Cargo Cult (13 page)

-oOo-

Outside, in Sam’s car, another tale
was unfolding. Homesick and lost, purposeless and insecure, Drukk
was telling Wayne his life story. He had reached his late
childhood, in the years before he had joined the Space Corps.

“I was always a bright and active
boy,” he said. “I made the school club-ball team and did pretty
well.”

“Hang on,” said Wayne, who was
having trouble following the story. “You mean ‘girl’ don’t
you?”

“What?”

“You said you were a bright boy but
I think I’m pretty sure that you are definitely, one hundred
percent female. Maybe a hundred and twenty.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Drukk
wished Wayne would stop interrupting with stupid questions. It was
like trying to tell your story to a five month old bud. “I am a
male of my species. Always was, always will be.”

However confused he might be about
other things, Wayne was pretty sure he was on firm ground here. “No
way were you ever a boy! Look. I’m a boy. See? Scraggy facial hair,
scruffy clothes, dirty fingernails. You are a girl: curves, lips,
more curves. In fact you are the epitome of feminine perfection—if
you don’t mind me saying—and I’m not trying to come on to you or
anything, it’s just that, well, look at you! Whoo!”

Drukk began to realise that a
dreadful mistake had been made. “You mean this is a female form?
There is sexual dimorphism in your species?”

“I don’t know about that but you
don’t see a rack like that hanging around my neck do you now?”

Drukk grabbed his large breasts and
held them up for Wayne to look at. “You mean these are a female
characteristic?”

Wayne blinked and swallowed hard,
his eyes fixed on the breasts just inches from his face. “Holy
shit! You... you shouldn’t do that to a bloke.”

Drukk dropped them again and
slumped back in his seat. “Holy shit indeed!” he said.

There was a long silence. Drukk was
shocked and deep in thought, going over the events of the past few
days, wondering what it would mean for Braxx’s mission here on
Earth, cursing his ignorance of the humans and their hideous
physiology.

Seeing his companion was
distressed, Wayne, searched for something to say that would get her
talking again. “What’s club-ball?” he asked. “I’m not really a
sporty kind of bloke but I’ve never even heard of that one.”

Drukk, roused himself. “It’s very
popular at home on Vingg. Three teams of players chase a ball with
clubs and try to smash it. It’s a game of great skill and
strategy.”

“Sounds a bit silly,” said Wayne,
“but then so does golf if you look at it like that.”

“Golf?”

“Yeah. It’s where you hit a little
ball with a long stick and try to knock it into a tiny hole.” Drukk
gave a snort of amusement. Encouraged, Wayne went on. “Or
football—Aussie rules, that is—where two teams throw and kick a
ball back and forth until it goes between some poles.”

“
Two
teams!” laughed
Drukk.

“Or snooker, where you put some
coloured balls on a big table then poke them with a stick until
they’ve all fallen into holes around the edges.”

Drukk laughed out loud.

“Or cricket, where you throw a ball
at some sticks and an opposing player tries to stop it hitting them
with another stick.”

Drukk was rocking with laughter,
wiping tears from his eyes. “Oh you must have so much fun watching
these farcical games!” he gasped. “What an amusing planet it must
be!”

“Yeah, well, I dunno about that,”
said Wayne. “It always seemed pretty boring to me.”

“Will you take me to see this
‘cricket’?” Drukk asked.

Wayne grinned. “You bet! I’d like
to see you busting a gut while everyone sits there snoozing
away.”

They sat in silence for a short
while longer. Then Drukk began speaking again. “Of course, once I
joined the Space Corps, I didn’t have time any more for club-ball.
They keep you very busy.”

“You really believe all this stuff
don’t you?”

Drukk looked him in the eye. “It is
all true, human. Only yesterday I was a Space Corps Operative sixth
class, with a fine ship, a fine crew, a good captain and important
missions to fly for the glory of Vingg. Now I am lost and alone,
trapped in this disgusting human body, my companions the Spirit
knows where, with no chance of ever going home. I’m not even the
correct gender!”

Something about Ms Beecham’s
passion and the consistency with which she maintained this crazy
story was starting to undermine Wayne’s disbelief. “But this can’t
be true,” he said. “There’s no such thing as aliens. You’ve got to
be as nutty as these whackos to believe anything like that.” He
waved a hand at the decrepit farmhouse. “Anyway, I’ve seen you on
TV, hundreds of times. How can you be up there flying around and
still make all those films and stuff?”

“What is TV?”

Wayne wasn’t having any of this.
“Yeah right. Like even aliens wouldn’t know what TV is. It’s only,
like, been beaming into space for the last fifty years.”

Drukk shook his head, his bouffant
hairdo bouncing attractively. “We do not monitor Earth broadcasts.
We were not aware that your planet had sapient life until
yesterday. Sometimes I’m still not sure. As far as the rest of the
galaxy is concerned, humanity still does not exist.”

Wayne still didn’t believe him. “So
you’re telling me that all aliens look like Loosi Beecham?”

“No. Only fourteen of us.” Wayne
didn’t respond, merely flopped back in his seat in exasperation, so
Drukk went on. “When our ship crashed, we used the metamorphosis
booths to transform our bodies into human shape. This is the form
we chose. It seems it may have been... inappropriate.”

Wayne shook his head, trying not to
believe. “This has got to be some kind of a joke, or a publicity
stunt, or you’re, like, researching a new film where you get bashed
on the head and think you’re an alien. Right?”

Drukk too flopped back, tired of
trying to explain. “It is no joke. I lost seven colleagues in the
crash—all of them friends. We lost over twenty passengers. All the
ship’s systems were smashed. We couldn’t even call for help. I’m
stranded on this uncharted wasteworld. The only other Vinggans left
alive here are a bunch of religious nutcases who want to convert
humanity to their own fanatical brand of Great Spirit worship—and I
can’t even find them!”

-oOo-

“So, when the time is right, the
Sky People will come to us, bearing the inestimable Gift of their
wondrous technology but only a few will be Receivers of their
Cosmic Bounty. Only we shall be here when they come. Only we shall
be worthy to receive the Gift. Only we shall be Taken to the
stars.”

John’s sonorous voice died away as
his impromptu sermon came to an end. The kitchen, by now, was
crowded with people who had wandered in to listen. Sam, like the
rest, sat in respectful silence.
Wow!
she thought. She knew
that it was all a load of the most incredible bullshit but...
Wow!
At least she could see now why John was the guru guy.
With those hypnotic eyes and his terrific line in blarney, he was a
natural. It was no wonder these kids were drawn into his insane
beliefs. Even for Sam it was almost impossible to resist.

The great man looked around at his
disciples and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. It was their signal to
snap out of their trance and leave him. Slowly, dreamily, they all
did. Sam got her thoughts together and tried to focus. There were
things she needed to know, things her readers would demand to hear
about. Rituals, strange, evil rituals, and kidnappings. Where had
all these kids come from? How did he get them there? How did he
brainwash them? (Well, she thought, she knew that already!) What
was his intention? Was he planning a mass suicide? Did he really
have guns here? Was anyone behind this? Who was funding this
cult?

“You look a little anxious, Sam.”
It was John, his voice kind and gentle.

Sam tried to avoid looking into his
eyes. “I’m just running through the issues I need to cover,” she
said.

“Ah yes, you’re a journalist.” He
said it with a trace of disappointment and Sam almost felt bad that
she’d let him down. “We had another journo here just last
week.”

“What?” Now Sam really was anxious.
“Another journalist? Who? From what paper?” Oh God! If someone else
had beaten her to the story!

“I forget his name. He said he
worked for a Brisbane parish newsletter. He lost interest when he
found out we don’t actually worship anybody here. It seems that,
unless there’s a deity involved—preferably God—his readers aren’t
particularly interested. He did do a little piece though. He sent
us a copy. I don’t suppose you’ve read it? Do you suppose anybody
reads those things? It was a very rude little piece. I didn’t like
it. Some of the kids took it out and used it for target
practice.”

“T-target practice?”

“I did promise myself I wouldn’t
speak to any more journos.”

“Why not,” she asked, noting that
he’d ignored her last question. “Surely you would like publicity
for your, er, views?”

John was equivocal. “Yes and no,”
he said. “On the one hand, it would be great if everybody could
receive the Gift. On the other,” and he sighed deeply, full of
regret, “I don’t actually know how big the spaceship is going to be
when it gets here. I’m pretty sure there’ll be room for a handful,
probably even a houseful like I’ve got here but I’m not sure what
would happen if there were hundreds of us, or thousands. What if we
couldn’t all fit in?”

“Couldn’t they, well, send more
ships?”

John shrugged. “Who knows? Frankly,
I wouldn’t want to risk it. Would you?”

-oOo-

The kangaroos shuffled through the
empty corridors of the
Vessel of the Spirit
.

“There’s no one here,” said one.
“The whole damned ship is deserted. It’s like, er, like a story
about a deserted ship, or something.”

“Shame none of us can fly a
spaceship,” the small doe said. “Not only would we get out of here
but this thing must be worth plenty to somebody.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t hang about.
Maybe whoever owns this ship is coming back soon.”

“Maybe you should shut your mouth
and let me do the thinking.” Two big bucks bristled behind the
little doe, obviously ready to enforce her commands. The little doe
was clearly the leader.

“I was just saying...”

“Well can it. We don’t have time
for gabbing about what might happen. Just get on with the
search.”

“Hey, this is not bad,” said a
buck, looking into one of the deserted rooms. “Level five
technology at least, I’d say.”

“Yeah, like you’d know,” sneered
another.

“Up your furry wazoo, you dumb
rabbit.”

“Who are you calling a rabbit,
dog’s breath?”

“Hey!” snapped the small doe. “I
don’t want any fighting in here. You two got a problem, you take it
outside.” She glared into their round, brown eyes and they quickly
backed down. “That’s better. Now where’s the control room in this
flying junk-pile?”

The little joey put his head around
the corner. “Boss! Over here! I’ve found it.”

They hopped up the corridor, their
long nails clattering against the metal floor, and entered the
control room. The damage of the day before was gone. The smashed
consoles, the burnt doorway, the scattered bodies, everything had
been fixed up and cleaned by the busy machines. The ship looked
just as it had done when the
Vessel
first came out of State
Shipyard Number Seven above Vingg.

“Look!” one of the does cried. They
crowded around her at one of the consoles. “An infra-reality
communicator! We can call the Organisation. They can send a ship.”
The speaker looked around at her fellows. “We can go home!”
Momentarily overcome with emotion, she began chewing and licking at
the fur on her shoulder.

“What’s the matter with you guys?”
the leader shouted. “You want to stand about having a group hug? Or
do you want to get off this dung-world?” She glared around at them.
“Then get on the communicator and make the call! By the Pillars of
Rashkaroth! Do I have to tell you everything?”

One of the does scrabbled at the
console with her paws. Nothing happened. She made passes in the air
above the controls. Still nothing happened. She concentrated on
sending a series of commands telepathically. But the communicator
remained dead. “You don’t suppose it’s voice operated?” she asked
dubiously.

“Gee, I dunno,” the small doe said,
her tone an exaggerated imitation of what she clearly believed to
be her colleague’s stupidity. “Why don’t you try it and see?”

Seeming not to take offence, the
doe turned to the console and said, “Ship, I’d like to use the
communicator.”

Nothing happened.

The leader flew into a frenzy. She
twirled and skipped about in her anger and frustration. The other
kangaroos backed away from her.

“What kind of a stupid spaceship is
this? Kick the stupid thing to pieces! Smash its useless panels in!
Wreck the rusting pile of space junk!” She began kicking furiously
at the nearest instrument panel. Despite her relatively small size,
her legs were surprisingly powerful and she quickly succeeded in
cracking a few displays and denting a metal cover.

Monitoring all this through its
internal sensors, the ship’s computer decided it was time to
act.

It had watched the kangaroos with a
variety of feelings from the moment they had wandered into its
proximity sensor field a couple of hours ago. At first it had
merely been amused at seeing such a ludicrous life-form. The
bipedal humans were funny enough but to get about by bouncing
around on your hind legs was hilarious! It had recorded them for a
while, planning to show the images to its fellow machines back in
Vinggan space. Then they had set off towards the ship.