Cargo Cult (41 page)

"When we crashed on Earth," the
ship persisted, "I noticed anomalous readings that might indicate
the presence of a large mass of duralinium." It seemed like a
clever lie at the time but the ship soon regretted it.

"Dura-what?"

"Linium, sir. It is a structurally
complex alloy that only the most technologically-advanced species
can produce."

"So?"

Grinding its mental teeth, the ship
pressed on. "Sir, the humans do not possess that kind of
technology."

"So?"

So why don't I come over there
and vaporise the lot of you, you cretin?
the ship thought. "So
someone must have put it there."

“Put what there?"

Chuwar had begun growling and,
apart from Braxx who was busy on the comm, everyone else was
growing nervous.

"The duralinium object, Sir."

"What duralinium object?" Braxx
turned to Drukk with a frown. "I think the ship has started going
funny again."

At this, the ship completely lost
its cool. "The Vault, you blithering moron!" it shouted. "The
Vault! They make vaults out of duralinium! Every stupid wheezebag
in the Galaxy knows that, you simpleton! I'm telling you I detected
the effing Mechazoid Hoard on that damned mudball planet. Do I have
to spell it out in letters fifty metres high? How bout if I burn it
into the roof of that stupid pile of rocks you're standing in? Or
into your miserable little brain pan?"

Braxx took the comm unit out of his
ear and held it at arm's length. It buzzed and spat as the ship
continued to rant at him. "Drukk, when we get back you'd better
tighten up a few screws, or whatever needs doing. I think the ship
thinks it's the King of Deneb Prime again."

Klakk and Trugg giggled.

"What is it saying," Drukk asked
nervously.

"It thinks it detected a
dura-somethingorother vault when we were on the humans'
planet."

"Duralinium?" asked Werpot.

"Yes, that's it. It says vaults are
always made of – of – whatever it was."

More confused now than angry,
Chuwar turned to his vizier. "Their ship," – he pointed at the
Vinggans – “detected the Vault when they were on their planet?" –
he pointed at the humans.

The vizier was confused now too.
"So it seems, Sire. It looks as if the human may have been telling
the truth after all."

A glint of greed tinged with
madness crept into Chuwar's eyes. "Cancel all my appointments," he
said, softly. "Get the yacht ready. Make sure it is fully armed.
We're going on a hunting trip – to Earth."

There was enough tension in the
Jacaranda Room to power a small city. The Mayor of Brisbane glared
angrily at the State Premier, the Premier eyed the Federal Defence
Minister suspiciously, the Queensland Police Commissioner exchanged
sly glances with the Police Minister and they both looked daggers
at the Head of ASIO. General Nicholas Treasure, Head of the
Australian Defence Force, eyed the lot of them with undisguised
disgust. The only relaxed individual in the room was Gerald
Weinberger, U.S. Secretary of Defense. Weinberger leaned back in
his chair and regarded the high gloss of the conference table with
a small smile on his craggily handsome face.

The meeting, in an up-market
Brisbane hotel, had been at the Defence Minister's invitation. The
Defence Minister's invitation had been insisted upon by the Prime
Minister. The Prime Minister's insistence had been at the U.S.
Secretary of Defense's suggestion. The Secretary of Defense's
suggestion had been prompted by the President of the United States
himself who had taken Weinberger aside after the morning briefing a
few days ago and had said, "Get onto the Aussies for me Gerry. Kick
some butt. I want us in control of this cargo cult thing. The CIA
tells me they're pissing in the wind, Gerry. I don't like the sound
of that. If they won't play nice, I want you to take their ball
away. D'ya hear me, Gerry? Do what needs doing. OK?"

Whatever the hell all that meant,
Gerald Hubert Weinberger the Third had no idea at the time, but he
was a can-do kinda guy and he was on the case. So he had the files
brought to him, he spoke to a few people, he made a few calls, and
here he was, listening to a bunch of tin-pot nobodies whining over
their little territorial disputes.

"It's a State matter," the Premier
was saying. "I'm happy to take input from anyone who has any
relevant expertise and, of course, my government will keep you all
informed but, I assure you, we have the investigation well in
hand." He turned to his Police Minister. "Isn't that right,
Bill?"

The Minister, who from long
experience had expected the Premier to keep talking for at least
another ten minutes, was taken by surprise. "Ah, yeah. Dead right
Jim. No worries."

"I think the point you're missing
here, Jim," the Federal Defence Minister said firmly, smiling the
insincere and condescending smile her image consultants had made
her practice for so long, “is that we don't need any further
investigation. We all know full well what happened out at Saunders
Station. What we need to do now is plan our response." At her side,
the General nodded grimly.

“Response?" The Mayor was clearly
astonished. "What response? We're visited by aliens with
unimaginable powers and technologies and now the ADF is talking
about a response? What are you going to do, shoot missiles into the
air and hope you hit something?"

The Defence Minister regarded the
Mayor with a stony expression. "Thank you, Steven. May I remind you
that you were invited to this meeting as a courtesy? Strictly
speaking, you are not considered part of this forum."

The Mayor looked apoplectic with
rage – something his own image consultants had been trying in vain
to train him out of – but before he could speak, the head of ASIO
jumped in. "The Mayor is right, you know. I've read all the
reports. Every last one of them. There is absolutely nothing
clear-cut about the findings so far. It might have been aliens but
it might have been mass hysteria or, and this is my favourite, mass
hallucinations caused by chemical agents. We should probably stop
looking for little green men and start looking for little brown
ones – in turbans."

The Mayor, despite this ostensible
support, still wasn't happy. "Terrorists? You think it was
terrorists that disguised themselves as Loosi Beecham, stole
clothing from a department store, blasted half of Elizabeth Street
to rubble and then held off a couple of hundred armed police with
ray guns? Not to mention bringing along their trained killer
kangaroos?"

The Police Commissioner sniggered
at the ASIO man's discomfiture and decided to twist the knife.
"That was probably the ghost of Osama Bin Laden in a rubber suit
pretending to be a three-metre tall space monster."

"Well how do you explain it,
Barry?" The Premier wanted to know. "Aliens don't normally attack
us wearing evening gowns and swimsuits! I think this terrorist
attack theory makes a lot of sense. In fact, it's the only bloody
theory that makes any sense at all!"

“But it doesn't fit the facts," the
Commissioner persisted, earning himself a frown from his Minister.
"Our forensic teams report that the damage to various buildings,
cars and people can only be explained if the attackers were using
high-energy beam weapons – like laser beams or somesuch."

The ASIO man threw his hands up.
"We've been through all that. If we believe your forensic guys,
they'd have needed lasers so big they would have had to carry them
on twenty-tonne trucks, not in their handbags!"

"So how do you explain
half-vaporised cars? Hallucinogenic gas?"

"Ordinary explosives and a sloppy
investigation!"

The Commissioner was on his feet.
"How dare you? I have one of the best forensic teams in the
country!"

With a sigh, the tall American
stood up too. "Gentlemen," he said in his soft, New England accent
and there was silence all around the room. "I don't think that
shouting at one another is going to get us very far." The Police
Commissioner, looking surly, settled back into his seat. "I have to
say that progress in this matter has been very disappointing so
far. Wouldn't you all agree?"

The State Premier sat back in his
chair and steepled his fingers.
Here it comes
, he told
himself.
Down to business at last
. But the old pugilist
still felt like going one more round.

"What exactly would you consider to
be progress, if you don't mind me asking, Gerry?"

Weinberger smiled. Here was a man
so handsome and naturally graceful, his own image consultants' only
worry was whether he looked best in Armani or Gieves & Hawkes.
"I don't think we should let ourselves be sidetracked into semantic
squabbles at this stage, do you, Jim?" The Premier's face remained
impassive at this, although his jaw clenched just a little tighter.
"OK," Weinberger said as if he'd just made up his mind to share
some important secret. "This is what my guys say we should do."

The Premier looked across at the
Defence Minister. The look of quiet attention on her face told him
everything he needed to know. The PM had already done a deal with
the Yanks and it was all over bar the shouting.
Fait
bloody
accompli
.

"We're going to move the USS Kitty
Hawk carrier strike group into the Coral Sea off Brisbane." Despite
a general spluttering and gasping, he went on. "We're moving our
monitoring station at Pine Gap onto full alert, and we'll be
upgrading capability and reinforcing the security there, as is only
appropriate. This gives us the possibility of bringing the new
Pacific Rim Missile Defence Grid Upgrade online a little bit sooner
than planned." He was having to speak a little louder now as
various people tried to interrupt him with questions and protests.
"We've also scheduled a few impromptu joint training exercises for
various Special Forces units in and around the Brisbane area, just
so we can offer maximum support if it becomes necessary."

By this time the Mayor was on his
feet. “Mate, I know it's just another desert to you blokes but it
says Australia on the maps here, not bloody Iraq!"

"Let's not get silly about this,
Steven,” said the Defence Minister. “This is clearly a global
problem and we all agree that our thinking should be rather less
parochial."

“Parochial?" the Mayor
spluttered.

"Oh shut up Steven," the Premier
snapped. "It's all out of our hands now. Isn't it, Jessie?"

The Defence Minister smiled
tightly. "I'm afraid so. The PM and I have made all the necessary
arrangements. All that remains is for General Treasure here to
agree the operational protocols with our allies and put Operation,
er..." She coughed, displaying a slight embarrassment. "Operation
Independence Day into action. The PM has assured Mr. Weinberger
that they will have our full co-operation and that we will be ready
to integrate our command and control systems at all levels should
that become necessary."

That brought a derisive snort from
the Police Commissioner who had recently received the report on the
complete command and control balls-up that had taken place when all
this Loosi Beecham business had first flared up.

The Premier eyed him suspiciously
but turned his attention quickly back to the Federal Minister. "I
still don't quite see why we're being so pants-down friendly to the
bloody Yanks." He smiled briefly at their foreign guest. "No
disrespect intended." Weinberger smiled back, clearly completely
indifferent to what the Premier thought.

During this exchange, a young man
in uniform came quietly into the room. He walked quickly over to
the General and spoke softly into his ear. Then he gave the General
a note and discretely withdrew.

Ignoring the interruption, the
Defence Minister looked around the table. "What I'm about to say
cannot leave this room. Is that understood?" The words were like a
magic spell. Everyone watched her attentively. There is only one
thing high-ups love more than being interviewed on TV and that is
being on the inside, knowing things that ordinary mortals are not
deemed important enough to know about. This was what it was all
about. It made the grovelling of waiters, the fawning of minor
functionaries, the parties with celebrities, the first-class
travel, the trophy wives, the box seats at sports events,
everything else, pale into insignificance. They were in the loop,
in the know, part of the elite, on the inside.

The Minister watched them all
waiting for the tidbit she was about to toss them, knowing exactly
what was happening, enjoying her own moment of power, feeling their
need, their dependence. Her face was serious but inside she was
loving it. "Satellite surveillance has revealed that a Chinese
warship group has broken off its exercises in the South Pacific and
has set sail for Australia. We are also aware that Japanese and
various European military bases in the region are showing signs of
heightened activity." The faces around the table showed different
levels of shock or amazement but there was also a twinkle of
excitement in their eyes. Oh yes, this was the good stuff all
right. "We're also experiencing a rather high degree of activity in
foreign embassies and consulates, some of which have significantly
increased their staffing levels. It seems sensible, at a time like
this, to choose one's allies carefully with an eye to protecting
our national interests."

Bloody hell
, the Premier
thought.
Bloody hell
.

"Everybody wants a piece of this,"
Weinberger said. "If your celebrity aliens decide to come back
here, you're gonna need a big stick to keep the crowds back." He
smiled. "And that's us."

The barrage of questions that
followed was so frenzied that the buzz of the vibrator on the ASIO
man's phone was not noticed by anyone. He picked up the phone and
checked the message. His face remained impassive but his eyes
flicked up to look at the General. The General looked back at him,
both men seeing the tension in the other's eyes.