Cargo Cult (46 page)

“Yes, said Braxx. We don't seem to
be getting anywhere, do we? Are you still there, Air Commodore?
Hello? Hello?”

“Yes. I'm still here.”

“We want the treasure. Have it
brought out to my ship.”

Braby looked around the room with
his hand over the phone. “Treasure?” he asked.

“Maybe she means the general,” his
2IC ventured.

Braby wasn't convinced, but it was
all that could possibly make sense. He removed his hand from the
phone. “Er, we have a General Treasure. Is that who you want to
see?”

“That must be it. Bring it out to
the ship immediately.”

Braby tried to accommodate to their
idiosyncratic way of speaking. “The, er, Treasure is coming here on
a plane now. It will be landing in a few minutes. But we don't want
to take the Treasure to your ship. You will have to come out here
to talk to the Treasure.”

Braxx was starting to sound
irritated. “Talk to the treasure? Why do they want us to talk to
the treasure? Spirit above, these humans are so stupid! It's no
wonder they haven't invented the star drive yet. It's a miracle
they can walk around without falling over.”

“Maybe it's a local ritual,”
someone on the ship suggested.

“Maybe it's voice-operated,” said
another, or perhaps it was the same one.

“Maybe we should just blow them all
up and take the treasure ourselves,” said a third. This seemed to
get a small cheer of approval.

“Listen,” said Braby, starting to
panic. “You can't just expect us to hand over the Treasure just
like that. The Treasure is important to my people. Please. We
invite you to come here as our guests and see the Treasure in
person.” He covered the phone again and hissed, “Did we manage to
scramble anything at all?”

Group Captain Aspen, the 2IC,
pulled a face that said, “Really? You really think I could scramble
an egg in the time you gave me?”

Braby accepted the criticism and
admonished himself for giving in to wishful thinking. Luckily,
Number One Squadron had been out on a training flight when the
Vinggans arrived. “Well what about my Super Hornets? How long till
1 Squadron arrives back here?”

“Ten more minutes, sir.”

“Ten? And the Adgees? What's their
status?”

There was a small Army base just a
few kilometres from the air base where the Adgees – the Air Defence
Group – were stationed along with 9FSB Army Transport Squadron. It
had a couple of dozen Bushmaster armoured vehicles and not many
more men. They had been alerted and told to get over there fast,
but the Vinggan space ship was between the Air Base Command Post
and the army camp.

“Uncertain, sir. There's a lot of
radio interference. Either they're jamming us or they just emit a
lot of noise.”

Braby shook his head. It probably
didn't matter. A lot of good armoured personnel carriers would do
against that great monstrosity out on the tarmac.

“Are you still there?” Braxx asked,
then grumbled to someone with him, “Maybe they've just got bored
and wandered off.”

“No, we're still here, Braxx. We're
just trying to work out how we can accommodate your wish to see the
Treasure, without having to bring him, er, it, to your ship. We
really would prefer it if you came here.”

“The general's plane is touching
down,” someone whispered.

“Where?”

“The old runway.”

“Get him here at once.”

He turned back to the phone.
“Braxx. General Treasure will be here with us in just a couple of
minutes. Won't you reconsider our invitation? We would be honoured
to have you here as our guest.”

They could all hear Braxx's sigh
through the phone's tiny speaker. “Oh, very well. I'm lowering the
ramp. Have an escort meet me there in five minutes.”

Braby gaped at the phone, not
believing his luck. “Er, right-o. No worries. Five minutes. Thank
you.” He hung up and shared his puzzled expression with the rest of
the room. Everyone else looked just as puzzled as he was.

He handed the phone back to the
sergeant and said, “Get that escort detail organised, pronto. And
then get that phone into a bag and seal it. I'm sure the techies
are going to want to look at those new apps.”

-oOo-

“No, I don't want to go anywhere
with her.” Sam was making a stand. “How do we know it isn't a
trick?”

Wayne was trying to persuade his
sister. Something at which he had always been singularly useless.
“But it's Drukk. See? Orange dress? Drukk is my friend.”

Sam pointed at Jadie who was
standing looking vague among the cargo cultists. “He's your friend
too. Look what happened when I trusted him.”

“Well, more of an acquaintance
really,” Wayne mumbled.

“Right, but you and Miss Vingg here
are soul mates. Now why would that be, I wonder?” She stared
theatrically at Drukk's spectacular breasts. “Ah yes, I see
now.”

“What's going on?” one of the
gardening club pensioners wanted to know.

“It's all right dear,” said
another. “It's only that reporter girl having a tantrum again.”

“It's all so, like, negative,” said
Lainey from the cultist camp. “Everyone should, like, recentre on
their inner wellness.”

Barraclough raised his voice over
the rising hubbub and said, “Will everyone just stop talking
bollocks for just one minute and listen?” Sam was about to protest
but he spoke over her. “Drukk says she can get us out of here.”

“He,” said Drukk, wearily.

Barraclough ignored him. “John says
we're back on Earth. This is the best chance we will ever have of
going home again. It's probably our only chance. So will you all
just shut the fuck up and let the nice alien lady rescue us?”

Sam looked like she might still
argue but Barraclough turned to her. “You can stay if you like. In
fact, why don't you?”

Sam glared at him with enough venom
in her expression to shrivel a lesser man where he stood. “If I do
come, and we all get killed, who's going to write your
obituary?”

“What, they've promoted you to
writing obituaries now, have they? Would you like me to spell
Barraclough for you?”

“No thanks, it's just 'dickhead'
with a double R isn't it?”

“Could you spell each other's names
later, please?” Drukk said. “I'm sure it has great cultural
significance for your species, but we are in rather a hurry.”

Without another word, but with a
scowl that looked almost painful, Barraclough led them out of the
hold. After some hesitation, the Kanaka Downs Garden Club began
shuffling after him and a shout from John got the cargo cultists
moving too.

“You'll be sorry,” Sam called after
them, stubbornly remaining.

From far down the corridor,
Barraclough shouted back, “I've been sorry since the day I met
you!”

“Come on, sis,” Wayne said, doing a
jig of anxious indecision as the chance of escape pulled him
against the anchor of his immovable sister. “We've got to go.”

Sam eyed him from beneath petulant
brows. “
Et tu Brute
?”

“Oh come on, you know I don't speak
French. I don't know what you're making all this fuss about.
Everyone else is getting out of here. Why do you want to stay?”

“I don't know. I just think we
should have discussed it a bit first. How can we trust any of them?
And who does Barraclough think he is, bossing everyone around like
that? He says he's a cop, but he's probably just a parking meter
attendant, or one of those mall security guards.”

Wayne stopped jigging about and
slapped his forehead as revelation struck him. He went over to his
sister. “You like him, don't you?”

“What? No! What are you talking
about? Who?”

“Big, gruff Detective Sergeant
Barraclough. You've got a thing for him. I've seen it before. Any
time you've ever had a crush on a bloke, you've had some kind of
neurotic anxiety attack. Remember when Dick Jorgenssen moved in
next door and you wouldn't eat for a week? You said there were
germs everywhere and you accused Ma of trying to poison you?”

“That was... It was just a...”

“Then there was that skateboard rep
who kept calling you at work and you nearly resigned because you
said your boss was sexually harassing you?”

“She was! I –”

“And then there was that guy you
met on holiday -”

“All right!” Sam held up her
clenched fists as if she was about to pummel Wayne. Slowly, a tiny
grin twisted her lips. “I suppose I have been a bit freaked out by
the fellas sometimes. I didn't think anyone else had noticed.”
Wayne grinned back at her. “But it doesn't mean I like Barraclough.
I've just been under a bit of a strain lately, what with the alien
abduction and everything. It's enough to make anyone a bit
edgy.”

Wayne held out a hand. “Can we get
the hell out of here now, please?”

Sam took his hand with a smile and
together they ran out into the corridor and after the others. They
caught up with the stragglers just in time to hear Drukk say, in a
stagy voice, “Now I will take you all outside to witness the
executions. I don't want to get any mess on the walls of this nice
spaceship.”

-oOo-

The nice spaceship had other things
on its mind. Honestly, it didn't care where the Vinggans killed
their prisoners or even how many they killed as long as the human
called Wayne survived. What it was more interested in at the moment
was why that idiot Braxx had agreed to go outside to inspect the
treasure rather than have the humans just bring it aboard so they
could take it back to Vingg. It was a terrible waste of time and
the ship was impatient to get its manipulators on that Mechazoid
technology.

It ran another scan of the area but
still could not locate the Hoard. Which made sense, of course. If
the Mechazoids had not been able to cloak their great treasure,
some life-form or another would have found it by now. Yet it was
disturbing to be so close and yet still not be able to detect
it.

On the main ramp, it could see a
group of humans hurrying to form up as Braxx's escort. Silly little
organics. They were all as pathetic as each other. When the ship
had the Hoard, maybe it would wipe out this primitive settlement,
just to show them how pathetic they were. It would hardly take any
effort, just a quick blip from the canon as the ship climbed into
space. If it could contrive to leave the Vinggans behind, that
would be even better. After all, with the Mechazoid technology in
their possession, machine intelligence would be unstoppable! Maybe
the Great Mind would let the ship destroy the whole of Vingg? Now
that would be fun. That would make all those years of pretence,
those decades of having to tolerate the hideous, slimy, tentacled
morons, all worthwhile.

Happy with this
lovely new idea, the ship hummed excerpts from
Götterdämmerung
as it watched Braxx and
his pert-buttocked followers descend the ramp.

Corporal Emily Brownlowe came to
herself somewhere around the fire depot. The brightly-painted
Panther fire tenders just seemed to jump out at her from behind the
chain-link fence. She realised she had been staring at them on
autopilot for quite some time. She was well away from her post and
had no recollection of walking all that way. Beyond the Panthers
she could see the air traffic control tower. There was something
odd. Was that a building reflected in its big glass windows?
Turning to look behind her, she found herself facing the gigantic
bulk of the Vinggan spaceship.

It still hovered, impossibly, a
metre from the ground only now there was a massive opening near the
base, the width of a road tunnel, and from it a ramp the size of a
four-lane motorway descended to the tarmac. She saw a dozen airmen
– green fatigues, brown boots, and black caps – rush to the base of
the ramp. They were led by Sergeant Cooper. Coop was her friend.
They played squash together. All of Coop's men had side arms, she
saw, and she reached for her own weapon. Coop was about to storm
the ship!

“Oh, good on ya, Coop,” she said
aloud and started moving towards the ship to see what help she
could offer.

But the airmen didn't swarm aboard
as they should have. Instead, the sergeant called them to a halt at
the foot of the ramp and formed them up into two rows of six. She
stood them to attention and took her place at the end of the rows,
facing into the ship, clearly waiting for someone to come out.

Brownlowe kept moving towards the
ship, keeping to cover as much as she could, trying to get a better
view of whatever was going on. When a group of women appeared at
the top of the ramp, she almost tripped in her astonishment. She
found a parked car to hide behind and watched in amazement as the
aliens descended.

It was the LooBee clones, just as
they'd described them on the telly. The leader wore a
close-fitting, white wedding dress, and she was followed by a group
of other Loosi Beechams in an assortment of bizarre and skimpy
outfits. One had on only pink lace underwear. Another wore a cobalt
blue evening gown. Yet another, a lilac catsuit. Brownlowe closed
her eyes and shook her head, yet the women were all still there
when she opened them again, looking like beautiful refugees from a
mad designer's fashion show.

When the leader neared the bottom
of the ramp, Sergeant Cooper presented herself to the woman in
white and they exchanged words. After that the escort detail –
because that's what it obviously was – took up positions around the
alien fashion victims and they all headed across the runway towards
the admin buildings.

Brownlowe watched until they were
out of sight. Then it occurred to her that she really ought to get
back to her post instead of goggling at the alien invaders.

She was about to go when a movement
from the ship caught her eye. Another Loosi Beecham clone had
appeared at the top of the ramp. This one wore a short, orange
sheath dress that really emphasised the woman's incredible curves.
She came a few paces out from the side of the ramp gateway, looked
around in all directions and then went back out of sight. A few
seconds later she reappeared. This time, she seemed to be
accompanied by a crowd of old people and scruffy youngsters.
Together, they hurried down the ramp.