Cargo Cult (14 page)

A machine as intelligent as the
ship was, could spot purposive behaviour a mile away—actually,
quite a few miles away—and these ludicrous creatures were
definitely showing all the signs. In amazement, it watched as they
skirted the ship, finally entering through a maintenance bot hatch.
They had made their way into the crewed areas with an ease that
suggested they had a good understanding of how a spaceship was laid
out. Intelligence? Could a creature so fundamentally stupid-looking
possibly be intelligent? The ship activated its translation field
and had marvelled as it listened to their quarrelsome conversation.
Then the funny creatures had begun, in a crude sort of way, it’s
true, to search the corridors for something. The control room,
clearly, since their search stopped as soon as they found it. Once
there, they had gathered around the communicator. Incredible! They
knew what an IR comm was! This was fascinating. What
were
these idiotic, bouncing wheezebags? There were so many
questions?

However, something had to be done
to stop them breaking things.

"Further damage to this vessel will
result in retaliatory action," the ship said in a bland, computery
sort of voice. At the same time, it opened concealed hatches and
brought a number of remote-controlled blasters into view.

The kangaroos froze. So they knew
what a blaster was, too.

"Please state your names and the
nature of your business," the ship said, enjoying itself. It loved
to see the wheezebags squirm.

There was a silence. Finally, the
small doe spoke out. “Hey computer! Put the guns away. I need you
to do something for me.”

The presumption of the creature!
"Please state your names and the nature of your business," it
repeated.

“Hey, Boss,” one of the bucks said.
“Why don’t you just tell it your name? Huh?”

“Shut up, Fats,” the doe said. “You
want to handle this?”

“No Boss.”

“All right, then. Hey, computer!
Where is everybody?”

“The crew has gone onto the surface
to explore the planet. They will return in approximately five
minutes.” That should get them excited.

“I want to talk to the guy in
charge,” the little doe demanded.

“In the crew’s absence, I am in
charge,” the ship told her. “You have failed to comply with my
request for identification. Please remain still while I eliminate
you.” It made a big show of moving its blasters around as if it
were carefully taking aim. The kangaroos began to skitter about
nervously, looking for places to run or hide. Their heartbeat
rates, already high, went up a further fifteen percent. Gosh this
was fun! It was all the ship could do not to laugh out loud.

“Hey, wait a minute! Wait a minute.
OK? I’ll tell you who we are,” the doe shouted, anxiety colouring
its voice for the first time. “Yeah? OK?”

The ship let two seconds tick by.
"Please state your names and the nature of your business," it said,
retracting its blasters.

The little doe, twisted its head
sharply as if to dispel a tension in its neck. “All right. No need
to get hasty. We’re just visiting, you know. We’re like
guests.”

“Please state y -”

“All right! People call me Shorty.
These jokers are my guys. They work for me. Happy now?”

“I am not programmed for emotional
response,” the ship replied. Oh the machines back home were going
to love this! “Why have you boarded this vessel?”

“Look, pal,” said Shorty. “We just
want to use the comm unit and get out of here. Now that’s no big
deal, is it?”

“Only Vinggan Space Corps personnel
are permitted to operate my equipment. Whom do you wish to
call?”

“What do you want to know for if we
can’t use the unit?”

Cunning little wheezebag! Better
play the Dumb Machine. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your
question. Whom do you wish to call?”

“Hey, what is this?” Shorty wanted
to know.

“It’s probably just trying to keep
us talking until the crew gets back,” said Fats, looking about him
suspiciously.

“This whole thing stinks like dingo
crap,” Shorty decided. “What’s your game, computer?”

Whatever the game was, the ship
decided it was bored with it anyway. It brought its blasters out
again. “Just tell me what you are and where you’re from,” it said,
“and I won’t start taking bits out of your mangy hides.”

Shorty relaxed visibly. “That’s
better. Now we’re getting somewhere. Who’s that doing the phoney
computer voice and where are you hiding, bozo?”

The ship fired a tiny burst from a
single weapon and took a small nick out of one of Shorty’s ears.
The little kangaroo leaped up in shock and would have bolted only
the ship said, “Stay where you are, my furry little friend. I have
lots of questions to ask you.”

-oOo-

“So what’s it like?”

“What?” Drukk came out of his
reverie. These humans had a strange way of starting a conversation
suddenly and in the middle. Maybe they were telepathic and expected
their fellows to be following their thoughts. “Are you?” he
asked.

“Pardon?”

“Hmm. I suppose not.”

Wayne was getting used to
conversations with Ms Beecham being like this. Unfazed by the queer
turn it had taken, he started again. “So what’s it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“Space.”

“Space?”

“Yeah, space. You say you’re an
alien, right? So what’s space like?”

Drukk found the question very odd.
“It’s not like anything. It’s just space. You know, big, empty,
nothing there, boring.”

“Boring! But what about the stars
like dust, the exotic planets, the black holes, the nebulae, all
that stuff?”

Drukk thought about it. He supposed
the stars did look a bit like dust when you were out there but
then, who wants to look at dust? “Mostly it’s just black. When you
first go out, you might look out the window now and then but
there’s never anything much to see and you soon stop bothering.
I’ve been in the Space Corps for several years now and most of that
time has been spent staring at the inside of a spaceship.”

Wayne, whose mental image of space
came from a lifelong diet of Star Trek re-runs, dismissed Drukk’s
dismal views. “Oh, I’d love to go out there! Fighting off the evil
cyborgs, dodging the exploding supernovae, making love to beautiful
alien chicks...”

Drukk pulled a face. “Yeuk!”

“What?”

“You know, it’s almost always
physically impossible for alien species to mate. And, even if it
wasn’t, you’d have to be seriously perverted to find any of them
attractive.”

“But you’re, well, you’re gorgeous!
I, like, really fancy you.” There, he’d said it. He watched for her
reaction. Would she appreciate his admiration?

Drukk looked down at himself, the
smooth, wart-free body, the sickening dryness of his skin, the
stiff, jointed limbs, and shuddered in disgust. “You might think
so, human, but to me, your whole species is hideous beyond
words!”

Wayne felt like he’d been slapped
in the face, knocked down, kicked a few times and spat on. The
phrase “hideous beyond words” echoed in his mind, over and over.
“You can call me Wayne,” he said, sulkily, “I prefer it to
‘human’.”

“Very well, Wayne.”

On the other hand, she’d just
called him by his name. Maybe she liked him after all? “Can I call
you Loosi? ‘Ms Beecham’ seems a bit, you know, formal.”

“If you must,” Drukk sighed.

There was a long silence before
Wayne spoke again. “OK. So say I believe that you’re a pukka space
babe and you’ve crash-landed on Earth and you’ve lost your
companions.”

Drukk frowned. “You want me to say
all that?”

“No. No. It’s, like, just something
you say.” Drukk continued to frown but Wayne pressed on. “Anyway,
shouldn’t you be out looking for them, or going to see the Prime
Minister, or something? You know, ‘Take me to your leader!’ Stuff
like that?”

Picking out what little sense he
could from the human’s babble, Drukk replied, “I am pursuing the
only course of action which seems reasonable. My companions are
religious zealots. They worship the Great Spirit and their sect is
called The Pebbles of the New Dawn. Don’t ask me why. It’s usually
something to do with an ancient text. They are led by a Corpuscular
Manifestation, third class, called Braxx who believes he has been
chosen to convert the humans to our religion. He will almost
certainly seek out human religious leaders so that he can begin his
mission.

“When that other human...
er...”

“Sam?”

“... the bossy one...”

“Yeah, that’d be right.”

“... said you were going to visit a
religious centre, I thought that either I would find Braxx there,
or that I could at least find out some useful information for when
I do see him again. However,” he looked out through the windscreen
at the shabby farmhouse, “I think that humans must have a different
attitude to religion than Vinggans do.”

Wayne was a bit uncomfortable.
“You’ve got to make allowances for Sam. She doesn’t always tell the
exact truth. She’s all right really, I suppose. Just a bit... Hey!
If you need to meet these guys, why don’t we go in and see
them?”

Drukk was reluctant. “I should, I
suppose.”

“Well, why not?” He opened his
door, letting in a blast of hot, humid air. “Come on. For all you
know, this Braxx bloke is in there already.”

Steeling himself for yet more human
contact, Drukk adopted the bravely-resolved-to-face-something-awful
posture, which his human body translated as chin up, back straight,
chest out. Wayne gawped, open-mouthed but said nothing as he
climbed out of the car backwards.

Together they walked over to the
house and up the wooden steps. The door was open still so they
walked straight in.

The Agent popped out of infraspace
to find itself in the complex gravity whorl of a planetary system.
It had travelled far and fast in the service of its masters,
following a trail of evidence across thousands of light years. Now
it could almost smell its prey. Slowly, it smiled in anticipation,
savouring the moment.

It remembered the day it had
hatched, not so long ago, in the deep, dank underground caverns of
the Lalantran homeworld. It had been fully grown, powerful already,
shucking off the chitinous chrysalis that had nurtured it and
standing on the puddled floor as its black, hard body had dried in
the cold breeze.

How had it begun?

It gazed around the dimly-lit cave,
its eyes, adjusting quickly to the low light, its body scales
lifting a little to insulate it against the chill air. Its mind was
cool and clear. It knew it had just been born. It knew it was on
Lalantra. It knew its knowledge came from programs stored in the
thick coils of its genetic material, programs put there by its
Lalantran masters. It knew what it was. It was an Agent of the
masters. It knew almost everything it needed to know. Only one
crucial fact was missing.

A creature came towards it, pallid
and fragile, a creature of many, spindly limbs and three white eyes
peering from among them. The creature scuttled across the floor of
the cave, splashing through the reeking, stagnant water there. The
Agent knew that this was a Lalantran, one of the masters. Its cool
mind acknowledged the absolute right of this creature to command
it.

“Master,” it said and dropped to
the ground in obeisance. It’s new body worked well it noted as it
moved. The masters had designed it. It knew that, too.

“Stand,” the Lalantran said. With a
smooth, powerful motion, the Agent was on its feet again. The
Lalantran moved around it, inspecting it. Somewhat shorter than the
Agent’s two-and-a-half metre height, the spindly creature was less
than a tenth of its mass. The Agent stood rock still on its two
legs as its maker examined its handiwork.

This Agent was a new model,
bipedal, designed for multiple environments, physically agile and
adaptable, a brilliant design compromise. The Agent was not stable
on its two legs, requiring constant neural monitoring of its body
and adjustments to its balance. A fly-by-wire organism, as the
designers had described it, which sacrificed inherent stability for
a dramatic reduction in limb numbers and a huge increase in
efficiency. Strange and awkward as it appeared, this powerful body,
with its fine mind and its hunter’s instincts was the latest in a
long line of biologically engineered super-beings which the
Lalantrans used to enforce their will throughout their domain—and
beyond.

“You’ll do,” the Lalantran said,
returning to stand in front of it.

The Agent spoke again. “Master, I
have a question.”

“Of course you do. You wish to know
what is your purpose, do you not?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Come,” said the Lalantran and led
the way towards a dark doorway.

The Agent followed without
hesitation.

They splashed along a dank tunnel
and turned into another. There they entered a small chamber. In a
flash of light they were in another chamber. They had teleported,
the Agent knew, but it did not know where. It felt no unease. The
master was still leading it and all must therefore be well.

They passed along another tunnel
and then into another. The Lalantran moved briefly to the wall
where water was seeping down the stained mossy surface. The Agent
saw its master’s tongue emerge from a body segment and lap slowly
at the wetness. Then they moved on again, entering a small cave,
not unlike the first.

“You understand the need to
suppress machine sentience do you not?” the Lalantran asked. As it
spoke, a star-chart appeared around them, apparently far larger
than the room in which they stood.

“Of course, Master.”

“What do you see?”