Page 46 - Effable Encounters

Cargo Blues
(Fantastic Transactions 3, 2006)

“Mr. Plummer: do you read Mead? Or Herskovitz?
Malinowski? No, I thought not. Then how can you tell me what
might or might not be worth trekking past the Ramu River to find?
Don’t tell me it’s because I’m a woman—I have been up the Orinoco
without a paddle, lost for weeks beyond the source of the Nyanga.”
Phlegmatic asthmatic old Oswald Plummer, District Officer of the
Southern Madang District, sat erect at his desk, as starched as the
crease in his shorts.
“Madame,” he began.
“Miss.”
“Yes, of course, Miss Honeywell. Your travel documents are in
order, to be sure. I know the Trust Territory office would not have
given you passage this far without establishing your bona fides. And
your academic credentials are beyond reproach. But you must admit
that I am in a far better position to judge local conditions.”
Samaria Honeywell ceased pacing in front of him, a caged tiger
casting baleful glances at prey tantalizingly close. Her agitation and
circulation generated almost as much air movement as the rusty
ceiling fan above them, Plummer noted.
She pounced.
“Aha! Then you have heard something about a new cargo cult.
Word reached me in Canberra, three weeks ago, by way of a
missionary. I was lecturing at the Australian National University. I
dropped everything and moved heaven and earth to get up here
before the government suppresses the belief and ruins a golden
opportunity for anthropological research. It has been more than a
decade since the last movement died out. I’m no spring chicken, and
I intend to be the first to study this one before it’s gone, too.”
The D.O. stroked his jowls.
“I don’t know what distorted information you may have received,
Miss Honeywell. We have our own bush telegraph out here. I sent
out a Patrol Officer to the area you named, because a trader reported
some sort of unrest among an isolated tribe he did not himself visit—

45