“I thought...” said John.
Someone tittered, a little hysterically.
“You might have warned us, Drukk,” Braxx said.
Drukk, of course, had never actually seen a landing either. He simply stared back at Braxx with his mouth open, waiting for his brain to re-engage.
“Very well,” said Braxx, a little shakily. “The Great Spirit has delivered Her servants safely, if a little abruptly. Now we must find what we came here for.” He turned to John. “Where in this land of Amberley will we find the Mechazoid Hoard?”
Drukk watched the human with interest. John turned several shades paler than usual and swallowed as if he had something stuck in his throat. It occurred to Drukk for the first time to wonder whether John actually knew where the treasure was, or if it had all been a cunning human ruse to get the ship back to Earth.
The thought amazed him. First he had begun suspecting the ship of subterfuge. Now he was suspecting the humans. Neither of which should have had the wit to take a slime mould from a dead Trogian, as the saying went. Certainly, Braxx was a pompous old fraud. As far as Drukk could see, the religious leader got through life by spouting pious nonsense and pretending he knew what any of it meant. But, if Drukk was right about the machines, maybe they had fooled much better men than Braxx. His own captain, for example, one of the finest Vinggans Drukk had ever known. And if the machines could fool Captain Roxx, maybe even the humans were smarter than they looked, however hard that was to believe.
“I think we should call them and ask them to turn over the treasure to us,” John said, looking immensely relieved.
He's stalling, Drukk realised.
“Excellent idea!” said Braxx. “Ship. Open a connection to the humans. I wish to address them.”
“Who shall I say is calling?” Was it only Drukk who noticed the dry sarcasm in the ship's tome?
“Tell them it's their new Vinggan overlords.”
There were approving nods from the other Vinggans present. They clearly thought Braxx was taking the right tone. No one but Drukk seemed to be cringing with embarrassment.
While they waited for the call to be put through, Drukk sidled over to John as casually as he could. John looked alarmed to find the Loosi Beecham in the orange dress pressing up against him. Alarmed but not exactly unhappy, until Drukk whispered, “There is no hoard here, is there?”
John was wide-eyed with rising panic. “What do you mean? Of course there is. It's here in the vault.”
Drukk made the tell-it-to-my-grandma-she's-got-Drebonian-brain-rot gesture, which his body translated as a disbelieving shake of the head. “Don't worry. I won't tell Braxx. But we have to get you and the other humans off the ship before he finds out, or he'll have you all vaporised.” Even then, he might have the whole planet vaporised, but Drukk couldn't help that.
“Why would you help us?”
It was a good question. One Drukk was not prepared for. Irritably, he whispered, “I've got bigger issues to worry about than you and your species. The sooner you are gone and we can get back to Vingg, the better.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Braxx demanded.
Drukk and John jumped apart with a guilty start. Drukk searched desperately for a reason to get out of there. “This human has become sexually active,” he said, saying the most unpleasant thing he could think of.
John turned from white to red. “You were standing very close...” he said. “I'm only human.”
Drukk shuddered at the implications but pressed on. “I should remove it from your august presence before it erupts with its disgusting ejaculate.” Drukk had no idea how humans mated and didn't want to know, but most species had some kind of disgusting ejaculate. Fortunately, everyone else felt the same.
“Eeew! Get it out of here,” someone said.
“Just shoot it,” said another.
“Take them both,” said Braxx, and shoot them somewhere else.
“As you wish,” said Drukk and grabbed John and Marcus before the mood of the room grew ugly, dragging them off the bridge and away from the weapons that were already being drawn.
“W-wait a minute,” Marcus said as Drukk dragged him along the corridor. “You can't just kill us because this guy had a hard on!”
“I didn't,” John protested. “I mean, well, sort of, but that's not the point. He's right. That's no reason to shoot someone.”
Drukk looked at John in disgust and held him at arms length. “What do you mean, 'well, sort of'? I thought I was just making that up.”
For a moment, John stammered in confusion, then pulled himself together. “Yeah, I knew that. Of course I knew that. I was just going along with it. That's all.”
“What the hell is going on here?” Marcus demanded. “You two know something I don't. I hate that. It's always happening to me. Everybody's always got some little secret they're sharing and I'm always left out of it.”
John looked Marcus in the eye and said, “Put a sock in it will you, mate?”
Dazed and befuddled under the twin beams of Sunders' mesmeric influence, Marcus closed his mouth and nodded.
“So where are you taking us, Drukk? It is Drukk, isn't it? You wear the skin-tight, figure-hugging orange clothing, and all that?”
Drukk renewed his internal shudders at the idea that his disguise aroused these human males. It was the computer's fault, he now realised. It had selected the body form and it had then told them the metamorphosis booth was broken. “It was toying with us,” he said aloud. “It was amusing itself at our expense.” It was a shocking revelation.
“What?”
Drukk snapped out of it. He mustn't say such things out loud. The ship was probably listening to everything that he said. “Nothing. Just a drama I watched recently. Horrible thing about a brave spaceman being tormented by a hideous sub-Vinggan alien.”
“Are you all right?”
“Of course I am.” He suddenly realised he couldn't just take these two back to their friends and then let everybody go. The ship would stop him if he tried. He needed a plan. “Ha!” he said, loudly, for the ship's benefit. “Now I will take you to the other humans and execute you in front of them.”
“What?”
Drukk gave John the gesture of clandestine-complicity-among-colluding-confederates, which his body rendered as a broad wink. John blinked back at him uncertainly, but said no more.
Chapter 36: Götterdämmerung
“There's a call for you, sir.”
Air Commodore Barnabas Braby lowered his field glasses and turned to Flight Sergeant Cooper, who stood there holding out a mobile phone. Braby had been studying the alien space ship that was sitting on the main runway. Not that you needed binoculars to see the thing. It was as big as a damned shopping mall. And when it came to potential enemy warships, Braby was of the view that size most definitely did matter. He frowned at his nervous-looking sergeant. “A call, Sergeant? On your personal phone?”
“It just started downloading apps, sir. And then it rang. It's a woman, sir, says she is our new Vinggan overlord.” Braby was about to request that the sergeant insert her phone and its crank caller where the sun didn't shine when the woman added, “Says her name is Braxx, sir.”
He recognised the name instantly from his recent briefings. Several eye-witnesses interviewed by the Queensland Police had mentioned a woman called Braxx who was clearly the leader. “Give me that,” he said, taking it.
He wanted to start yelling. He wanted to tell the bloody aliens to get their bloody ship off his runway. Instead, put the phone on speaker and said, “This is Air Commodore Braby, I'm in charge here. To whom am I speaking?”
A well-modulated and sultry female voice said, “I am Braxx, Corpuscular Manifestation third class of the Great Spirit, and, in lieu of the proper Colonial authorities, I speak for Drukk, Acting Governor of this miserable mudball. In short, I am your your new master and spiritual leader.”
The silent officers in the room collectively goggled at th
e implications. Braby pursed his lips. The urge to shout was growing, but he knew that shouting at the aliens was the general's prerogative, not his. He just had to keep the ETs from blowing anything up until the man's plane arrived – he glanced at his watch – which would be in about five minutes, thank God.
“That's very interesting Ms Braxx...” he said.
“Please, just Braxx.”
“Right. Braxx, then. You can call me Air Commodore. Perhaps you'd care to join us out here so that talks can begin between our two peoples?”
“Talks?” Braxx sounded genuinely confused. “What talks?”
Braby looked around the room at his second-in-command and the base security officer who both shrugged back at him, trying to look sympathetic. “Well, you know, just to get to know each other better then. I'd like to think we could offer you a taste of Aussie hospitality while we're waiting for the big brass to get here.”
“It's started talking nonsense,” he heard Braxx say, obviously addressing someone at the other end. “Why do they always do that? They start off sounding quite sane, and then suddenly they start to gibber.”
“Maybe you should just tell it to shut up and hand over the treasure,” said a voice from near Braxx. It was another woman's voice. It could even be the same woman talking to herself, it sounded so similar. Braby remembered the briefing. Thirteen, or maybe fourteen, identical, oddly-dressed women, who all looked like Loosi Beecham, except one of them was pregnant.
“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 culti
sts 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.”
Cargo Cult Page 34
