The creature looked confused. “Religion, Your Eminence? What is that?"
Braxx waved an arm, airily. "You know, religion. The worship of gods. The quest for the perfection and elevation of the soul."
The functionary cringed a little in apology. "Why we have no such practices here, Your Eminence. I do not think the Mighty Chuwar would permit us to worship any other being but himself, even if we wanted to."
Braxx stopped dead – causing the Palace Guard to stumble and bump into one another as they attempted to do the same. He watched them, briefly, as they clattered about, then turned his attention back to the Mozbac. "No religion?"
Horrified that he may have caused some offence to the warlord's esteemed guest, the functionary abased himself. "I – I'm not sure we had one even before the Mighty Chuwar came to liberate our miserable, unworthy planet. Er... sorry."
Shocked, Braxx nevertheless managed to wave the Mozbac to its feet. "I'm sure it is not your fault, you poor creature. Alas, there are many benighted worlds that the message of the Great Spirit has yet to reach. I can only pity your ignorance and spiritual poverty." He turned to Trugg with a sigh. "I know we need this flux modulator whatnot but I see a more urgent need to enlighten these people. We will urge the government of this place to accept a mission from Vingg to bring them the joy of knowing the Great Spirit. If they don't accept, we must press the Communality to send armed missionaries to help these poor people."
Listening to this, the To'eghan jumped up anxiously. "You won't mention the armed missionaries to Mighty Chuwar, will you, Your Eminence. He is a great and benevolent ruler but he tends to react badly to people invading his planets."
Braxx nodded sagely. "I understand. Enlightened leadership is not to be found on every planet. Even some Vinggan colonies have resisted religious indoctrination, you know." He shook his head, sadly, at the folly of it all.
Watching him nervously, the Mozbac led the Vinggans through the massive doors of the Great Hall and into the profound gloom within.
"Trouble with the power?" Braxx asked, peering into the misty darkness all around him.
The functionary cringed again. "The Mighty Chuwar prefers it like this, Your Eminence. Personally, I'm quite happy not to know what lives here in the shadows of this hall." He shuddered and hurried them along towards the glow of the dais just visible through the darkness.
-oOo-
Drukk threw open the outer hatch and Sam and the others rushed through. Even as they did so, more maintenance bots appeared behind them in the long corridor. They had encountered several such groups along the way and each one had been more wild in its suicidal attacks on the escapees. Drukk had easily dispatched each group, zapping them with his little beam weapon. Other groups of the bots had been armed only with knives and lengths of pipe but this latest group opened fire with ray guns like Drukk's and they were altogether more dangerous. Fortunately, their aim was terrible and Drukk was able to eliminate them all before they'd managed to hit anything except the walls of the corridor and a couple of their own number.
Wayne was the last one out, jumping down the metre or so to the ground and turning to give Drukk a hand. Standing in the open hatch, Drukk examined Wayne's outstretched limb, pondering its meaning.
"Come on, Loosi, jump!"
Drukk looked at Wayne with all the usual feelings of confusion these humans invoked in him. He puzzled over the situation. For a start, why was Wayne even there? Everyone thought they'd left the humans behind on their horrible planet. Now he was beginning to accept that they'd somehow stowed away on the Vessel of the Spirit. And not just Wayne and Sam but loads of them! Was this what humans did? Infest spaceships like Zanghooplian space weevils? And then there was this frenzied urge to leave the ship. What sense did that make after taking the trouble to infest it in the first place?
"Loosi, please. You have to hurry."
Drukk looked on in consternation as Wayne jiggled up and down in his excitement, keeping an arm pointed at Drukk and looking back and forth between him and his fast-disappearing fellows. Then there was the behaviour of the maintenance bots. Now that was very peculiar! First he'd seen them bringing the humans food, then they'd drawn knives and were threatening them! He'd never seen such a thing in all his years in the Space Corps. Bots were just, well, bots! Harmless, helpful little things that fetched you bowls of krappasoop when you had a long watch, or hurried in to clean up your krappasoop when you accidentally dozed off and spilled it on the floor. They didn't form armed gangs and chase you through the corridors trying to kill you.
"Loosi! Will you come on? There'll be more of those crazy little machines along in a minute. We've got to get away."
"I should be getting back to my duties now." It seemed like the sensible thing. This was all very weird but then everything to do with humans was weird. It was good, really, that they were going. Then Drukk could get back to... to...
"Your duties? Your duties? Are you out of your fucking mind? The ship's full of killer robots. You just helped us escape. Whoever's controlling those machines will hunt you down and carve you up!"
Hmmm, thought Drukk. There it is again. There was that something that had been nagging at him for days. Something was wrong with everything, really, not just the humans. Ships shouldn't fly by themselves. Spacers should be more than just useless passengers. Maintenance bots shouldn't try to kill people.
A scuttling sound behind him made him turn just in time to see two maintenance bots creeping up on him, holding a large net between them. As soon as he saw them, they rushed him and he stepped back in surprise, stumbling over the sill of the hatch and toppling backwards out of the ship. With unheard-of presence of mind, Wayne rushed forward to catch his beautiful friend, not properly appreciating the higher density of the transformed Vinggan body, nor the slightly higher gravity of the planet To'egh, until Drukk landed on him like a very large sack of potatoes, smashing him to the ground and crushing the wind out of him.
Glad that the human had fortuitously broken his fall, Drukk got quickly to his feet. The bots threw the net in a last, desperate attempt to snag him but Drukk shot it in mid-air and then shot the bots. Seeing more appearing in the corridor, he reached up and licked the manual override splashboard, closing the hatch. Wayne was still on the ground, gasping and moaning. Drukk watched him for a moment in silence. "I think you are right, Wayne. I should probably go." He set off after the others for a few paces before he realised he was alone, then turned back to see Wayne climbing shakily to his feet, clutching his head. "Are you coming, or have you decided to stay after all?"
Grimly, without a word, Wayne forced himself into motion.
-oOo-
The first Shorty and her gang knew about Constable Collins' cunning plan was when utes and four-wheels started driving out of the trees towards them.
"What do you think they're up to Boss?" Fats wondered. The vehicles were still a good way off but they were definitely moving towards them.
"I dunno!" Shorty snapped. "You think I'm clairvoyant or something?"
"Sorry Boss, I just thought..."
"Well don't! Come on, let's go over there, out of their way."
Shorty had been in a bad mood ever since they shot the humans the other day. Her guys hadn't noticed much – she was always in a bad mood about something – but Shorty felt it as a gnawing anxiety, eating away at her.
For three hundred years she and her gang had been exiled on this rock with no-one ever suspecting what they really were. Now, in the space of a few weeks they had twice been in a gunfight with the humans. They'd been seen. They'd killed loads of the stupid creatures. Worse still, they had these damned Vinggan weapons strapped to their wrists. They might as well have big red-and-white targets painted on their fat rumps! Yes, the humans were stupid. Yes, they'd gone about as far from human settlement as they possibly could and still be able to find enough to eat. But the humans weren't all that stupid and, these days, nowhere was so far away that you weren't tripping over the ridic
ulous creatures everywhere you went.
Shorty knew she should not have shot that group of hunters the other day but she'd been mad. For the first time in three hundred years she'd had the chance to strike back and, like a fool, she'd taken it. It was probably only a matter of time now before the humans started a serious hunt for them.
"They're still coming Boss."
Shorty looked around and there were the vehicles, changing course to follow them. “Keep moving,” Shorty snapped. “That way.”
They bounded off in a new direction. "Why don't we just stop and shoot 'em, Boss?" Fats wanted to know.
"Give me strength!" Shorty growled. "Why don't you just save your brains for thinking about not falling over your own feet, dingo face, and let me decide who we shoot? OK?"
"Er, OK Boss."
Another voice piped up. "There's some more of 'em over there."
Shorty looked to find several more vehicles emerging from the trees she had been guiding them towards. "They're after us!" She turned again and quickened the pace. If it came to a fight she had no doubt at all that her guys would win hands down but she didn't want another fight. If she kept escalating this thing she'd end up with the whole planet hunting them. She just wanted to get herself and her gang out of there so they could go back to being unnoticed and unremarked. Right then she would happily have settled for serving out her remaining two hundred years in total anonymity.
"If we can make it to those trees over there we'll be safe," she called over her shoulder. How had she let herself be caught like this out in the open? Even the real roos knew better than that!
'Uh oh," said Fats, quite redundantly, as another group of vehicles moved to block their escape.
There was still one route open to them and Shorty took it, putting on a burst of speed that would leave most utes, driving off-road, well behind them. She thanked the Frofrifrathalionionians that they'd transformed them into kangaroos – creatures beautifully equipped to race tirelessly along at high speed across the roughest possible terrain – rather than something less serviceable, like an echidna, or a goanna. Behind them, the vehicles had formed a line and were bouncing and lurching across the ground towards them. She thanked the Froops that the humans were too primitive to have cheap flying machines at their disposal. If they had, her guys wouldn't have stood a chance. As it was, they were easily out-pacing the rattling, clanking ground vehicles.
The hills were rising on her right. She could lead the gang up into them and they'd be safe there for a while but ahead of her was a small gorge, a natural water-course full of tumbled rocks, falling away to open ground beyond. If she went through there, there was no way the human vehicles could follow. She would be free. Once through to the other side, she would just keep going. They'd just keep running all day and all night. By the next day they'd be knackered, but they'd be well clear of this district. They could then head back towards the coast, get among the mountains – and stay there for the next fifty years!
As the walls of the gorge rose up around them, she had a sudden panic that maybe this was some kind of an ambush. But what if it was? Their Vinggan shields would protect them from anything these country hicks could throw at them and, once they were through, they were home and dry. But there was no ambush. No shots rang out, no humans appeared among the rocks. They emerged from the gorge unscathed and unmolested.
And fell straight into the gigantic camouflaged pit that Collins and his team had dug the previous day.
Chapter 27: Little Mistakes
In the great carousel that is the Milky Way, the stars twirled about the centre, the planets whirled about their stars and the moons spun about their planets. Into this vast, churning whirligig, appearing as if by magic from the complex nothingness of infra-space, the Agent's sleek, black spaceship came. Automated systems checked the ship's location, speed and direction, then fired the engines that would match its trajectory to that of the fifth moon of the second planet of the star system it found itself in.
"Course set for Arabis Five," the ship told the Agent. “Planetfall in seventeen minutes."
The Agent cleared the ship's hull and looked out at the solar system around it. Not far away, a huge gas giant swung at breakneck speed around a bright, orange star, both star and planet looking bloated and degenerate. Closer still, a second gas giant raced ahead of the pursuing spaceship. As the Agent's ship matched vectors, the gas giant grew to monstrous proportions. One by one, the bright dots of its many moons slipped out of view until only one was left, Arabis Five. As big as the Earth, the moon was a dull, brown colour with splashes of bright silver where small oceans dotted its surface. There was ice at the poles and thick, jaundiced cloud in whorls and streams, adding to the moon's dismal appearance.
“Unidentified craft in sector thirty-two twelve, this is FiveSpace traffic control, please identify yourself."
The voice from the planet sounded anxious. Few ships, the Agent knew, would approach an inhabited world at this speed, broadcasting no identification, unless they were up to no good, or, as in this case, they were an Agent of the Lalantran Government on official business. The Agent gave the ship permission to send the identification codes and to begin negotiating an orbital insertion. Then it groped around for its invisible couch and settled there to watch the approach.
-oOo-
It wasn't until they reached the relative safety of the spaceport buildings that Sam began to take in her surroundings. The Vinggan ship dominated everything. As big as Lang Park Stadium, it seemed to crowd out the dozens of smaller spaceships parked around it. The buildings too seemed to cower away from the massive ship, even though several of them were quite large. The fact that they were all rounded and mud-coloured made them seem oddly primitive – especially against the majestic Vinggan ship – as if an Airbus 380 had set down in the middle of an African village.
John and Barraclough were still with her, panting heavily, as she was, from the sudden exertion in the high gravity, but Wayne was missing. She looked back the way they had come and felt more irritated than relieved to see him staggering along behind Drukk. Just like Wayne to go and injure himself when they were trying to run for their lives!
Above them, the sky was a sickly yellow colour with a few beige clouds hanging about in it. A light breeze stirred the yellowish dust on the hard-packed earth. Apart from that, there was no movement. The pale brown, mud-rendered buildings completed the planet's shades-of-cappuccino decorating scheme. Sam looked in vain for any sign of life – animal, vegetable or otherwise – but there was none.
"Now what?" Barraclough demanded, gruffly.
"We need to find a ship that'll take us back to Earth," said Sam, absently, scanning the area for likely candidates.
"I don't think we're on any of the main bus routes."
His surly tone penetrated Sam's concentration. She rounded on him angrily. "Then we'll get a cab. What's your problem, Barraclough? We're out of there aren't we? We're free, aren't we?"
The big policeman drew in a long breath, obviously intending to spend it on an equally long tirade but John jumped in ahead of him. "I think what Mike means, Sam, is that we don't really know where we are and we don't know if the natives will be friendly or not. We could actually be a lot worse off than we were on the Vinggan ship."
"Oh rubbish!" She grabbed Drukk, who had just arrived, and pushed him in front of the scowling Barraclough. "Drukk, tell this overstuffed warthog where we are and how easy it will be to get back to Earth."
Drukk looked uneasy. "Well..."
"Go on."
"Well, the planet is called To'egh I think, but I'm not really sure where it is. As for your planet, I have absolutely no idea where that is."
Now it was Sam's turn to scowl. 'But we can hire a ship or something to take us back home, can't we? I mean, this is like a kind of airport for spaceships, right? We just need to, you know, charter a flight, don't we?"
Drukk shrugged. "I have no idea what you're talking about. In my experience, space
ports are usually run by the local military and they shoot people on sight who trespass on them."
Sam's face turned white and Barraclough adopted a 'told you so' attitude.
"W-we should contact the authorities," Sam stammered. "We should explain that we're escaped prisoners. Someone will help us, surely?"
"I think the authority here is a Durak warlord who enslaved this planet a little while ago," Drukk offered.
Wayne, stumbling into the group at last, looked around at the worried faces and groaned. "That really hurt," he whined.
"Shut up, Wayne!" the three humans said in unison.
He glowered at them, astonished at their insensitivity. "So what's the plan?" he asked, grudgingly.
"I think it amounts to this," Barraclough said. "We've got nowhere to run to. No-one will help us. Sooner or later someone will find us and drag us up in front of the local warlord and we'll all be executed as runaway slaves. Is that about right, Drukk?"
The Vinggan nodded sagely.
Wayne looked at Sam, half expecting that the big cop was making some kind of joke. From the angry scowl on his sister's face, he could see he was wrong. "Hang on a minute..." he began but was literally brushed aside as Sam marched past him on her way to grab Barraclough by the lapels.
"No-one asked you to come along," she snarled, almost dragging herself off her feet as she tried to pull the big man down to her. “But since you're here, you'd better start playing for the team, Mister." Drukk and Wayne exchanged puzzled glances. "I'm going to get us off this café-au-lait hell-hole and if you want to see home again, you'd better get with the programme. There's no I in team, Barraclough, so I don't want to hear any more of your prima donna bullshit. Do you hear me?"
Barraclough gazed down into her angry face and for a long moment seemed to consider whether he was going to hit her or laugh out loud. At last, he said, "You know, you're quite pretty when you talk crap."
With an animal cry of fury, Sam let go of him and, stepping back and squaring off, swung her arm back to deliver what they could all see would be a completely ineffectual blow. Calmly, Barraclough stepped up to her, making the planned swing impossible, and said, "Now don't make me put you across my knee, Sam."
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