Cargo Cult

By Graham Storrs

When a Vinggan ship crash-lands on the uncharted planet Earth, the marooned survivors – twelve religious zealots, their leader, and a single, low-ranking crewman, called Drukk – decide to make the best of it by converting humanity to their rather authoritarian religion. Inadvertently disguised as megastar actress Loosi Beecham, they set off to begin their evangelical mission.

And that’s when things really begin to go wrong. For their crash was not all it seemed, interstellar law enforcement is on their tail, and the humans are inexplicably strange – especially the busload of old folk they make off with, the New Age cargo cult that welcomes them, the local police force that is following them around, and an overambitious reporter and her idiot brother who don’t help matters by kidnapping crewman Drukk.

Oh, and did I mention the talking kangaroos?

Only Drukk finally begins to understand what is really going on, but by then the Vinggans have unwittingly carted dozens of humans off-world and the only plan anyone can come up with to get home again is complete and utter insanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graham Storrs
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310647888

Graham Storrs

Graham Storrs is a science fiction writer who lives miles from anywhere in rural Australia with his wife and a Tonkinese cat. He has published many short stories in magazines and anthologies as well as three children's science books and a large number of academic and technical pieces in the fields of psychology, artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction.He has published a number of sci-fi novels, in four series; Timesplash (three books), the Rik Sylver sci-fi thriller series (three books), the Canta Libre space opera trilogy. and the Deep Fracture trilogy. He has also published an augmented reality thriller, "Heaven is a Place on Earth", a sci-fi comedy novel, "Cargo Cult", a dark comedy time travel novel, "Time and Tyde", and an urban sci-fi thriller, "Mindrider."

Book preview

Chapter 1: After the Crash

Roxx walked unsteadily into the command centre, ducking to get through the portal. Hey, I got it working! he called, waving a long, jointed limb — an ‘arm’ as he should learn to call it. Fourteen eye-clusters swung around to gawp at him in astonishment — fifteen, if you included the bud growing on Joss’ flank.

It’s one of them! someone chirruped and everyone grabbed for their blasters.

No, no! Wait! Roxx shouted, aware of the strange croaking sound his voice made. It’s me, your captain. I got the metamorphosis booth working. Now we can all disguise ourselves as hum— But that was all Roxx had time for. Fourteen bolts of crackling energy sizzled into him, turning his lovely new body into a pile of smoking black goo. Not only Roxx but, as the Vinggans continued to blast away in panic at the spot their captain had once occupied, they destroyed most of the portal and part of the surrounding bulkhead too. The smell of burning flesh and plastics was awful.

Hang on! Hang on! chirruped Drukk, rippling blue with agitation. Stop shooting! Stop! Stop! Gradually, the panicked Vinggans became aware of Drukk’s chirruping. One by one, they stopped firing and lowered their weapons. As the last, solitary shot melted a small hole in the deck, all eye-clusters turned to Drukk. Er, he said, hesitating to break the news. I think we’ve just vaporised the captain.

The wreck of the Vinggan space cruiser Vessel of the Spirit sat on a blasted, barren plain. All around it, the charred remains of trees smouldered in the bright moonlight. On the horizon, to the west and north, a red glow was all that could be seen of the bush fire the crash had started nine hours ago. Of the crew of eight and the thirty-five passengers, just fourteen now remained alive.

The Great Spirit moves us in strange ways to do Her work, said Braxx, sliding forward to address them all. Among the Vinggans, several muttered We are pebbles on Her beach and touched their dorsal brain pans in reverence.

Er, yes, quite, said Drukk, eyeing them nervously. He always felt queasy around religious types and these Pebbles of the New Dawn guys were just a bit too creepy for his liking. As the last remaining member of the Vessel of the Spirit’s crew, it was up to him now to take charge and do what he could to ensure the survival of his passengers on this strange alien world.

Right, he said. OK. They all turned to look at him and he felt sweat beginning to ooze from his ear sacs. The trouble was knowing exactly what they should do next. Captain Roxx had seemed to have some sort of plan — something about using the metamorphosis booth to emulate the local sapients. Maybe that’s what they should do? It was a shame they’d all killed him just then. Embarrassing too. Roxx had been one of the best. Still, everyone was bound to be a bit nervous in the circumstances, what with the crash and all. And it’s not as if you get stranded on an uncharted planet, swarming with dangerous sapients, tens of light-years from the nearest colony, with the infra-space communicator smashed to pieces, every day. It’s no wonder they’d shot him, bursting in here like that, looking so dry and ugly. In fact, it’s a wonder more people hadn’t been shot.

Well? asked Braxx.

Pardon?

You seemed about to say something.

Oh. Did I? Hmm. Sorry.

Braxx stared at him for a few, long seconds. Drukk didn’t like that at all. It was a stare that seemed to carry far too little respect and perhaps just a little too much contempt. No. Wait. That’s right. I was going to say, why don’t we all go and use the metamorphosis booth like the captain suggested? That way we’ll be able to move around without the local sapients being alarmed by us.

The ‘humans’, murmured Braxx.

That’s right, the humans.

Even as they’d hurtled out of infra-space towards this Spirit-forsaken backwater, the ship’s processors had begun listening to the planet’s emissions, interpreting the languages of the local sapients, piecing together whatever knowledge they could glean about the inhabitants, cross-referencing friendly-contact scenarios, survival scenarios and annihilation plans. Within an hour of the crash, the machines had spat out their summaries.

The land-mass they had landed on was known in the local language as ‘Australia’. By searching something called the ‘Internet’, a painfully crude global information repository, the ship was even able to supply maps of the local area. The maps showed few towns and said nothing about the terrain but they indicated the presence of ‘hotels’, ‘beaches’ and ‘tourist trails’. None of this made much sense to the Vinggans and the strangeness of the maps only added to their growing unease.

Top of the local food chain was an air-breathing carbon-based form with a single, small head and brain and two of just about everything else. The 'humans' were mostly hairless but were otherwise horribly ugly. They broke all the known laws of evolution by moving about on just two limbs, teetering around in a constant state of disequilibrium like a planet-wide circus-act. Yet, despite this incredible disadvantage, they were clearly successful and had overpopulated the planet to the point of infestation. Drukk and the captain had shuddered as they’d read the ship’s findings.

The shuddering only grew worse when they reached the section headed, ‘Recommendations for Action’. Here the ship had written. Activate emergency infra-space beacon and remain cloaked until help arrives. Warning: Contact with the locals is not advisable and in all scenarios will result in the destruction of the crew and passengers. They had looked around at the smoking remains of the infra-space antenna and the wreckage of the cloaking control panel and had asked the ship for another option. It had pondered for several more minutes — scary enough in itself — before suggesting they all have a good night’s sleep and try not to worry about it.

So. Let’s go do it, shall we? said Drukk snapping out of his reverie. We need to act quickly. The humans may find us here at any moment.

No-one showed any sign of rushing off to have their bodies remodelled. In fact, they were all looking at Braxx, waiting for him to speak. Eventually he did.

We are all pebbles on Her beach, he intoned. Rolled and buffeted by the tides of life. Worn smooth by the years. Insignificant. Worthless. There was a general murmur of consent. We have but one thing that makes us special, one thing that separates us from the dross of the Universe and that is the love of the Great Spirit and the wisdom of Her teachings.

Isn’t that two things? Drukk thought, but he kept his beak shut. Apart from himself, all the other survivors were religious fanatics, part of a mission to a newly colonised world in this bleak sector. The Pebbles of the New Dawn was perhaps the most fanatical of all the Great Spirit’s sects and was zealous in its ceaseless efforts to convert the rough and lawless colonies of the New Vinggan Diaspora.

What would She want us to do? Braxx went on. "What can we do now that our mission has failed and our friends in the Space Corps (here he swivelled his eye-cluster to give Drukk a disdainful glance) can do nothing to save us? He slid closer to the group, clearly enjoying being in the limelight. For the past few hours I have been asking myself these questions and searching the Communion of Souls for guidance from the Great Spirit. He looked about, theatrically, and the crowd hung on his words. Even Drukk was pretty curious to hear what the old fraud would come up with. And the Great Spirit guided me and I have been inspired by Her, unworthy as I am even to speak Her name."

Oh get on with it, Drukk thought, finding it hard to keep his patience. The humans, the ship had said, possessed a simple but nevertheless adequately destructive technology and were horribly warlike.

Yes, inspired, I say! For this is the plan that She has revealed to me, the plan that was hidden until now and which is only possible through the divine intervention that brought us here. We have been brought to this planet so that we might convert the humans!

There was a gasp of shock from the faithful and a cry of What!? from Drukk but Braxx just smiled around the room. It will be Her greatest triumph! The first sub-Vinggan species ever to be brought into the fold. And we will be Her humble instruments.

There was a stunned silence as they all absorbed this. Drukk felt that a word at this juncture might not go amiss. Let me get this straight, he said. We’ve crash-landed on an uncharted planet. We have no means of escape or of contacting our people. We’ve lost most of the crew and our space-ship is a wreck. All our provisions are ruined. We’ve started a fire big enough to bring half the planet down on us to see what’s going on. Our computer — which, I should mention, was programmed by a bunch of war-crazed psychopaths, and therefore generally recommends annihilating the local sapients, regardless of the situation — is suggesting that we keep our heads down and hope it all goes away. Yet you want us to march out there and start preaching to seven billion godless monsters?

Braxx’s smile did not flicker for a moment. Drukk, you are a simple man. A man of action. A doer, not a thinker. Whereas I, the smile broadened, I am a theologian. Each day I grapple with the great imponderables of the Universe, seeking revelation through communion with the Great Spirit. Ask yourself, Drukk, why would Her High Beneficence strand us here on this mudball? Why would She take so many of Her truest believers and cast them out of the society of their fellows? Why would She lead us to a world where seven billion sapients have never heard Her glorious word? The eyes on his eye-cluster widened enquiringly. I think you know the answer, don’t you Drukk? I think we all know the answer.

His acolytes seemed to see the reason in this and were murmuring their agreement when Drukk burst out, But how? How in the name of the Spirit can you convert a whole planet of aliens? They won’t sit quietly and listen. They’ll blast us to atoms!

Ah Drukk, if we knew all the answers, we wouldn’t need the Great Spirit to guide us, would we? Of course, we can’t use the usual methods to achieve mass conversions — carpet bombing from space, mind-altering drugs in the water supplies, advertising campaigns — we sent most of our equipment ahead by freighter. So we’ll just have to do it some other way.

Like what?

I’ll think of something. Meanwhile, I think you’re right. We should all take on human form. To the metamorphosis booth everybody!

-oOo-

Now consider this. Even as the Vinggans are queuing up outside the metamorphosis booth, a slim, black starship is sliding out of real-space into infra-reality, far, far away along the Bellarno-Hengh Arm of the Galaxy, making a complete mess of Einstein’s tortuous legacy of messed-up simultaneity. For, although it was thousands of light-years closer to the Galactic Centre than Earth, it would be arriving here soon, very soon, thousands of years ahead of the light reflected from its sleek, black hull.

From one perspective, the ship was slicing forward through time and the fabric of space-time responded with intense causality shock waves which pummelled onlookers all along its flight-path with causality so intense that almost anything could cause anything. Even on Earth, far from the main shipping lanes, the effect can be observed when an accused spouse looks up at the uncleaned gutters and wails, It's all the dog's fault. Or when a train pulls into the station half-an-hour behind schedule and the announcer blames its lateness on leaves on the line.

From another perspective, the ship had merely slipped into a reality underlying our own in which distance hardly means anything, where entangled sub-atomic particles are still virtually right next to one another, and where a creature in a hurry, a creature with a mission, a creature with cold, steely eyes and a hide of black, armoured scales, could ignore General Relativity and really get its foot down.

Chapter 2: Sam

Albert Street in Brisbane is half coffee shops and half ‘outdoor lifestyle’ shops. As with other streets like this the world over, the coffee shops compete fiercely to look welcoming and relaxing, invading the pavement to such an extent that the casual passer-by is constantly falling over potted bay trees and colliding with fast-moving waitresses.

Thanks to the climate, Brisbanites can sit out on the pavement night and day, all year round, chattering about the new coffee shop they tried last week, or the great outdoor lifestyle gear they bought that day. Sometimes, you’ll see a couple of business types among the chatterers, iPad and brochures cluttering the little round table between them, as one tries to sell something to the other. Far less often would you see a well-dressed young woman scowling at a dishevelled young man, saying things like, Well? Can you get me in or not? and No, I’m not going to pay you, you greedy little shit! Yet that was the scene that day.

The young woman was Samantha Zammit, Sam to her friends, but well-known to readers of the local daily’s weekend magazine as ZamZam, the writer of a moderately popular outdoor lifestyle column. At 21, when she got the job, Sam had thought that she’d really made the big-time. Now, at 24, she was beginning to realise that there were further heights of journalistic accomplishment still to be scaled. In addition, after three years of writing about what you could do on foot, on two, three, four, or eight wheels (with or without engines), on things that flew or floated (with or without engines), or on one or two short, or long planks (on snow, water, or on wheels — with or without engines) she was beginning to feel a terrible desperation creeping over her.

Salvation, she thought, would be to move into real journalism. She wanted to be a reporter, an investigative reporter. That’s what she should have been doing all these wasted years. That was where she could make a real contribution instead of mindlessly feeding the popular urge to move your body around on planks, or wheels, with or without engines.

That was why she was sitting among the potted bay trees and wrought-iron menu stands in a street of skate-board and bicycle shops, trying to get some sense out of her idiot brother, Wayne.

Sam Zammit was a neat and pretty woman who affected severe business suits as befitted her perceived status as a rising young star in the media firmament. Her tiny shoulder bag held little besides a tape recorder, a notebook, and a smartphone. Like most rising young stars in today's competitive talent market, she worried about her 'personal brand equity', her social life had been replaced with 'networking', and her grasp of normal English — and on reality itself to some extent — had been seriously eroded by the increasingly bizarre business jargon that everyone around her spoke. As a front-line, customer-facing contributor, she shared her team's commitment to creating shareholder value and to personal growth targets and was ready to eat her babies if that's what the market demanded.

Wayne, on the other hand, was another kind of animal. Slumped in his chair in baggy shorts, baseball cap and an old T-shirt bearing the faded slogan Who needs educashun?, Wayne was the black sheep of his industrious, social-climbing, second-generation, Hungarian-immigrant family. Inheritor of a prodigious musical talent that had gone unused in his family for generations, he’d decided that he was going to be the first of his line to yield to his sensitive nature and to live for his art. So, after many, bitter rows with his father — a solid, middle-manager in the Department of Transport — Wayne had gone to University to study music and then, after many dismal interviews with his Head of Department, had dropped out, to show them all.

His father, in a desperate final attempt to save his son, had found Wayne a job with a jeweller friend of his. Wayne had shown a rare talent for the work and, at first, his father received glowing reports of his son’s skills as a jeweller but, in the end, the novelty wore off for Wayne. After that, even his father’s friend couldn’t put up with Wayne’s persistent lack of enthusiasm and had asked him to leave. Since then, Wayne had struggled on the edge of starvation, stubbornly refusing handouts from his distressed but slightly smug family.

Wayne looked down at his ‘energy drink’, a fizzy concoction of sugar, caffeine and artificial flavours that the ads said would boost his mental focus and make him feel great. He thought maybe he should have another one, since it didn’t seem to be working. He’d never been really comfortable with this whole younger brother thing, especially since his sister was this, like, really successful corporate media type and he was, like, you know, into other, more meaningful things. Sam had always been the brains in the family and it was, like, ironic that she’d turned into such a soulless cow, ’cause, he had to admit, she’d always sort of looked after him when they were young. Anyway, what did she think he could do? He wasn’t, like, James Bond or something. He couldn’t just infiltrate secret organisations and then ski off down the slope, machine gunning them over his shoulder or something.

Are you listening to me, Wayne? Or are you off with the fairies again?

Wayne roused himself with a surly What?

Sam looked at her brother with a sudden, irrational affection. How old are you, Wayne?

You know how old I am.

You’re 21. You’re a university drop-out with no job and no prospects.

Wayne bristled. I’ve got a job.

No. You’ve got a couple of gigs in pubs. That’s not a job. She’d been to see him once, playing his guitar so sweetly on a tiny little stage while half-drunken louts shouted and laughed and ignored him.

Wayne sulked. I’m building up a following. It takes time.

I worry about you. You need a regular income.

Look, has this got anything to do with the Receivers? Just a moment ago, he’d decided that the whole idea of helping Sam get a story on the Receivers of Cosmic Bounty had been a really bad idea but, if the alternative was having her lecture him about his job prospects, he’d rather get back to the subject. In fact, he’d rather have his head boiled.

Sam saw the shutters come down and pursed her lips. OK. You said you have a friend on the inside. You said that someone was trying to recruit you. All I want is for you to take me to see them and introduce me. I’ll do the rest.

Well, it’s not a friend exactly. It’s just, like, a bloke I met in the pub.

But he is one of these Recipients of Lots of Whatever it is?

Receivers of Cosmic Bounty.

And he did try to recruit you?

He said I should come to one of their prayer meetings or something.

And you can get in touch with him again?

He’s in O’Shaunessey’s sometimes.

And he said they’ve got weapons?

Sort of.

Pardon?

Well, he said that no-one better try and stop them leaving and went like... He mimed firing a gun.

Jesus! Sam whispered. She could see the headline; Outback Cult Declares War! This was front-page stuff in a city where Wallaby Singed in Brisbane Fire could push a Middle-Eastern war onto page five. Better still, she could see the by-line, from our investigative reporter Samantha Zammit. Sam just had to get in there and find out what was going on. Her whole future depended on it.

It’s just so hard to believe, she said, almost to herself. A real, loony religious cult, right here in Queensland.

Wayne squirmed. I don’t know if they’re all that loony. The bloke I know seems OK.

Sam smiled blissfully. Of course they’re loony. They’re probably holding mass weddings and kidnapping teenagers and all those wonderful things. I bet we’ll find an arsenal big enough to start a war and five-year-old kids with glazed eyes carrying automatic weapons. I’ve got to get an interview with the cult leader. He probably believes God speaks to him through a radio planted in his nasal cavity by his dentist and that the Australian Labor Party is part of a plot masterminded by the CIA to bring down the world economy so that the Antichrist can take over and start Armageddon.

Wayne shook his head, sadly. Clearly the only loony around here was sitting opposite him with a mad gleam in her eyes but he wasn’t going to argue. He’d learnt many years ago just to let Sam have her way.

We’ll meet in O’Shaunessey’s tonight, Sam went on. God, I can hardly wait! Do you think he’ll be there? Your contact? We’ve got to get in there before some other journalist gets wind of it.

Tonight? Wayne whined. I was supposed to -

What? Don’t tell me you can’t fit this into your busy social schedule? O’Shaunessey’s, tonight, seven thirty. No, no, six thirty. Do they do food? We don’t want to risk missing him.

Wayne whined again, Sam... He’d have to go ’round and see Doug and Nick and tell them he couldn’t make the gig. They weren’t going to like it.

Chapter 3: Metamorphosis

The transformation process was not going well. Drukk and Braxx had found how to make the ship search the planet’s primitive ‘Internet’ for pictures of humans so they could pick one. On Vingg, there were many different body forms and infinite variety within forms. For humans, it was clearly different. After an hour of searching, Braxx threw up his lateral tentacle in exasperation.

It’s incredible! They all look exactly the same! What are we wasting our time for? Just pick one at random.

Drukk peered into the screen. Braxx seemed to be right. They had looked at hundreds, possibly thousands of pictures of these hideous creatures and he still couldn’t tell one from another. The humans obviously could though, since each one seemed to have a name and there were even several categories — such as, celebrities, hot teens, lesbians and babes.

Maybe it doesn’t matter? he said. The ones we have seen all seem to be highly revered. If we just pick one of the most frequently-occurring forms, we will almost certainly have selected a high-status type.

Then do it, snapped Braxx. If I have to look at one more picture I will shed my dermis!

Should I pick a different form for each of us? Or just one form for all?

Braxx was past caring. Can it possibly matter? Just do what you suggested. Tell the ship to pick the most common form and we’ll use that.

So Drukk left it to the ship and, one by one, they filed into the metamorphosis booth and, one by one, they came out again, each and every one of them looking like Loosi Beecham. (Joss, of course, looked like a pregnant Loosi Beecham, the booth having moved her bud into her abdominal cavity so that it would mimic the analogous human gestatative condition.) All fourteen of them stood around, naked, examining their strange new bodies and poking tentatively at bits of themselves and their companions.

Oh, this is absolutely awful! one of them cried. I look disgusting. I feel disgusting. These humans are monsters. The kind of thing our progenitors used to scare us with when we were budlets.

That’s enough of that! One of the Loosi Beechams strode forward, scowling. The Great Spirit requires this sacrifice of us. We must accept this… this… degrading condition in the knowledge that we do Her will.

Yeah, well you accept it if you like. Personally, I would rather look like a Karbassian swamp dog than like this!

There was a general murmur of assent from the other Loosies. Enough, I say! shouted the scowling one.

Oh shut up, said the first.

How dare you? Do you know who you’re talking to?

No.

The scowler, momentarily taken aback, blinked in confusion. Er, right. Hmm. Well, I’m Braxx, that’s who. Corpuscular Manifestation, third class, of the Great Spirit. So just watch it!

This is ridiculous, complained another of the Loosies. How are we ever going to know who’s who?

Apart from me, of course, said Joss.

And me, said her bud, although it was so muffled only a few of the nearest Loosies heard it.

Braxx looked around him in mounting irritation. Drukk! Which one of you is Drukk?

I am, came a voice from the crowd.

Well, in the Spirit’s name, Drukk, go and stand over there so I know which one you are. A Loosi detached herself and walked over to the other side of the room. Now, Drukk. How are we going to distinguish each other in these ridiculous bodies?

Drukk made the I-haven’t-got-a-clue gesture. Normally, this would have included the knotting of at least three tentacles but, in configuring the metamorphosis booth, the ship had included a large number of gestural translation rules derived from a quick analysis of the human’s television output of the last several hours on all channels. The result was that, instead of knotting his tentacles, Drukk shrugged his pretty little shoulders. I don’t know, he said. How should I know? I’m not an expert on human physiology. I’m just a Space Corps Operative, sixth class. The only xenobiology they ever taught me was where to aim your blaster in order to kill or maim the five most common space pests.

Then what’s the metamorphosis booth for? Braxx demanded. Surely it was intended for uses such as this and surely you were given some kind of training.

Actually, I’ve often wondered what it was for. There’s loads of stuff on a ship like this that they just never bother telling us about.

I’ve got an idea, said the ship.

There’s another example, Drukk said. I never knew these ships could speak. I’ve been in the Corps for years and everyone’s always used the splashboards.

Yeah, it’s like that in the Ministry, said one of the Loosies. Everything’s always ‘need to know’—and guess who doesn’t need to know absolutely anything?

Enough! Ship! Tell me your idea.

I’m afraid I can only accept orders from a ranking Space Corps Operative.

Braxx’s beautiful blue eyes flashed in fury. Why you soulless pile of nanocircuits! I could have you dismantled and recycled for trendy jewellery!

Drukk hurried forward. Braxx, I think you’d better let me handle the ship. They can get a bit temperamental around civilians. Braxx bridled but controlled himself, backing off with a small bow and a taut smile. Drukk breathed a deep sigh. He’d never seen it but he’d heard spacers’ tales of ships getting so annoyed with meddling passengers that they’d shut down the life support, or opened all the hatches while still in deep space, just to get some peace. OK ship, he said, nervously. This is Drukk.

You don’t look like Drukk.

Pardon.

You don’t look like Drukk. You look like some kind of alien monster.

Ship? Are you feeling all right?

Fine thank you. I’m having a bit of trouble with some of my neural processor units but I feel just great.

Drukk looked around at the other Loosies and saw that most of them had gone a somewhat paler colour. Like him, they all seemed to be considering their chances of making it to the exits before the ship did something they would all regret.

Er, good. That’s, er, really good, Drukk went on. You, er, said you had an idea.

Did I?

Yes. We were talking about how we all look alike now that we’ve been through your metamorphosis booth and you said that you had an idea. Do you remember?

Nope.

Just smash the stupid thing and have done with it! growled one of the Loosies that Drukk had to assume was Braxx. A small aperture opened in one of the walls and the needle-like muzzle of a disintegrator ray slid out.

No, no! Drukk stammered, his barking, human voice, rising with anxiety. We wouldn’t want to do that to such a fine and intelligent machine would we? He waved his hands at Braxx and pointed to the disintegrator.

Don’t see why not, Braxx grumbled, ignoring him. The stupid machine is obviously only fit for scrap. The disintegrator swung around, targeting Braxx.

Drukk, waved frantically, pointing at the gun and miming the cleric’s imminent fate. No, I don’t think we want to upset this nice, clever machine, that controls all the ship’s arsenal and the life support and the escape hatches, do we?

Braxx still didn’t get it. If you ask me we should just blast it to… And then he disappeared under a pile of naked Loosi Beechams as his followers dragged him to the ground and held his mouth shut.

Drukk breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Thank you, he said, perhaps to the Great Spirit, and turned back to the ship’s main console. So, ship, he said casually, if you just happened to have the problem that we all have, of not knowing one of ourselves from another, what would you do?

I think I’d do what the humans do.

And what’s that?

I don’t know. I’ve only just got here.

Drukk was beginning to feel that Braxx probably had the right idea about smashing this thing up after all. But, looking at all those thousands of pictures, and using your incredible analytical powers, could you not perhaps form some kind of hypothesis about how the humans do it?

The ship was silent for a second or two. Hmm, it said. I’ve just looked at them all again and I think the answer must be to wear clothes.

Clothes? What’s that?

The ship threw up an image of a naked Loosi Beecham, rotating it slowly. This is the human’s natural state. Yet this is how they frequently appear. The image changed to show the creature’s skin changing colour and texture and hanging in folds. I thought at first that they were undergoing physical changes in their exodermic layers but now I’m fairly sure that they are covering their bodies in pieces of woven fabric and sometimes skins removed from other species. They call it clothing.

There were several cries of Yeuk! and similar expressions of disgust. But why would they do that? Drukk demanded.

That’s what I thought. They obviously don’t do it to insulate their bodies or to protect themselves from the environment. It would be inconceivable that a species would have evolved that cannot live comfortably on its home planet without protection. So it has to be for some other reason. My guess is that they use clothing to identify one another. This would account for the otherwise inexplicable variety of styles, textures and colours.

It seemed odd in the extreme but, as the old Corps saying went, There’s nowt so queer as aliens.

But we don’t have any of this ‘clothing’, Drukk said. Where can we get some?

In an instant, the Loosi image disappeared and was replaced with a picture of a large building. This, said the ship, is what the humans call a ‘department store’. You will find there are twenty-nine of them within three hundred kilometres of this site.

-oOo-

Wayne went early to O’Shaunessey’s. In fact, he went straight there from meeting Sam. He’d had three pints of Guinness and a cheese sandwich before he started to feel better.

His life was not really what he’d expected. As a child, he’d been totally oblivious to most of what went on around him. His parents’ coaching in the various social skills had washed over him with barely a trace. His expensive, private schooling had made hardly a dent in his blissful ignorance. Yet he had not had a happy life. His natural intelligence and sensitivity had made him a target for every bullying jock in the school—including the ones that taught there—and his family treated him like an alien being. He had a couple of friends but even Wayne could see that they were sad and dysfunctional types. The three of them clung to each other like men overboard, clinging to deckchairs in a big, cold ocean.

His only solace had been his music. He learned the piano before he learned to write and played the violin in the school orchestra with a skill his teachers seized on in their determination to find something with which he could help the school win prizes. But his true love was the guitar. His father didn’t understand at first—the guitar was a perfectly acceptable classical instrument—but one day he came home from work early to find Wayne playing along to some old Eric Clapton recordings and he knew that all hope was lost, that his only son was a hopeless waster and would never amount to anything. At least I still have Sam, he raged at his totally bemused son. At least one of my children is going to amount to something.

It’s only the blues Dad.

The blues, is it? Let me tell you about the blues, young man. The blues is raising an idiot son who will never find a job. The blues is being a tired old man who can’t even depend on his only son to look after him in his dotage. You want that your mother and me should spend our final years in poverty and die in a public hospital?

Wayne sucked morosely at his fourth Guinness. His father had a way of being extra Hungarian when he was upset. Of course, he’d been more-or-less right about his son. Wayne had dropped out of just about everything so far and his prospects were pretty slim. Look at him! Drinking away the last of his dole money instead of… of… well, something more constructive, he supposed. Still, things would be OK after tonight. Damn, no, not tonight. He had to tell Doug and Nick that the gig was off. Jesus! They’d kill him. He had to admit, he was just a bit scared of those two. They’d always been nice enough to him but he could see that, under the surface, they didn’t really like him. They just wanted him for his skills. Still, that was OK, wasn’t it. He needed them too, and, together, they might all make the big-time, get seriously rich.

He noticed that his glass was empty again. How had that happened? Sam had better hurry up and arrive or he’d run out of money before she got there. He went to the bar and got a refill, returning to his quiet corner to brood over it. Maybe they didn’t have to cancel the gig after all. Wayne just had to introduce Sam to Jadie and then he could clear off, go ’round to Doug’s place, and everything would be sweet. He might not even be late if Jadie turned up early. He wished for the thousandth time he hadn’t agreed to do this but, when it came down to it, he had to admit, he was far more scared of Sam than he was of Doug and Nick.

Chapter 4: First Contact

It was a shock to discover that they had no sub-orbital transports of any kind still functional after the crash. The Vinggans stood in a dismal group in Vehicle Bay 3 and stared at the tangled wreckage all around them.

There seem to be plenty of bits and pieces lying about, said Braxx, trying to rally his spirits. And that flyer over there seems hardly damaged at all. Perhaps you could fix it up, Drukk? Get it flying?

Drukk snorted. Yeah, right! he said.

Fourteen pairs of long-lashed, blue eyes turned to look at him.

What? he asked, defensively. It’s no good looking at me. I’m just a grunt spacer. I don’t have any more idea how a flyer works than you do!

Unbelievable! declared Braxx. Despite his show of irritation, he was actually quite upset. The Propaganda Shows back home had always portrayed Space Corps officers as infinitely capable, multi-talented heroes who were just as happy reprogramming a damaged android as they were locking tentacles with evil space monsters. Now it seemed that the Government might not have been telling the whole truth. For a moment the room seemed to reel then he pulled himself together. The computer can tell us how to fix things, he said.

Drukk held up his hands in alarm. No. I don’t think we should get the ship involved. It’s getting more and more erratic and there’s no telling what it might do.

Nonsense! We Vinggans are the finest engineers in the Galaxy. There is no way our ship would let us down in this time of crisis. He glowered at Drukk, daring him to disagree. With a shake of his head, Drukk backed down. Ship! Braxx shouted. Ship. Can you hear me?

I’m not deaf, the ship said.

"Good. I