you
might want to consider that they are holding me and lots of other
people here as prisoners.” Behind her, the Vinggans stopped
laughing. “They’ve killed and injured loads of other people and
destroyed property all over the place. Why don’t you judge them for
that?”

“That’s right,” said Detective
Sergeant Barraclough, stepping forward and looking up at the Agent.
“I think we have grievances here a bit more bloody important than
this sentient machine rubbish!” He turned to face the Vinggans. “I
want to arrest these women right now. Tell them to lay down their
weapons and come peacefully.”

“Agent,” said Braxx, completely
ignoring the humans. “We should dispose of these humans and talk
privately. I believe the Great Spirit has changed Her mind about
converting this savage planet and now wishes you to convey us to
the nearest Vinggan colony world.”

“Hey! I was talking here, Sheila!”
shouted Barraclough, in his best scumbag–intimidating voice. “Why
don’t you give your tonsils a rest and save your breath for the
judge?”

Braxx gave a small shudder of
distaste. He spoke past Barraclough to the Agent. “As you can see,
they are completely irrational. Barely anything they say or do
makes any sense. We have tried to instil some simple spirituality
into them but they lack any higher cognitive functions.”

Barraclough was about to give an
angry retort but Sam beat him to it. Pushing the big detective
aside, she stepped up to face Braxx. “Why you pompous, conceited,
god-bothering, overdeveloped bimbo! Spirituality? I’ll show you
spirituality!” She drew her fist back to punch Braxx on the nose
and, as she did so, every Vinggan in sight raised its weapon and
pointed it at her.

“Woah! Chick fight!” Jadie
exclaimed with relish.

Sam froze, knowing the end had
come. A second went by, then two.

“Hey, my blaster isn’t working!”
complained Klakk.

“Nor mine!” whined Trugg. “And I
wanted to blast the human!”

“Silence!” said the Agent in a
voice so amplified that Sam’s ears rang. “I will permit no further
violence.” It looked down at Barraclough. “Human, your quarrel with
the Vinggans is none of my concern. They are charged with the most
serious crime in the galaxy—creating machine sapience. The murder
of a few members of your species is of minor importance. Besides,”
and it sort of shrugged apologetically, “causing deaths and damage
to property during unlawful invasions of non-affiliated planets is
a minor misdemeanour. You would need to take it up with your local
jurisdiction.”

Barraclough fumed but thought
better of everything he wanted to say. Sam just watched, her close
shave with death having shaken her somewhat. Taking a deep breath,
Barraclough said, “So you are just taking these women away with you
and that’s that? We just bury our dead and forget about it.”

“You wish to know that the Vinggans
will be punished?”

“Dead right I wish to know
that!”

“Then consider this. If found
guilty of the crime of which they are accused, the Vinggans—not
just these but their entire species—will be stripped of all
privileges, their technology will be destroyed, and they will be
confined to their homeworld for the next ten thousand years.” The
huge alien smiled. “Will that be sufficient to satisfy you?”

“What if they are not found
guilty?” asked Sam, coming out of her daze.

“Then you are at liberty to raise
the matter of this invasion with your Local Authority.”

“What, the Brisbane City
Council?”

“No.” The Agent checked an
instrument at its wrist. “That would be the High Council of Durak.
It seems they are the local government out here. I daresay you
could appeal to the Outer Bellarno-Hengh Association of Independent
Sentient Communities if you don’t get the result you are seeking. I
would need to check the local laws to be sure.”

“Just a minute!”

Everyone turned to look at Braxx,
who was standing with his hands on his hips. By now everyone had
managed to get out of the house so they could get a view and the
crowd spilled off the veranda into the yard. The Agent, Barraclough
and Sam were at the centre of the group, facing Braxx and his
Vinggans. The remaining humans formed a ring around them.

“No-one is taking us anywhere,”
said Braxx. “You may not realise it, Agent, but I am Braxx,
Corpuscular Manifestation, third class, of the Great Spirit. These
good people are members of a holy sect: The Pebbles of the New
Dawn. The Lalantrans, of course, are godless atheists but they are
reputed to have some intelligence. You will probably realise the
folly, therefore, of offending the Great Spirit by abusing Her
servants. You might also ponder the wrath of the people of Vingg
should they hear of our treatment. The human animals you can do
what you like with, of course, but be careful how you treat the
children of the Great Spirit!”

“Oh this is, like, really heavy,”
wailed Laney. “You’re the Sky People, yeah? You should be all,
like, wise and cool, not all...” She made a gesture that could have
been a wild animal holding up its claws aggressively but, on the
waif-like Laney, looked more like a curious hamster looking through
its bars for a treat.

“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up!”
shouted one of the old folk. “Let ’em beat each other up if that’s
what they want. Bloody illegal immigrants!”

“Yeah, go home you freaks!” shouted
another old lady, possibly at the aliens but equally possibly at
the cultists.

In fact their new-found health and
vitality seemed to have made the Kanaka Downs Garden Club outing
survivors even more belligerent than most old people. Several of
them began shouting insults at the aliens. Others were telling the
Receivers of Cosmic Bounty they were a bunch of useless hippies and
they should get a job. Two were arguing with each other and looked
like coming to blows soon.

Some of the Receivers had enough
spirit left to shout back, saying things such as, “Oh that’s, like,
such a retro mind-set,” and “Who are these old geezers? What’s
going on?” But most of them, finding their dreams of Cosmic Bounty
replaced by a nightmare vision of a galaxy of squabbling,
bureaucratic, power-crazed lunatics, had fallen into a silent
reverie as they reassessed their lives so far and began a first,
anxious consideration of a future they had thought they didn’t need
to worry about.

“You will find,” said the Agent,
still speaking to Braxx above the rising clamour from the humans,
“that I am fully empowered to make this investigation—and to use
whatever force is necessary to gather evidence.”

Braxx fumed and was about to reply
when Drukk suddenly shouted “Look!”

Drukk had been standing on the edge
of the Vinggan group, finding it hard to concentrate on the
confrontation between Braxx and the Lalantran Agent because of all
the shouting and squabbling the humans were doing. They really were
a most peculiar species. They seemed fundamentally irrational in
some strange way. Maybe, he thought, they would seem more sane when
you got to know them? The one called Wayne, for example, had seemed
quite coherent at times. Maybe it just needed more work to get to
know them than it did with other species?

He had looked down at one human who
was tearing its own shirt off and shouting; “I’m not too old to
give
you
a good hiding sonny!” when he noticed a movement in
the trees beyond. Suddenly, four things happened in rapid
succession.

The first thing was that a group of
about twenty, armed and armoured police officers came rushing up to
the farmhouse. The human in the lead pointed up at the Agent and
shouted, “There it is! Take cover!” The newcomers then started to
spread out and find things to hide behind. Given the litter of old
bits of machinery, troughs, old baths, piles of timber, mouldering
bales of hay, broken down utes, blown-up police cars and so on,
around the farm, they soon found themselves suitable spots.

The second thing was that a mob of
kangaroos came bounding out of the trees, not far from where the
police officers had appeared. They too were heading for the
farmhouse but they quickly skidded to a halt on seeing the crowd
assembled there. Of course, Drukk didn’t know they were kangaroos,
just that they were the weirdest creatures he had ever seen. It was
at this point that he had shouted “Look!”

“What the fuck is going on around
here!” asked the lead roo, a small doe with an agitated demeanour.
The other roos looked around wildly, taking in the fact that there
were armed police all around them crouching behind things.

“It’s a trap!” shouted another,
bouncing with rage. “I told you it was a trap! Didn’t I tell her it
was a stupid trap!”

“Shut up or I’ll fill your pouch
with sand you big, stupid rabbit! Go back. Get out of here!”

They turned to flee but just then,
the third thing happened. A small army of police officers appeared
at the tree-line, advancing slowly toward the kangaroos. Unlike the
first group of police officers, this lot were dirty and
dishevelled. Many of them showed signs of injury and had torn
clothes and missing bits of body armour. All of them looked grim
and determined. Dozens of weapons were levelled at the mob of roos
who kicked and jumped and shouted “Shit!” a lot.

One of these grim policemen spoke
into his radio. “Unit three to Mike Charlie one,” he said and Drukk
wondered what in the galaxy the creature could mean.

“Mike Charlie one,” said the
radio.

“We’ve got the roos trapped Sarge,”
said the policemen.

“Then shoot the fucking things!”
shouted the radio.

“Er, right Sarge,” said the
policeman, embarrassed that everyone had heard.

“Ready!” he shouted. None of his
men did anything, unless you count looking at him expectantly.

“Aim!” he bellowed. He wasn’t quite
sure of the protocol in such matters but he’d seen enough war
movies to give him a clue. Luckily, the police officers around him
got the idea of it and raised their guns and pointed them at the
kangaroos.

“Holy Mother of God!” he
screamed—because the fourth thing had just happened.

A spaceship the size of the Sydney
Olympic Stadium had come plummeting vertically down from a clear
blue sky at a breathtaking speed to stop dead a hundred metres
above the farmhouse. Its shadow covered everyone, police, roos and
all, as though night had fallen in an eyeblink.

Everybody looked up.

Then a blinding white shaft of
light shot down from the spaceship, wide enough to encompass the
entire crowd of humans and Vinggans around the Agent, bright enough
to turn them into pallid, washed-out wraiths. So bright was it
that, when it suddenly stopped, it took the dazzled and confused
policemen and the kangaroos they were about to do battle with,
several seconds of blinking and rubbing their eyes to realise that
the crowd by the farmhouse had gone. So too had the spaceship.
Shooting up into space as fast as it had plummeted to Earth.