Cargo Cult (37 page)

"How about that one?" Sam asked,
pointing at the largest of a small group nearby.

Drukk shrugged.

"Is that even a spaceship?"
Barraclough asked.

"I suppose."

"Well you must know what a
spaceship looks like."

"Not really."

Sam was getting annoyed with
Drukk's coyness about this and decided the best thing to do was to
keep pushing forward. “Right. It's that one then."

Even so, Sam didn't much like the
look of their proposed escape vehicle. It was about the size of a
double-decker bus with a couple of gigantic engines strapped to its
sides. It was painted in gaudy orange and green stripes with bright
purple splotches. Here and there were odd squiggles and marks, as
if alien vandals had spray-painted their tags on it. There were no
windows and no doors that she could see. If it wasn't for the fact
that all the other vehicles nearby looked just as bad, or worse,
she would never have chosen it.

"Come on then. Let's do it!"

Sam set off at a run across the
hard-packed, sandy surface and, with various degrees of
unwillingness, the others followed her. They gathered again under
one of the enormous engines.

"Now what?" Barraclough wanted to
know.

"Well duh, Chewy, we find the door
and get inside."

Barraclough eyed her angrily. "Will
you stop that Star Wars stuff? We are not in a film and you are not
Princess Leia!"

Sam smiled sweetly at him. "I know
I'm not Princess Leia, silly. I'm Han Solo. Now stop practising
your social skills on me and start looking for the door."

Biting down a riposte, Barraclough
turned away and began circling the craft. The others moved off to
do the same. Thirty seconds later, they were back together
again.

"There is no door," said
Barraclough, flatly.

"Of course there's a bloody door!"
Sam insisted, hotly.

"Well, it must be on the roof then
because it sure ain't down here honey."

"Look again! You just missed it,
that's all." She looked around at the others. "Try poking at
things, tapping things, look for the hidden levers or buttons or
whatever. It must be here somewhere!"

They all set off again, circling
the alien machine, patting it and prodding it like the fabled blind
men feeling their way around an elephant. They had been at it for a
couple of minutes when Wayne spotted a small flap at about waist
height. He lifted it to reveal a set of tiny golden buttons
arranged in a circle. "Hey, everybody! I've got something!" As the
others came rushing over to see, he gave the buttons an
experimental prod.

Immediately a loud siren sounded
and lights around the top of the ship began flashing. "Intruders!
Intruders!" the ship shouted, so loudly the humans had to cover
their ears. Stricken, they flattened themselves against the side of
the ship. All around them, seemingly out of nowhere, surprised
green heads were popping up or peering around corners. In moments,
several dozen of the green aliens had formed a bemused and
haphazard arc around them.

"Where the hell did they all come
from?" asked Barraclough, voicing the thoughts of all of them.

'Quick!" shouted Sam, grabbing at
Drukk's shoulder bag. "Give me your gun." Drukk immediately
snatched his bag away. Sam struggled with him, still trying to
reach it. "Give me your gun you double-D dimwit. I'll hold them off
while the rest of you keep working on finding the way in." Drukk
continued to resist her, driving her wild with frustration. "Will
somebody please help me here, I'm trying to save our necks."

John stepped up to her and caught
her by the shoulders. "It's all right, Sam," he said as she looked
wildly up into his eyes. You don't really want to do this."

"Yes, but..." she began, the
familiar confusion overwhelming her.

"That's right. You don't want the
nasty gun now, do you? It's much better if we don't go shooting
anybody, isn't it?"

Open-mouthed, she nodded slowly.
"Yes, I was just..."

"She's going to kill you after she
snaps out of this," Wayne warned him.

"You don't want to kill anyone, do
you Sam?" John went on, calmly. "You just want to let these nice
green fellas come over and have their say. Then we'll probably go
off with them to talk to their boss. All nice and calm, eh?"

Sam nodded robotically. "Nice and
calm," she said, dreamily. "I don't want to shoot anyone."

"Good girl."

He looked away from Sam to find the
aliens had wandered closer in. The nearest of them was just a few
metres away. It raised a hand and pointed a small black device
towards them. For an instant, looking down the barrel of what he
assumed was an alien handgun, John wondered if he had done the
right thing preventing Sam from shooting them. Then the alien
pressed a stud on the device and with a loud double-chirp, the
spaceship's intruder alarm stopped shrieking.

In the silence, the crowd of green
creatures stared at the handful of humans and their Vinggan
friend.

"Hello," said the Mozbac with the
key. "You must be the Vinggans."

Drukk stepped forward as the humans
gaped. Now here was a situation his training had in fact covered –
first contact with an inferior species. "I am Drukk," he announced.
"Space Corps Operative, sixth class. I wear the orange clothing.
Take me to your leader."

"Er, all right," said the Mozbac.
"I was going to suggest a glass of borra juice in the canteen but
if that's what you really want."

-oOo-

The Mozbac led them across the
spaceport to a large shed in which a number of ground vehicles were
parked. Each was identical – a six-wheeled, articulated platform
with handrails around the sides and a cloth canopy above. They all
got aboard. Everyone except the Mozbac had to crouch because the
canopy was so low. The alien took hold of a lever at the front and
the vehicle whined into life. They lurched out of the shed and onto
a dun-coloured track that led away from the spaceport. They all had
to hang onto the handrails because the road was so uneven and the
vehicle's suspension was almost non-existent. Only the Mozbac, with
four legs on the platform, seemed comfortable.

"Where are you taking us?"
Barraclough asked.

"To the Palace," said the driver,
cheerily. "It isn't far but I don't get the chance to drive one of
these babies very often and, well, with you being VIPs and
everything, I thought we'd travel in style."

“Right. And who's at the
Palace?"

"Why, the big fella! The boss."

"The boss?"

Wayne goggled. "You mean Bruce
Springsteen?"

"Shut up Wayne," everyone said,
automatically.

"And what's the boss's name?"
Barraclough pressed on.

The Mozbac laughed. "Yeah, right,
like you big shot aliens don't even know the boss of the
world!"

"I always thought that was you,
Sam," said Wayne, smirking.

Sam was still confused. "I – I
don't want to kill anybody," she assured him, “but shouldn't we
jump this green guy and make our getaway? I mean, wouldn't that
make more sense?"

"You know, maybe she's right," said
Wayne, nervously. "Do we really want to see this warlord bloke?
What if he's, like, all scary and stuff?"

Barraclough took a moment to save
himself from being thrown overboard by a particularly deep
pot-hole. "It's probably the best we can do now. They know we're
here. We can't go back to the ship and we don't want to be the
focus of a planet-wide manhunt, do we? So let's turn ourselves in
to the proper authorities and let them sort it out. This warlord
guy is probably a reasonable enough sort." He paused while the
driver had some kind of coughing fit. "He'll most likely just call
the Lalantrans and have us taken back to Earth."

John shook his head. "I don't know
about these Lalantrans, Mike. I think you might be putting a bit
too much faith in them."

“Bullshit! I've met them. Well, one
anyway. We can trust those guys."

"What do you think?" Wayne asked
the Mozbac. "Will your boss turn us over to the Lalantrans?"

"The who?"

"Where are we?" Sam's voice had the
tone of someone waking in the back of a car in the middle of a
long, overnight journey. Wayne, John and Barraclough all winced in
unison. "What the hell is going on here?"

John quickly took her by the
shoulders again and looked her in the eyes. "Everything is fine,
Sam, we're just whumph!" He doubled over, gasping for air and
clutching at his solar plexus where Sam had just thumped him.
Barraclough had to grab the man to stop him falling off the vehicle
and they both fell onto the platform as it threw them
off-balance.

Drukk, crouching at the front
beside the driver, looked back at them in dismay. He addressed the
driver, feeling some explanation was needed. “My companions are
humans from the planet Earth. Do not be concerned if they speak or
act erratically. Their brains are only partly evolved or something.
Somehow they function as a species, they even have a primitive kind
of technology, but it is hard to see how they manage to
survive."

"So you're not all the same species
then? I don't mean to be rude but you all look the same to me."

Drukk made the
gesture-of-shame-and-disgrace-beyond-all-endurance, which came out
as a slight raising of his delicate shoulders and a pretty little
sigh. "It is a long and sad story," he explained. "Something very
odd is going on and I seem to be caught up in their inexplicable
antics but, by the Great Spirit, I am not one of them. I am a
Vinggan, part of a fine and noble race." As he spoke, he remembered
his graduation from the Academy, his proud years of service to the
great Vinggan Empire. He stood up straight and proud, pushing his
head and shoulders straight through the cloth awning. Chagrined
beyond words, Drukk closed his eyes and stayed where he was,
moaning quietly to himself.

The driver looked across at what
was still visible of the Vinggan and shook his head. In the back,
all four of the humans were rolling about on the floor, punching
one another and yelping like pups at feeding time. Whatever the
difference was between a Vinggan and a human, this Mozbac certainly
couldn't see it.

-oOo-

"So all we'd like from you," Braxx
was saying, “is a..." He pulled the crumpled piece of disposable
screen from his bag for the umpteenth time and read from it. "A
field modulator coil for the infra-reality drive phase
regulator."

"And you will trade one of your
personal shield generators for it?"

"Of course. Anything you like."

Chuwar smiled slyly. These Vinggan
fools clearly had no idea of the value of their own incredible
technology. It was like taking flegworms from a pouchling! "Then we
have a deal, my little friend. Werpot! See to the exchange. Make
our guests comfortable. Give them women, or..." He peered closely
at what must surely be mammalian-style mammary glands on their
chests. “...or men, or whatever. And fix up a meeting between me
and that hag Quilquox. I will want to show her my new toy."
Cheerful at the thought of frying his old enemy from behind the
safety of a Vinggan force shield, Chuwar roared with happy
laughter.

"Er," said Braxx, when the noise
had died down. "There was just one other, small thing."

"Anything, my dear Braxx.
Anything." He would have slapped the creature on its back had he
not thought that would have crushed it like an insectoid.

"I'd just like to talk to you about
the spiritual welfare of your people..."

The four humans and Drukk stood
together in the waiting room of a low, mud-coloured office. Their
driver had long-since abandoned them into the hands of another of
his kind. This new Mozbac had politely welcomed them to To'egh and
then disappeared through a doorway behind a long counter with a
cheery, “Please wait there a moment."

"Don't they have chairs on this
planet?" Barraclough grumbled, stalking up and down the room.

"I don't suppose they need them,"
said John, mildly. "They probably lie around on rocks, like lizards
or something."

"Thank you, David Attenborough,"
Sam sneered.

"You don't suppose they've
forgotten about us?" asked Wayne. Sam and Barraclough glared at him
but he didn't seem to notice. He moved up close to his sister and
said, in a low voice, "I'm worried about Loosi. She's just been
standing over there in the corner all this time and she won't talk
to me or say anything."

Sam glanced across at the alien and
had to agree there was something wrong there, but she had no
patience for dealing with Drukk's problems just then. "Just leave
her alone. We've got bigger things to worry about. And for the ten
thousandth time, she's an alien called Drukk. She's not Loosi
Beecham."

"Yeah, I know." Wayne's grudging
tone and sullen expression said he still wasn't quite ready to
admit the fact to himself, but Sam let it go. Her brother was an
idiot. Always had been. Always would be. It was a fact of life.
Nothing she could do about it. And anyway...

Her train of thought, such as it
was, was interrupted by a sudden commotion from outside. The door
was thrown open to admit a dozen hideous monsters with a little
Mozbac leading them in.

"There they are," the Mozbac told
the monsters. It turned to the still-frozen humans. "These
gentlemen are from the Palace Guard," the Mozbac informed them.

"Ladies," growled one of the
monsters.

"What?" said the Mozbac.

"We're ladies, not gentlemen. Are
you blind?"

The Mozbac official became quite
flustered. "Oh. I, er, I do apologise, ladies. Please forgive me. I
should really have my ocular buds regenerated. It's just finding
the time you know. One is so busy, what with..."