Cargo Cult (25 page)

“We should proceed with caution,”
the Agent told him, striding off in the direction the kangaroos had
taken.

-oOo-

“What the…?”

The policeman turned at the sudden
noise behind him to find a small group of kangaroos staring down at
him where he lay under the cover of a small bush, watching the
farmhouse and waiting for his orders. It was creepy and unnerving
the way they all just stood there looking at him. Not normal.

“Hey! Piss off!” he shouted but in
a whisper so that he wouldn’t reveal his position. The roos looked
at each other but didn’t move. “Shoo! Go on! Clear off!” he
hissed.

The noise he was making didn’t seem
to bother the roos but other officers, hiding in nearby bushes,
started to look across to see what the commotion was. So, by the
time the kangaroos finally decided to attack the policeman and
overpower him, there were about six of his mates watching in utter
astonishment.

Jacko Collins was one of the
stunned onlookers. He saw four or five of the big bucks leave the
mob and head for the bloke on the ground. When they started kicking
and pummelling him as he struggled to get away, Jacko was the first
to break cover to rush to his colleague’s aid.

He burst from his bush, yelling and
shouting. Immediately, the roos stopped what they were doing and
stared at him. Yet they didn’t run. For a moment he felt confusion,
then fear as the roos seemed to confer with each other. He stopped
and pulled out his sidearm. The group beating up the other officer
resumed its assault while the rest of them, led by a scruffy little
doe, came straight at Jacko. The only half-coherent thought in his
mind was that maybe roos got rabies and went crazy.

He fired a shot into the air—sod
the kidnap, he wasn’t going to be attacked by a mob of rabid bloody
kangaroos—but they kept coming at him. Then he fired straight at
the lead doe. It was just metres away. He couldn’t have missed. Yet
nothing happened. He got off one more shot at point blank range
before they were on him.

He thought he was a goner for sure.
The roos knocked him down and started kicking the shit out of him.
Then there was a barrage of gunfire and they suddenly left him
alone. He kept his head down as the shooting continued, thundering
all around him. Then there was a scream—a human scream—and he had
to look up.

Policemen and women had come out of
hiding from all over the area when they’d heard his shots and had
rushed to his assistance. Armed with rifles and shotguns, they
began blasting away at the roos that were attacking their fellow
officers. The roos, at last, seemed to panic and fled, heading away
from the farmhouse. But, after a moment, they re-grouped around the
little doe and turned to face them. The police began to realise
that something was not quite right when none of the roos fell dead
under the hail of bullets they were pumping after them. In fact, it
was apparent to some that their bullets were somehow being
deflected by invisible shields that seemed to surround each
animal’s body. However, it was totally obvious that something was
wrong when the roos raised their cute little forepaws and started
firing back at them.

Jacko saw one woman blasted to
atoms as she dived for cover, then another officer thrown into the
air as the ground in front of him erupted in a fountain of rocky
soil.

Everyone around him was jumping in
ditches and hiding behind trees, even as more officers started to
arrive from other parts of the perimeter. Fortunately for everyone,
the roos were such awful shots that only a couple of people were
hit directly. Otherwise it would have been a massacre—especially
since each new arrival at the scene had to stop and stare at the
incredible sight of ten kangaroos shooting up a squad of
Queensland’s finest before realising that they too should be behind
the nearest tree rather than standing around like a shag on a rock
while the kangaroos took pot-shots at them.

Belatedly, Jacko remembered his
radio. “Assistance required!” he shouted into it, forgetting proper
protocol completely. “Officer down! Officer down!” He gasped with
pain, suspecting a broken rib or two.

“This is mobile command,” the radio
said. “Please state your –” There was an interruption and some
banging as if the mike at the other end was being moved about.
Jacko thought he heard a voice in the background say, “Give me
that!” Then the background voice came on again, loud and clear.
“This is Sergeant Fury. Who is that and what’s going on out there?
We can hear the shooting from here!”

“Sarge! It’s Jacko!” a wave of
relief went through the young officer. They’d be all right now.

“Go on lad,” the sergeant said.
“Steady now. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Sarge we’ve been attacked. We’re
pinned down. We need reinforcements quick.”

“Jacko,” the young man could hear
the suppressed anger in his sergeant’s voice. “Who’s attacking you
lad? There’s no sign of activity at the farmhouse.”

“It’s not the farmhouse, Sarge.
They came from behind us.”

“Damn it, Jacko. I want a proper
report or I’m going to come out there and shoot you myself! How
many? What are they’re positions? What are their armaments? You
know the drill.”

Jacko swallowed. “That’s just it,
Sarge. It doesn’t make sense. I think you should come out here.
You’ve got to see it to believe it.”

“Jacko! Pull yourself together,
Constable and make your report.”

“It’s kangaroos, Sarge. We’re under
attack by about ten kangaroos. I thought they had rabies but we
can’t seem to kill them. And, Sarge, they’ve got ray guns.”

-oOo-

The sound of shooting broke up the
prayer meeting. Sam looked around, slightly dazed. She’d been
pledging her life to the Great Spirit. Her heart had been full of
joy in that wonderful moment of sacrifice and self-negation. The
Priestess, Braxx, was there in front of her, beautiful in white
satin and the other Pebbles of the New Dawn were arrayed behind
her, chanting their strange incantations. The other humans, like
Sam, were kneeling and smiling. One by one, John had brought them
in. Each time he appeared, he would look Sam in the eye and remind
her how much she loved the Great Spirit. He would do it to everyone
in the room. The silly man. He didn’t need to remind them. Everyone
loved the Great Spirit. They loved Her so much their hearts
ached.

All night they had listened to the
Priestess preaching to them about the wisdom and beneficence of
their new deity. It had been wonderful to receive instruction from
these wise and kindly aliens. John had reminded her how much she
admired and respected Braxx but he didn’t need to do that either.
It was clear to her that Braxx was the chosen vessel of the Great
Spirit’s message to humanity. All she wanted was to kneel at her
feet and learn. It had been the happiest night of her whole
life.

But the shooting had intruded. It
wasn’t far away, just across the field. A couple of shots at first
and then more and more guns joining in until it sounded like a war
was being fought out there. It reminded her. The police were here.
The police were here to arrest the Vinggans. But why would they
want to do such a thing? Except that the Vinggans had kidnapped the
old folk and brought them there in a bus. Yes, the old folk. She
had heard them in the room next-door. They seemed to be having
gymnastics and arm-wresting contests all night long. That couldn’t
be right could it? They had all seemed so frail when they had been
brought off the bus after the Vinggans had shot all those
policemen.

“My God! What am I doing here?” she
shouted. A few minutes ago, this would have caused quite a stir but
now there was a bit of a hubbub in the room as people asked each
other what the shooting was about and started making their way to
doors and windows to get a look. “You!” she cried, grabbing hold of
John’s arm. “You did this with that evil eye thing of yours. What’s
the idea of hypnotising everybody like that?”

“Look, this is probably not the
time,” the guru guy said, indicating the noise from outside. “It
could be the police are about to storm the farm.”

“What?” It dawned on Sam that she
had not been seeing the bigger picture here. And who’s fault was
that! “You hypnotised me, you maggot!”

“It was for your own good. Things
were turning ugly. I didn’t want our visitors zapping everybody
with their ray guns. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I
probably saved your life.”

More of the big picture was coming
back to Sam. “Where’s Wayne?” She saw the I-don’t-know expression
starting to form on John’s face and immediately started shouting
“Wayne! Wayne!”

“Silence!” demanded Braxx and the
room fell silent. “You, human, what is going on?” He was looking
straight at Sam and everyone turned to her as though she did indeed
have the answer.

“I... I’m looking for my brother,”
Sam stammered, confused by the sudden attention.

“And how does that make weapons
fire outside?” asked Braxx.

There were a few sniggers from the
humans present.

“I... what? Oh that? Jeez, I don’t
know. Sounds like the police are shooting at each other.”

“Do they do that often?”

More sniggers. Sam was getting
cross. “Only when they’ve got no-one else to shoot at.”

Braxx was loosing interest. “Never
mind,” he said, heading back to his spot at the front of the room.
“We’ll get on with our ceremony. If there are any police left alive
later, we can invite them in and convert them too.”

“Can I convert one?” came a muffled
shout from Joss’ belly.

“Shush, Dear,” said Joss. “I’m sure
there’ll be plenty of humans for everybody.”

“Indeed!” said Braxx, happily. He
had been very gratified at how well the past few hours had gone.
The humans were so willing to accept his spiritual leadership that
he had had to revise completely his initial low opinion of them.
They were clearly a much more intelligent species than he had
thought. “Where’s Drukk?” he called.

There was a bit of a commotion as
people and Vinggans poked heir heads around doors and shouted and
such but, eventually, a Vinggan in a tight, short, orange dress
appeared with Wayne in tow and said, “Yes, Braxx?” Wayne saw his
sister standing next to the Braxx woman and gave her a wave.

“Ah Drukk, I see their sun has
risen. How are you coming on with organising the slave labour teams
to build the new church?”

“Well, actually,” said Drukk, who
had forgotten all about it, “I’ve sort of been chatting, mostly. I
haven’t really got around to it just yet.”

Braxx, who was feeling magnanimous
after a night of homage and ritual, all featuring himself in the
starring role, merely smiled. “Tut, tut, Drukk. You must remember,
here on this world you are all we have by way of a civil authority.
I will always do what I can as their spiritual leader, of course,
but if we are ever to get any useful work out of these poor
creatures, we must rely on you to take them in hand. You will be
like an emperor among them. They will defer to you in all matters
secular. You will need to establish government and order among them
and elevate them from the degraded savagery in which we find them.”
He smiled a kindly smile. “It’s not too much to ask, is it Drukk? I
and my Pebbles must attend to the all-important matter of filling
their empty souls. We cannot also attend to the mundane. That is
your role.”

Drukk sighed. He was just a simple
spacer. He didn’t want to be emperor to a planet full of half-wit
monsters. But he knew the folly of arguing with religious types.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll get started.”

“Excellent.” Braxx waved his arm at
the roomful of humans. “Take this lot. They’re converted enough for
now. And send me in another batch.” He turned to a bikini-clad
Pebble beside him. “This is fun!” he said.

-oOo-

Shorty and the other kangaroos were
surrounded.

“Where did they all come from?”
wailed Fats.

“How should I know?” Shorty
snapped. “They weren’t here the last twenty times we called.”

“They were lying in wait for us,”
said one of the does. “Someone set us up.”

“The ship,” said another. “That
damned machine double-crossed us!”

“What are you talking about?”
shouted Shorty, leaping up in anger and frustration. “You guys are
so friggin’ stupid, it’s driving me nuts!” She paused to fire off a
salvo of shots at a group of police marksmen making a run for the
shelter of an old rusting tractor. Her shots went wild but caused
damage and confusion all around the running men. “The ship’s got
nothing to do with this. Why would a space-ship do anything like
that? How would it? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I wish I could shoot straight with
this thing,” said one of the bucks, trying to pick off an armoured
truck that was heading their way. The basic problem was the fact
that the Vinggan blasters were attached to the sides of the roos’
stubby little arms, arms that were not designed for, or capable of
accurately pointing at things, arms that were positioned so low on
the kangaroo’s body that it was impossible to sight along the
barrel.

“If it wasn’t for these personal
force shields they’d be serving us up with a pepper sauce at some
trendy Gold Coast restaurant this afternoon.”

“I’ll be chopping you up and
feeding you to the birds if your don’t all shut up,” Shorty
bellowed. “We’ve got to get ourselves out of this mess before any
more of the humans arrive.”

“Why, Boss. They can’t touch us
with our shields up.”

“Oh yeah?” Shorty sneered. “What’s
the energy absorption capacity of that shield you’re wearing? Will
it withstand two simultaneous bullet impacts? Ten? Twenty? What
about a small explosive charge? Or a big one?”

“Oh yeah, right.”

“Yeah, right! And what’s the
battery life on these things, eh? How long before they shut
down?”