Cargo Cult (28 page)

Only one creature remained on the
veranda of the old farmhouse. The Lalantran Agent.

“Tails and whiskers!” said Shorty.
“It was that bloody ship!” She looked around at the stunned and
disoriented humans and then at the Agent. “Hey,” she shouted to the
silent black giant. “Can you get us off this god-forsaken
mudball?”

The Agent, who had been looking up
at the receding spaceship, looked across at the kangaroo. “No,” it
said. It cast its grey eyes over the confused humans and said, “You
had better leave while they are still in shock.”

Shorty wanted to argue, to insist
on a ride home, but something in the creature’s stony expression
persuaded her otherwise. “Yeah, right,” she said, grudgingly and
hopped off at full speed towards a gap in the human ranks. Her mob
followed close behind.

“Hey!” shouted a nearby human and
fired a shot at a roo as it passed him. The bullet clunked
harmlessly off the creature’s shield and the roo kept right on
bouncing. He set off after the disappearing mob and several others
joined him but the majority of his fellow police officers just
stood in the farm precincts staring up at the empty sky.

The Agent, only there because its
equipment had detected the Vinggan teleport beam and had given him
protection from it, cursed its own stupidity. It was the ship. The
ship, with its artificial sentience, that had rescued the Vinggans,
stolen the humans and escaped. It should have gone for the ship,
not the Vinggans. It should not have let the human, Barraclough,
distract it.

It would know better next time.

With a hunter’s iron patience, the
Agent clamped down on its boiling fury and signalled its own ship,
still waiting in orbit. Another teleport beam stabbed down, thin
and fast and the Agent was gone too.

The whine of an over-revved engine
insinuated into the stillness left behind. It mounted to a roar and
a police car slewed to a halt on the dirt farm road. Senior
Sergeant Rick Fury jumped out and ran a few steps towards his men
before the atmosphere of the place overcame him. “What’s going on?”
he asked. Almost a hundred police officers were standing or
sitting, in groups or alone, all over the farmyard. Some were
staring at the house. Some were staring at the sky. None of them
spoke.

It was spooky.

"Hello, I'm Gina Spacek and welcome
to a specially-extended edition of the Seven O"Clock News.

"Queensland Commissioner of Police,
Mr. Barry Skingle, is still refusing to comment on the incredible
events which appear to have taken place in and around the city of
Brisbane over a forty-eight hour period last week.

"Police are now refusing to confirm
or deny their own initial reports of a terrorist attack in
Brisbane's central business district, early on the morning of the
Sixteenth, in which eighteen people may have been kidnapped. Three
passers-by are known to have died in the incident while, at the
subsequent shoot-out at Saunders’ Station, a remote farmhouse
North-West of the city, a further seventeen police officers were
killed and twenty-nine injured.

"Despite this being the largest
police operation ever undertaken in Australia, the Police, the
State Government and the Federal Government have closed ranks and
are refusing to release any further information, claiming that the
incident is a matter of national security.

"More peculiarly, reporters who
were at the scene have alleged they saw a gigantic space-ship
descend from the clouds above an area where the police had been
engaged in a prolonged gunfight and then fly off again shortly
afterwards. Police are alleged to have confiscated video recordings
of the incident and, in simultaneous raids on the evening of the
Seventeenth, Federal police entered the offices of every leading
news agency in Australia and confiscated other materials including
more video recordings.

“The farm where the incident
happened belongs to a Mr John Saunders. Locals allege that Saunders
ran a space cult from the farm and held late-night orgies in which
young girls were forced to engage in sexual acts with men wearing
alien costumes. Earlier I interviewed Dr. Hilary Gore, Emeritus
Professor of Cult Studies at the Australian National University who
told me this.”

“I have been aware of this
particular cult for more than a year now. One of my PhD students
did her thesis on it last year after having spent several weeks
with them. They are what we classify as a ‘cargo cult’. The term
comes from cults which arose particularly in the South Sea Islands
during periods of first contact with modern Western civilisation.
The cargo cultists were overawed by the amazing items in the
newcomers’ cargoes and believed the white men to be bringing
magical and powerful objects to the islands. Cults arose which
worshipped the gifts of the strange invaders and prayed for the
giving of these gifts to the cultists.

“What we find with the Saunders’
Station cult—the Receivers of Cosmic Bounty, as they call
themselves—is exactly parallel. Only, here, the cargoes are being
brought by aliens, not white men. Frankly, I am amazed that there
was trouble with the police as cults of this kind tend to be
extremely passive and never violent.”

“That was Professor Hilary
Gore.

“Adding to the mystery of the whole
affair, several eye witnesses in Brisbane, including the Verger at
St Stephen’s Cathedral, have reported encountering groups of up to
twenty women looking exactly like the actress Loosi Beecham, star
of the blockbuster films,
P.I. Girls
and
Love is
Harder
. It is not certain just how many ‘LooBee clones’ as they
are being called, were involved in the incident but it is alleged
that it was they who hijacked the Kanaka Downs Garden Club outing
and caused the three deaths in Brisbane CBD.

“Police are still refusing to
comment on the whereabouts of the Kanaka Downs Garden Club members
who, friends and relatives say, are still missing and did not
return home after the incident. There is also no sign of the LooBee
clones although it is rumoured that, like the gardening club
members, they are being held for questioning by the police.

“In Los Angeles, a woman claiming
to be the real Loosi Beecham, issued a statement through her lawyer
today saying that she was not in Australia at the time of the
incident. The statement goes on to say that Ms Beecham has not been
cloned and does not intend ever to be cloned. Ms Beecham’s lawyers
further stated that, if any cloning of Ms Beecham has taken place
without her knowledge or consent, legal remedies would be sought
against the perpetrators who would clearly be in violation of Ms
Beecham’s rights as an individual.

“Meanwhile, we have had reports
that the police officer in charge of the siege of Saunders’
Station, Chief Inspector Sheila Sullivan, is under sedation in
Royal Brisbane Hospital after having suffered what doctors are
calling an acute traumatic stress episode. Reporters have so far
been unable to talk to Chief Inspector Sullivan about what happened
to her and what she saw out at Saunders’ Station that led to her
breakdown. However, we hope to bring you an interview later in the
program with Emily Sullivan, the Chief Inspector’s mother.

“We will also be bringing you an
interview with Mr. and Mrs. Zammit, the couple who claim that their
daughter, Samantha, and son, Wayne, were among the people who
disappeared during these fateful two days. Samantha Zammit is
better known to readers of
Fast Lane
magazine as ZamZam, the
writer of a popular outdoor lifestyle column. Her editor, Mr Derek
Gleebe, told our reporter this afternoon that Ms Zammit and her
brother had discovered a woman they believed to be Loosi Beecham
stoned and naked and shouting nonsense in the street and had then
gone to the farm with her, having uncovered some connection between
the actress and the cult living there.

“More of that later.

“In breaking news, one of the
policemen involved in the shoot-out at Saunders’ Station, has come
forward and has been speaking to reporters about his experiences
during the incident. The policeman, Constable Jack Collins, claims
to have been in the thick of the fighting at Saunders’ Station and
has made some very disturbing allegations.

“We go live now to our Ipswich
Studio, where we join Mark Jones and Constable Collins. Mark?”

“G’day, Gina. Constable, what can
you tell me about Loosi Beecham’s involvement in the affair at
Saunders’ Station?”

“I didn’t get a real good look at
the LooBee clones myself but I knew a couple of the blokes who’d
been in the gunfight with them. They told me there were maybe a
dozen of them, all dressed to kill... Ah, look, sorry mate, I
didn’t mean to—”

“That’s all right. Go on.”

“Right. All dressed in, like,
bikinis and lingerie and weird stuff. Anyway, they just opened fire
without any provocation with their ray guns and mowed down loads of
my fellow officers.”

“You say they had ray guns?”

“Too right, mate. Like the
kangaroos.”

“Tell us about the kangaroos,
Constable Collins.”

“We were staking out the farmhouse,
waiting for our orders to go in when we were attacked by a mob of
roos. They went for me and another bloke, like they just wanted to
bash us, or something. Then more blokes arrived and the roos
started shooting at us.”

“The kangaroos started shooting at
you.”

“Yeah. That’s right. I know it
sounds stupid. Nobody believes me but there were a hundred-odd
police officers out there. They all saw it. The roos had ray guns
too and, like, protective shield things—you know? like the Borg on
Star Trek? Nothing could touch them. We were shooting at them for a
long time and they just took everything we threw at them. Thousands
of rounds! When they started shooting back, we had to run for
cover. Their ray guns killed you straight out if they hit you. One
shot could blast a tree to splinters.

“Then they made a run for it. I
don’t know why. We were definitely losing. No doubt about that.
They ran for the farmhouse and we followed them. When they got
through the trees and into the clearing around the farmhouse, they
stopped. We stopped too. No-one wanted to get too close. There were
other police officers there already and a big crowd of people
around the black monster on the veranda.”

“Black monster?”

“Yeah. I’d heard some stuff on the
radio. Guys were fighting a gigantic black monster, then it
disappeared and they tracked it to the farmhouse. I wasn’t really
concentrating at the time, what with the roos and all. But it was
bloody big, right enough. It had the LooBee clones with it and a
load of other people.

“It looked like we were going to
have another go at the roos when, suddenly, a spaceship the size of
a footy oval dropped out of the sky. Then there was a flash of
light and all the people round the farmhouse disappeared. Then the
spaceship shot off into the sky and it was gone too.”

“The people disappeared?”

“Yeah. Just like that. They were
there one minute, gone the next. Probably the spaceship took them.
All except the monster. Then the roos and the monster talked to
each other.”

“You’re saying the kangaroos could
talk?”

“I hadn’t heard them until then but
they talked all right. Ask anybody. Then they ran off and there was
another flash and the monster disappeared too.”

“You understand, don’t you
Constable Collins, that your story sounds pretty far-fetched.
Talking kangaroos, spaceships, giant monsters. Many people are not
going to believe you.”

“Mate, I don’t believe it myself
sometimes. Sometimes I think I should be in the loony bin with the
Chief Inspector and all those other blokes.”

“What other blokes?”

“Ah look, they bussed in a load of,
you know, counsellors and stuff. And, I’ve got to say, there were a
lot of blokes who were acting a bit queer. Not crook or anything,
just, you know, laughing a lot, or crying, or shouting at people
who weren’t there. Stuff like that.”

“You know, don’t you, that the
Government and the Police have clamped down on all information
about the incident. They won’t speak to the press and they won’t
allow any of the police officers involved to speak to us either.
What made you come forward against the wishes of the Commissioner
of Police, the State Premier and the Prime Minister?”

“What? You’re joking? You mean I’m
not supposed to be talking to you? Oh shit! Oh man, the Prime
Minister? Oh shit! Ah, look, mate, you can’t let this go out. Oh
fuck, they’re going to crucify me, if this goes out.”

“I, er, I’m sorry, but this is a
live broadcast. Everyone has already seen it.”

“Oh you’re joking! Oh God. Oh God.
I feel sick.”

“Well, yes, thank you Constable
Jack Collins. Now back to you Gina.”

“Thank you Mark. Look, maybe you
could get the Constable a bucket or something, Mark, I think
he’s... Yep. Thought so.”

“Oh for God’s sake! Turn it
off!”

Sam stood up and stomped over to
the window. Outside, the grey haze of infra-reality roiled around
them.

“I can’t believe space is so bloody
boring!” she shouted but the others stayed glued to the screen,
watching the news of their own disappearance unfold.

Wayne joined her at the window.
“Drukk said it would be.”

“You and your bloody Drukk,”
muttered Sam. “If you hadn’t been sitting in that ute, unconscious
with bloody Drukk that day, none of this would have happened!”

“It wouldn’t have happened to you,
you mean.”

“What?”

“It would still have happened to
everyone else,” Wayne explained. “Just not to you.”

“Yes? And your point is?”

Wayne gave an apologetic grimace,
acknowledging his stupidity. “Yeah. Right. I see.” He was happy to
leave the subject anyway. He didn’t want to explain to Sam just why
he was in a stolen ute with Loosi Beecham that night. Better by far
that she didn’t know.