The Garbage Chronicles (15 page)

Javik’s mouth was filling with saliva. The fluid gushed in, anticipating his first bite. He wanted that meat. He needed it. He lifted the succulent piece close to his lips, nearly touching them.

“Go ahead,” a familiar female voice said.

Looking to his left, Javik saw Evans smiling at him. In one hand she held a bone with shredded meat hanging from it. Dark red meat juice ran down her chin and over the front of her Wommo jumpsuit. She chewed and swallowed, smiling and staring at Javik all the while. Her smile fit the occasion. It was satanic and all-knowing, seeing every frailty Javik had. Evans did not need eyes. Her smile saw it .all.

“Eat,” she said.

Javik heard a
clunk
overhead. Glancing up, he saw a cluster of Corkers looking down at him from the level above. “I’m like a zoo animal,” he said.

“Don’t be silly,” Evans said. She nibbled at the bone.

Javik gagged. Looking down at the meat in his hand, his eyes widened at the realization of what he had almost done. He hurled the meat to the floor. “You think you know me, Evans?” he said, confronting her. “You filthy transsexual!”

Mannos scrambled on the floor to recover Javik’s meat. Someone scolded him for wasting food. But he scarcely heard the words.

Evans’s eyes narrowed to slits. The smile disappeared. “That was in my dossier?” she asked. “I had hoped they might leave it—”

“Get away from me!” Javik said.

Her all-knowing smile returned. “I know what you want,” she said. “Let me demonstrate a fornication room for you.” She nodded in the direction of the red doors.

“Shove off! Do you hear me, Evans? Shove off!” He felt his glands trying to convince him to accompany her. He seemed to be battling the inevitable. He craved Evans. He wanted to throw her down right there and enjoy her. His body screamed for her.

“No!”
a voice thundered inside his skull.
“Not a transsexual!”

“But who would know?”
another interior voice asked.

“Give in,” Evans said. Her voice seemed to come from Javik’s own brain.

“Give in”
another voice in his head whispered.

Javik steeled himself against the onslaught. “I’m not religious,” he said, staring at meat juice drippings on one of his boots. His words were measured. “Never have been. But this seems . . . so evil to me.”

Evans moved close to him. She pressed her short, buxom body against his. Her breasts were soft and inviting against his stomach.

He took a deep breath and moved away from her, bumping into a Manno behind him. “You fit this garbage dump real well,” he told her.

Her facial muscles slackened. Javik saw fear in her eyes.

“You’re warped!” Javik screeched. “Everything here is warped! A cracked reflection of Earth!”

She laughed derisively. But it was a forced laugh.

Those Corkers are getting a good show,
he thought.
Wait’ll I start busting faces.

“Hey, Manno!” a partyer shouted from the other side of the table. “Take it easy, teammate. We’re here to have a good time.”

Javik wished he had lost on the track that day. It might have been easier that way.

“Give in,” Evans said. The smile was gone now, and she looked confused. Her gaze moved around nervously. Beads of perspiration clung to her forehead.

His body screamed for satisfaction. But now the scream met the high wall of Javik’s innermost determination, his last line of defense. It had to hold and did. He felt the craving for Evans subsiding. Now. he went to the attack and smiled, enjoying the look of hurt it caused on Evans’s face.

“You got the kill today,” she said. “The
only
Manno kill . . . ” She was struggling to keep him in line. Her demonic smile returned for a moment.

He felt the corners of his mouth sag.

The hated smile took over her face again. It was a battle of words and expressions, with each side searching for the winning combination.

Another Earth game,
he thought.

“You might as well enjoy yourself,” she said. “While you can.”

He wanted to knock that smile off her face. He wanted to see her dead. He wanted to throw her down and enjoy her. His glands screamed. He licked his lips.

“You can have some of our meat,” she said, extending the bone to him. “We have plenty.”

“I don’t . . . ” he said. He felt a torrent of angry words inside. He just shook his head.

She withdrew the meat. “We Wommos are good,” she said, setting her jaw. “Better than Mannos. I’m glad I changed sexes!”

Javik’s glare of hatred met a like glare from Evans. In that instant, he knew Evans would try to kill him if she went up against him on the track. She was no longer Co-Pilot Marta Evans. She was someone—or
something
—else. It scared him. It scared the living hell out of him.

She chewed at her upper lip while watching his every move.

Javik thought she was sizing him up for a fight. He had been in enough brawls to know the signs.

“Maybe I’ll see you around,” she said stiffly. She turned and walked away. Javik knew what “around” meant. It meant tomorrow, on the fighter car track.

He thought he heard the anger of more than one woman in her words. He was not even certain he heard anger. It was more a threatening undertone which made him realize what a remarkable source of competition the Corkers had tapped for their deadly games.

He watched Evans push her way through the crowd, moving into her netherworld, a place reserved for the unholiest of beings. Taking a drunken Manno by the arm, she pulled him toward the bank of fornication rooms. Overhead, Corkers scrambled to follow her.

I’m getting’ out of this zoo,
Javik thought.
I’m gonna die as far away from here as possible. Someplace they can’t use me.

He battered his way through the drunken throng, feeling himself being drawn away by a welcome burst of inner morality. But he knew even that reservoir of strength would be short-lived without food. He told himself nothing would get in his way, and scarcely heard the Corkers overhead who scrambled to follow him.

At the Wommo banquet table, an ecstatic Wommo popped the eyeball out of a humanoid toastie. Tossing the eye high in the air, she caught it in her mouth. The Wommos cheered as she gulped.

Misshapen faces appeared and receded, gawking, smiling, and leering at him drunkenly. He called upon his last vestiges of pride to keep moving him forward.

“I’ve tasted Manno and I’ve tasted Wommo,” a shrill-voiced Wommo said, singsonging the words. “The Wommo is sweeter, not nearly so chew-y.”

Javik cursed softly, stumbling as he approached a bead curtain doorway. He readied himself for guards on the other side.
Lightning strokes,
he thought.
Short and fierce. Ten of those purple pudgies couldn’t take me down.

The bead curtain came into focus, swaying gently. The beads knocked together with a dull, hollow sound. Javik took a deep breath.

Suddenly, three Corker guards spread the curtain, filling the doorway with their bodies. They pointed metal lances at Javik, but his trained eye saw the tips waver. And he noticed the drunken, rolling gaze of the big Corker in the middle. This one swayed way back. He had corporal stripes on his sleeves.

“Return to the party!” the corpulent corporal commanded. His voice was loose and throaty. He coughed and spit purple, bubbly phlegm on the floor.

Javik felt the blood drain from his face.
I’ll kill these
. . . he thought. In the midst of the thought, Javik ducked under the corporal’s lance and kicked him hard against the soft underside of his belly. The Corker grunted, tumbling over on his alcohol backpack with his lance pointed straight up in the air.

Seizing the vertical lance before the other guards could attack, Javik ran outside. A cool night breeze washed through his hair. The sting of a lance pricked the calf of his left leg. Jumping to one side, Javik swung back with his own weapon, knocking the guard’s lance away.

The guard quick-footed backward, stopping when his alcohol backpack bumped the building.

“How about you?” Javik barked, lunging at the third guard.

This guard must have had more than the minimum issue of sense, for he dropped his lance and ran into the night as fast as his six stubby legs could carry him.

The big Corker corporal fought his way to his feet, with help from the other remaining guard. “Have you gone mad, Earthian?” the corporal asked. “Go back inside.”

A droplet of rain hit Javik’s cheek as he surveyed the area. He felt the night wind pick up. He was on the opposite end of the Orgy Building from the entrance he had taken. The building was one of three similar buildings fronting a dimly lit dirt carriage road. Across the road was a thick, dark section of piney woods.

“Did you hear me, Earthian?”

Javik’s consciousness focused on the inverted bowl of stars over his head. He longed for his ship. Maybe he could clear the thruster tubes and fly it to a safe place on Cork for further repairs.

Excited voices snapped him to awareness. “Over there!” a guard yelled. Javik saw two squads of Corker guards running toward him, one from each end of the road. They moved drunkenly, throwing yellow light on the ground with the lanterns they carried.

In the shadows of Prince Pineapple’s apartment, Wizzy told of being dropped to Earth by his Papa Sidney. He described the subsequent adventures with Captain Tom Javik as well, and commented on their dislike for one another. Resting on a white coffee table doily, Wizzy tilted his cat’s eye toward Prince Pineapple and said, “I wish I could be somewhere of my own choosing . . . streaking across the galaxy like Papa. I do not belong here.”

Prince Pineapple leaned forward on the couch, resting his elbows on his lap and cradling his chin on his hands. This placed half of his face in the slice of light coming in from the bedroom. The wind howled outside. “Nor do I,” he said. “I too am forced to do objectionable things.”

“You have a papa?”

“There is but one papa on this planet: Lord Abercrombie. He leaves us virtually no free will. From ripening, we are trained to relegate even the simplest matters to Decision Coins.” His voice grew bitter. “Our lives are but a series of coin tosses. I see no sense in it.”

“Nice pun,” Wizzy said.

Deep in his problem, Prince Pineapple was all seriousness. “As I told you,” he said, “I have brains.”

“I can see that,” Wizzy said, wondering if pun recognition might constitute a valid intelligence test.

“We are told not to get too upset. Or we might burst a juice vessel. I’m angry enough now to let one blow wide open.” The prince’s face glowed crimson. He felt his juice pressure rising.

“Don’t be silly,” Wizzy said.

“I want to learn so many things,” Prince Pineapple lamented.

“And I, too,” Wizzy said. He rose half a meter above the doily, giving off a faint hum as he held position. “Is there no solution to your problem?”

“If only I had the Sacred Scroll,” Prince Pineapple said. He worried for a moment, wondering if he should have revealed this. Then he sighed deeply, and his face grew a paler shade of red. He felt his juice pressure dropping.

“And what is that?” Wizzy asked, unable to read the prince’s thoughts.

“Every magical planet has a Sacred Scroll. They were created thousands of years ago, describing the locations of all Dimensional Tunnels connecting the magical planets.” He sat back, resting his hands on his lap. “On Cork, the scroll is protected by a magician’s bubble at the center of Sacred Pond.”

“Dimensional Tunnels,” Wizzy said, glowing red as he searched his memory banks. “Also known as warples. Synthetic in nature. They crisscross the universe invisibly, permitting rapid travel between certain planets.”

Prince Pineapple lifted his eyebrows in astonishment.
A most peculiar device, this Wizzy.
Then: “I need Cork’s scroll,” he said. “Do you suppose you might help me?”

“I would like to help you. I could check in on Captain Tom afterward, I suppose.”

“Then row with me to the center of Sacred Pond. Help me pop the magician’s bubble.”

“That may not be so easy.”

“We must go tonight. Already the other advisers are whispering against me.”

“Do you know of anyone else who has tried to pop this bubble? Have
you
tried?”

“King Corker has blocked all attempts. He requires so much paperwork that no one has been able to obtain permission. I’m sure he wants the scroll for himself.”

“I see.” Wizzy settled back on the doily.

“Legend has it that the bubble can be popped only at night. And only with a dull instrument.”

“Do you think the king has tried?”

“Of course. He would like to replace Lord Abercrombie. But I say we don’t need a lord. Cork is a very ancient planet. According to legend, nutrients flowed from the soil before any lord appeared. That means they will continue to flow after the lord is gone.”

“You want to throw Abercrombie out?”

“Yes, and then seal the entrance to his chamber, preventing anyone from getting in again.”

Wizzy glowed red. “You might seal the chamber from the surface,” he said. “But you can never seal the other side, the Dimensional Tunnel side.”

“That is true. But at least I would accomplish Something.”

Wizzy flickered. “I’m losing my data base,” he said. “Do you know how to get in?”

“No,” Prince Pineapple looked away. A saying of unknown origin wafted across his consciousness:
“When you see what it is all about, there will be nothing left to do except to have a good laugh.”
The thought puzzled him.

“Why do you expect to succeed when the king has failed?”

“It is only a feeling I have. That I am chosen, I suppose. Undoubtedly this is a common enough thought. But I must try anyway.”

“And if you fail?”

“I will defect. This very night. Brother Carrot’s Vegetable Underground could learn much from me. I hear he treats some Fruits rather well. I know all about Corker defenses.”

“You have a boat to cross this pond?”

“Of course. Quite a sturdy little craft.”

“I just thought of something. It’s a rainy night. That’s not a good time to venture out.”