He saw a maintenance bot crawl past the cargo bay door, carrying a tray of food. It struck him as a bit odd, since he was the only person down there usually and the kitchens were up two levels. But Drukk was deep in his laborious ponderings and by the time the second bot went by, also carrying a tray of food, he had all but dismissed it from his mind.
He stood up, straightened his dress and went to the door to have a look. It was possible, he supposed, that someone had sent him a meal and the bots were wondering about looking for him. At the door, he almost collided with yet another bot, also carrying food.
"Stop!" he commanded and the bot stopped. He went up to it and looked at what it had. The food was horrible, solid, fragrant and hot. If it hadn't been in food-serving receptacles, he would not even have recognised it as something meant to be eaten. Even as he inspected it, another bot, similarly laden swerved around him and scuttled off down the corridor. He looked back the way it had come and there were two more heading his way. "Continue," he said, distractedly, completely unable to imagine any kind of explanation. Several more food-bearing bots went by him before he plodded off after them, curious to see where they were going.
-oOo-
Many light-years away, Shorty popped her head up out of the grass and looked around. One good thing about those stupid, long ears she'd been stuck with, she conceded, was that they were pretty good at hearing things with.
"What is it, Boss?" Fats asked, his own head popping up too.
"Shush! I heard something."
"What'd ya hear, Boss?"
All the other roos stuck their heads up now, listening intently. Even real roos that were nothing to do with Shorty's mob but just happened to be grazing nearby, stuck their heads up and listened.
"It's a vehicle," said Shorty, ominously.
They all knew what that meant. There were only two reasons a vehicle ever ventured out into such wild and remote parts of the bush. Either it was a bunch of farmers, armed to the teeth with shotguns and rifles, and under the impression it would be great fun to drive about shooting every living thing they came across, or it was a bunch of farmers' sons, similarly armed and similarly motivated. Either way, it was a bad time to be an innocent marsupial taking an afternoon snack.
All about them, the real roos began to move off. Shorty watched the poor benighted creatures leaving and her big, brown eyes narrowed. Over the past three hundred years, she and her gang had been hunted by humans. At first they were hunted by the half-naked black ones and that wasn't so bad – they threw sticks and spears and other, easily dodged missiles. But then, and increasingly over the past hundred and fifty years or so, by the pink ones with clothes on. These were much worse. They had projectile weapons and they had killed a number of Shorty's friends over the years. She looked down at the Vinggan weapon strapped to her wrist. This time the humans weren't hunting placid, harmless herbivores. This time they were up against creatures who could shoot back.
"Time we were going, Boss," Fats urged, nervously.
"Time we gave these stupid creatures a taste of their own medicine," Shorty snarled. "Just this once, I want to see them running from us as we mow them down."
"I don't know if that's such a good..."
"Shut up! Everybody get behind me. Anyone starts running away and I'll shoot you myself."
Grim-faced, the little doe waited for the humans to arrive.
-oOo-
Chuwar listened happily as the last of the screams died away, their echoes lingering in the dark corners and hanging in the vaulted ceilings. He had had a good morning dispensing justice to his people and he was in a mellow mood.
But now there was work to be done.
"Tell me about this Vinggan who comes to plead for our help."
The great warlord's Vizier was a dry, black-skinned, many-horned creature. A native of far-off N'o, a planet at the heart of the civilized worlds, Werpot Ka Thigrule was a cultured and well-travelled being. That he should end up here, in the armpit of the known galaxy, serving the brutish thug Chuwar, was a constant goad in his rustling, papery hide. Yet, given the circumstances that had led him to flee N'o all those years ago, to have landed even this demeaning job was something of an achievement.
"It is unlikely that the Vinggan will plead Sire. They are a haughty and arrogant species. Demand, perhaps, but plead, never."
"Then I'll feed him to the swamp dragon! He'll soon learn who is master on To'egh!"
Werpot rolled his eyes and sighed, thinking, here we go again. “Sire, the Vinggans command huge technical resources. They rule a mighty empire and have one of the largest slave armies in the galaxy.”
Chuwar snorted and subsided into thought. “How can we use this, Werpot? Would they make good allies? Could we persuade them to crush Quilquox and her pestilent Baragorms?”
Werpot didn't even bother to answer such a patently ridiculous question. That the haughty Vinggans would deign to become involved in a petty local squabble was completely unthinkable. That was the trouble with working for a brainless moron who did all his thinking with his muscles. “It would be greatly to our advantage if we could establish trade relations with these people, Sire. The economy here is a little... er... shaky.”
Chuwar scowled at him. Werpot swallowed hard. Had he transgressed that fine line between telling the truth and telling an unpalatable truth? "What's wrong with the economy?" the great warlord demanded. "I eat well. I have a gigantic palace. My private yacht is twice the size of Quilquox's. What's so bad about that?"
The vizier screwed up his papery face in an attempt to find an answer that would mean he was still breathing two minutes later. "All that is good, of course, Sire. I was only thinking that, if the peasants in your empire had a little more to eat, or didn't have to live in mud hovels and sell their children into slavery, they could pay more taxes and you would be able to buy an even bigger yacht."
Chuwar leaned back on his haunches, thinking over what Werpot had said. Werpot watched him, surprised that, for once, a reasonable idea hadn't been summarily dismissed. As the seconds ticked past, Werpot's hopes began to rise. A trade deal with the Vinggans could be just what this backward collection of planets needed to pull itself out of the Dark Ages. There would be the hope of decent technology, some chance of cultural exchange, it could be the beginning of progress for these blighted worlds. At last, the great warlord spoke.
"You say my peasants sell their children into slavery so that they may eat?"
"Yes, Sire."
"And do we tax this transaction?"
Werpot's stomach felt cold. "No, Sire."
Chuwar smiled down at him. "Then there's my new yacht! Make a proclamation. I want ten percent off the top of every child sold in my empire. Great Slayer, Werpot! There must be millions of the little rats! I'll be rich!"
Werpot slumped into himself. "Yes, Sire. And the Vinggans? Might we still try to open trade negotiations?"
"Only if they sell good yachts, Werpot. Be sure to ask them. I'm only interested in big ones, mind you. Big ones with lots of guns."
Chapter 24: Blows For Freedom
The two utes bounced wildly across the rugged grasslands. Sandy Duggan, driving the one in front, peered from under the big rim of his Akubra hat. "What the hell is that?" he asked but the other three blokes in the cab didn't hear him because of the loud country and western music blasting from outsize speakers all around them. Angrily, Sandy stabbed at the off button.
"What the hell is that?" asked his mate Andy as soon as there was quiet.
Sandy slowed their pell-mell advance. A couple of hundred metres ahead of them, sitting like statues in the long grass was a mob of roos. Beyond them, several dozen other roos were hopping into the distance, fanning out as they took the straightest line to the nearest trees. But not this mob. These fellas were standing there like stunned mullets, watching the trucks approach. Sandy slowed down even further.
"What's up, mate?" came the voice of the other driver over the ute's CB radio.
/> "You mean you haven't seen these bloody roos, mate?" Sandy demanded, grabbing the handset.
"What roo... Ah, yeah. Right."
Sandy slowed to a halt. The roos were just twenty metres ahead and still not moving, still staring straight at him as if challenging him to come nearer. For a moment Sandy stared back into their big, round eyes as his forehead creased into a frown. Roos were supposed to run scared. Roos were supposed to be crazy with fear. They weren't supposed to look all determined and angry like these ones did. Something was very, very wrong here but Sandy just couldn't work it out.
He switched off the engine and climbed out of the cab. The three others in his ute did likewise, as did the other three in the second ute.
"Get my gun, Andy," he said, not taking his eyes off the strange roos.
Andy went to the back of the truck and got Sandy's gun. Everyone else was getting their guns out as well, sensing that the fun was about to start. He opened one of the eskys too and started fishing out bottles of chilled beer from the half-melted ice and handing them to the silent, puzzled blokes around him. He took one for Sandy and opened it. As he handed Sandy his gun, he said, "Here, mate, I got you a stubby."
Sandy took the beer and the gun and then took a long, slow pull on the bottle. It was a hot day. The sun beat down on the dry earth and the air was thick and full of the buzzing of flies. Sandy took another swig of beer and then suddenly lost his temper. He threw the half-empty bottle at the roos shouting, "What are you looking at you dickheads?"
To the astonishment of the hunting party, the small roo at which the bottle was flying, calmly moved its head aside to let the missile pass by harmlessly.
"Crikey," someone exclaimed. "Did youse see that?"
"This ain't right," someone else complained. "This ain't natural."
Sandy felt a lick of fear curling inside him. He swallowed hard, pushed his hat up from his eyes and raised his gun, taking careful aim on the biggest buck in the group. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. They all waited for Sandy to take his shot.
When it came, it was like a crack of thunder, rolling away across the dry, open bushland and up the distant hills. Sandy lowered his gun a little to see the effect.
"You missed the bugger," one of his mates said. The anxiety in his voice was obvious. Not one of the roos had so much as flinched and that was seriously scary.
Sandy quickly raised his gun and fired again and again and again. The air was full of the stinking smoke and their ears were ringing but the roos still stood there, fixedly staring back at their would-be killers.
A kind of panic seized the seven men and they all raised their weapons, several of them dropping their beers, so shaken were they. The fusillade of shots that followed would have been more at home in a war zone than a hunt. Each of them blasted away at the unmoving roos until they had emptied their weapons and, one by one they had to stop.
As the smoke cleared, the roos looked across at one another as if waiting for a signal. Then the small doe at the front raised her paw. All the others did the same. Almost numb with fear now, Sandy saw that a small silver tube was attached to the roo's forearm. A tube that was pointing straight at him. He had only time to gasp out, “Bugger," before the little tube flashed.
-oOo-
Police Constable Jack Collins sat on a rock contemplating his life. The rock was on a low hill commanding a view of a large, shallow valley. Gum trees and rocky outcroppings dotted the countryside and small groups of roos and emus could be seen grazing in the distance. The hot, Queensland sun beat down on the broad, dry land and on PC Collins' shoulders as he went over that fateful interview again and again in his mind. Each rehearsal of that painful memory ended in the same place, the Captain's office, with Collins in an agony of self-pity as the Captain explained that the only future he had with the Queensland Police Service would be in the remotest, most God-forsaken corner of the State, and even then the Captain wished there were more remote and more God-forsaken places he could be exiled to.
And here he was, in the middle of nowhere, policing a load of rocks and peaceful animals, looking forward to Saturday night when he might find some poor drunk and disorderly in one of the half-derelict townships on his 'beat' to lock up for the night. He knew he was wallowing but he couldn't help it. He liked being a police officer and he loved working in Brisbane. Like the vast majority of Australians, he was a city boy born and bred. The bush, to him, was a romantic ideal of stockmen and bush rangers, not this grim collection of drought-blighted farms and clinically depressed farmers, squalid, dirt-poor settlements full of surly aborigines who barely spoke English, and endless bloody unmade roads going from nowhere to nowhere. He hadn't had a decent cappuccino since the day he arrived in this hell-hole! And as for going to the cinema or a night-club, forget it!
This wasn't what he signed up for and he didn't know how much more of it he could take. Well, that would teach him to shoot his mouth off to the press.
A low line of dust, way across the valley, revealed the presence of a ute. He squinted his eyes against the sun and took a closer look. It was two utes, making their way across country. Probably some farmers' boys out shooting things. He had quickly come to see that shooting things was not just the only form of entertainment on offer in the outback, it was just about the only way to keep from shooting yourself and everyone else around you!
He saw the dust trail stop but couldn't make out what was going on. It looked like the boys had stopped their utes. Intrigued, and having nothing better to do, Collins got to his feet and went over to his police car to get the binoculars out. When he got back, he saw that the boys had piled out of their utes and were now standing in front of them, staring at a bunch of rocks. No, not rocks, he realised as he focused the binoculars, kangaroos! Now why would kangaroos...
He gasped as one of the boys raised a rifle and fired at the roos. He saw the little puff of grey smoke long before he heard the tiny pop of the shot. What made him gasp wasn't the fact that a young man old enough to vote thought it was a perfectly normal thing to do to shoot an animal for fun, it was the fact that the roos didn't budge an inch when he fired at them.
A cold shock of realisation went through him then and he strained through the binoculars to see the roos' forearms but, at that distance, he couldn't be sure. With a chilling inevitability, the rest of the farm boys started blasting away at the roos. There was smoke and the rattle of the distant gunshots but still the roos didn't move. He began shouting without even meaning to, yelling, “Run! Get out of there! Run you stupid bastards!" But there was no possible way they could hear him.
He watched in an agony of helpless frustration as one of the roos lifted a paw. Now he could see the weapon! There was a flash and one of the boys fell to the ground. Then the panic started, with young men running in all directions as the roos opened fire on them. It struck Collins, even in that moment of distress, that the roos were pretty lousy shots. It took them several seconds to bring down all seven of their would-be hunters, by which time they had also blasted both utes to pieces.
Collins lowered the binoculars, panting with shock. They were here! It was the roos from the siege. He did a quick mental calculation. Yes, if they'd kept moving, they could have reached here by now. A roo can cover a lot of ground when it wants to – and fast. And these guys had had a lot of incentive to put as much distance between themselves and Brisbane as possible.
So there they were, invulnerable, killer roos, armed with force shields and ray guns. And there he was Police Constable Jack Collins, the only man for a thousand kilometres who could stop them. But how? How did he tackle these alien desperadoes with nothing but his Glock pistol and kevlar vest?
Yet stop them he must. It was the only way he would ever get his old job back in Brisbane!
-oOo-
You could have cut the atmosphere in the cargo hold with a knife.
Sam sat with her arms folded, facing away from the others. Nearby, Wayne, Barraclough and John stood looking helplessly at on
e another. At one side of the hold, the Kanaka Downs Garden Club murmured together in a huddle, glaring at the Receivers of Cosmic Bounty. The Receivers stood at the other side, glaring back at the old folk.
"She was just trying to be helpful," Wayne said, vaguely.
John snorted in derision. "It was helpful to call my followers a bunch of spaced out, brain-dead, imbeciles, was it?"
"Or to tell the garden club to stop shagging each other and doing press-ups and save their energy for something useful and less gross?" Barraclough added.
They were both obviously cross with Sam but were keeping their voices low so the others didn't hear them.
"Sam just gets a bit, you know..." Wayne struggled to defend her. Relations between the garden club and the Receivers had always been a bit strained but in the course of her impassioned plea for action, Sam had managed to fan a mutual distaste into open hostility. "If they hadn't all joined in, calling each other names..." Wayne whined.
"It was all her fault," John insisted. "All Jadie said was that he'd rather wait here and see what the Vinggans' intentions are."
"No," Barraclough corrected him. “He said, 'Woah man, don't go getting all Rambo on us. Let's, like, see what the space chicks are gonna, like, give us when we get to Venus, or whatever.'” They all had to admire the quality of Barraclough's impression. "That's when your followers started that "gimme, gimme" hand stuff again. Look, some of them are still at it."
Cargo Cult Page 24
