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limbs
and dragged him back. “Do you really think we should just come out
with it like that?” he hissed.
    “Nonsense!” snapped Braxx, pulling
himself free. “How can we bring religion to these savages if we
don’t explain our mission? Anyway,” he smiled, “there are fourteen
of us and just one of them.” He turned back to the human, still
smiling. “As I said, peaceful, religious people.”
    Dave smiled back. "Religious, eh?
That’s a bit of a worry. Still, glad to meet you, darl." He put out
his hand and stepped forward.
    Braxx and the others shied back in
alarm. "Come no closer or you will be destroyed."
    Dave tilted back his hat and
grinned. "Destroyed? You ladies gonna poke me to death with your
little sticks? Only joking love. But I've got to tell you, I reckon
you girls don't look like any nuns I've ever seen!"
    Braxx, already contemptuous of the
ugly alien, was at a loss to understand what it was saying to them,
even though the translation field rendered every word into Vinggan.
"This is hopeless!” he complained. “Let's just blast this one and
go and find one a bit less... stupid."
    Instantly, Dave saw red. He'd been
insulted enough for one night. "Hey! Who are you calling stupid?
Just 'cos you're a girl, and a film star, or a clone of a film
star, or something, you've got no reason to be so up yourself,
standing there naked in the middle of the night, I could have run
you over thinking you were a mob of roos, not that I object to you
girls being naked and such, I mean, I'm a red-blooded male and all
and, ladies, you really are something! Not that that gives you the
right to go blocking the road and insulting a bloke who's just
trying to be straight up and do the right thing..."
    "I think you're right, Braxx" Drukk
sighed. "This one is useless. Nevertheless..."
    Too late. A blaze of light lit up
the bush as thirteen weapons discharged at Dave. The man's eyes
barely had time to widen before he was blasted to atoms.
    “... Nevertheless,” Drukk went on,
doggedly. “We should keep it alive so it can show us how to operate
its vehicle.”
    “Oh, I’m sure you’ll work it out,”
said Braxx, striding past the smoking remains towards the ute.
    Dave's ute was a sturdy but ageing
Holden, with manual gears, dodgy electrics and a dirty orange,
portable concrete mixer in the back. The Vinggans swarmed all over
it, trying to establish its mode of operation. Fortunately, Dave
had left the engine running, or they may never have got it started.
Yet, by trial and error over the next hour, they had learned enough
that Drukk, their designated driver, could make it go forwards in
first gear and stop it with the foot-brake and clutch without
making the engine stall every time. Grasping the steering wheel
with a grip powered by sheer terror, Drukk found he could even
steer the crazily bucking contraption along the winding darkness of
the dirt road.
    "OK," he said to Braxx at last.
"Get everyone into the back. Hide them under that sheet of woven
material we found. There is no sense in taking chances."
    "Shall we throw out the strange
orange machine?" They had discussed the concrete mixer at length
but could not begin to guess at its purpose.
    Drukk shrugged. "Better leave it.
It may be essential in some way. I want you to stay in the control
room with me, Braxx," he indicated the truck's cabin, "to
navigate—and in case I need help."
    "Navigate? But I..."
    "Don't worry," said Drukk, handing
him the direction finder. "You'll soon get the hang of it." Then,
as an afterthought, "You'd probably best not adjust the
azimuth."
     
     

Chapter 5: O’Shaunessey’s
     
    Prayer was OK. Jadie liked prayer.
It was restful, soothing, and, if you weren’t really into it at
that moment, no-one could really tell whether you were doing it or
not. He’d been in quite a few different religions over the past few
years and prayer was probably the bit he liked most about all of
them. So it was a shame that the Receivers of Cosmic