The Garbage Chronicles (23 page)

It was midday, with three synchronized Corkian suns blazing overhead. As Javik stood with his companions at the edge of Dusty Desert, he felt cool in his vari-temp coat. The coat fluttered in a light wind. Behind them loomed the wall of closely fitted granite stones that formed this far side of the bowl holding the desert.

“That rain was really something,” Rebo said. “Came right up out of the desert. Damndest thing I ever saw.”

“I’ve seen it before,” Prince Pineapple said. “It’s become rather commonplace on Cork.”

“We’ve seen it too,” Wizzy said, hovering nearby. “When our ship was approaching the planet.”

Brother Carrot waved from the deck of his desert schooner as it pulled away. “Good luck, my friends!” he yelled. Javik heard him say something after that, but the words were lost in the wind. The
Freedom One
picked up speed, cutting through rapidly moving clouds of surface grit.

“Nice fellow,” Namaba said.

Prince Pineapple searched the wall for a place to climb.

“I don’t think Fruits and Vegetables are so different,” Wizzy said, perching on a wall stone near Prince Pineapple. “Brother Carrot carried a folding shovel on his belt, just like yours. He had a barbed cord, too.”

“Pshaw!” Prince Pineapple said, finding a foothold to begin his ascent. “Fruits are superior. Everyone knows that. We grow on trees and high vines, while Vegetables grow next to the dirty ground.” He climbed partway up the wall.

Wizzy glowed red as he retrieved data from his internal storehouse.

Prince Pineapple neared the top of the wall. “There is no comparison,” he said. He lifted himself to the top of the wall and stood with his hands on his hips, looking down at the others with an air of superiority.

Wizzy flew up to hover in the prince’s face, “What about strawberries?” Wizzy asked. “They’re Fruit, and they grow along the ground.”

“A strawberry is
not
Fruit!” Prince Pineapple exclaimed. “What an odd notion!”

“Enough of this,” Javik said, climbing the wall by the same route Prince Pineapple had taken.

“You’re wrong, Prince!” Wizzy said. “Extremely wrong! And what about green beans? They grow on high vines, which would make them as good as any Fruit.”

“Preposterous!” Prince Pineapple thundered.

Reaching the top of the wall, Javik stepped between them. “Stop this!” he snapped. “Some of us do not have time to stand around arguing. Unlike his Royal Hind Ass here, my food source is not unlimited.”

Prince Pineapple scowled ferociously.

Wizzy added Javik’s expletive to his own stored arsenal.

Namaba and Rebo scaled the wall without help from Javik’s Tasnard rope. As Namaba reached the top, she gave Javik a scolding smile.

He looked away. “All right,” he said. “Let’s find the trail and get a move on.”

When they had descended the other side of the wall, Javik told Prince Pineapple to bring out the scroll.

“Idiots,” the prince muttered as he handed over the scroll he still could not see. “I am surrounded by idiots.”

Javik knelt on the ground, where he spread open the scroll. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to one side of the Dusty Desert.

To Prince Pineapple’s eyes, it looked as though Javik were pointing at the ground. “Draw me a map in the dirt,” the prince demanded, “so that I may see too.”

Hurriedly, Javik used a stick to scratch out a portion of the scroll map on the ground. “Here’s the Dusty Desert,” he explained as he drew. “And icy Valley. Just beyond that is a forest. We’ll camp there.”

“The valley must be behind us,” Prince Pineapple said, turning and pointing at a misty area between two snow-covered hills.

“Tomorrow we cross Bottomless Bog,” Javik said. “If these distances are correct.”

“Where’s that Moha shown?” the prince asked. “Something disturbingly familiar about that name.”

“Here,” Javik said, making a mark in the dirt.

Just then, a ferocious wind roared across their position, obliterating the dirt scratchings and nearly tearing the parchment from Javik’s grasp.

“Lord Abercrombie is angry,” Prince Pineapple said. “He will not let us pass without a fight.”

“You think he caused that wind?” Javik asked. “Naw. There’s no weather control here.”

“We will see,” Prince Pineapple said, groping for the scroll he could not see.

Javik released the scroll and watched the prince roll it carefully. Namaba tied it with the piece of leather cord. When the Sacred Scroll of Cork was safely secure beneath his coat, Prince Pineapple turned away from the wind, taking the path that led toward the misty valley.

Javik removed his vari-temp coat and stuffed it in the pack. He felt the warmth of three suns on the back of his neck as he followed the others. Javik imagined tiny solar nutrients entering his body, and tried to convince himself that his strength was returning. But this was a ruse. He knew he was declining, and had a frightening thought: What if the whole planet was against him?

Can such a thing be?
he wondered. Javik felt that forces were whipsawing him—doing with him whatever they wished.

He felt the suns cool, and looked back. Clouds were moving in from behind. Ahead, curls of fog were approaching, running out of the valley to greet them. A shiver ran down the back of his neck and through his shoulder blades. He stopped to put the coat back on.

When Javik caught up with the others, Rebo and Namaba were zipping up their heavy club jackets and pulling the collars around the lower parts of their long necks. Prince Pineapple stood to one side of the trail, apparently expecting Javik to assume the lead. Wizzy hovered nearby.

“You lead,” Javik said to the prince. “Then the Moravians.”

Prince Pineapple frowned and stomped ahead, negotiating a narrow, rocky path that sloped gently downward from the desert plateau. They passed a number of AmFed garbage cannisters here, and at Javik’s suggestion these were given a wide berth.

“Many are radioactive,” he told them.

Swirls of fine, light gray mist curled ahead of them like a graceful, supernatural life form that was beckoning to the travelers. What was in the valley beyond? “Come see for yourself,” the mist seemed to say.

From the rear, Wizzy saw Prince Pineapple disappear into the mist, followed by the others.

“The ground’s frozen,” Javik said, feeling his footsteps crunch. A dull, aching pain pulled at his belly.
Gotta find more food,
he thought, glancing at the folding shovel which rode on his hip. Gastric juices filled his mouth as he focused on the nutrient cord wrapped around the shovel handle. He swallowed.

“Something strange about this mist,” Wizzy said.

I agree with that,
Javik thought.
But there’s also something strange about Wizzy . . . and the others.
The recurring video-dome commercial flashed across his weary mind. He saw ten pineapple men dancing in a chorus line, then ten Wizzies, then ten three-legged Morovians.

“Can’t see two meters ahead,” Prince Pineapple said, walking very slowly. His foot slipped on a pebble, causing him to fall against a rock wall he had not noticed in the fog. He stumbled, trying to regain his footing.

“Watch it!” Rebo said, catching Prince Pineapple by the arm. “There’s a dropoff on your right.”

Prince Pineapple leaned against the wall, breathing deeply from the sudden fright. “Wonder how far down,” he said.

“Just be glad you can’t see it,” Javik said, catching up with the others.

The trail dropped steeply now. Soon the prince slipped again and came very close to going over the edge.

“I’ll lead,” Javik said. “And if any of you have any funny ideas about hitting me over the head, remember this: I have the nutrient kit, which may be our only hope for food. I’ll fall over the edge.. You can count on it. And in this fog, who knows if you’ll ever find me?”

“We get the message,” Namaba said.

Javik used his wardrobe ring to fit himself with a pair of brown ski gloves. Then he did the same for Prince Pineapple and the Morovians.

“You oughtta toss those jackets over the edge,” Javik said to Rebo and Namaba, seeing that they were shivering. “Let me fit you with something functional.”

“We’ll manage,” Rebo said.

“I’ll take you up on that,” Namaba said. She tossed her black club jacket over the edge of the cliff. Rebo glared at her.

Javik fitted her with a lemon yellow ski outfit. It surprised him more than a little to see the clothing follow her irregular form perfectly, giving her pants, a jacket, and a hooded top.

Resuming their course, Javik guided a gloved hand along the rock wall and probed ahead with one cautious step at a time, not committing the weight of his body until he was sure of his footing.

After an hour that seemed much longer, Javik felt run-down. Stopping on the narrow trail, he shared a bio bar and dried apple pieces with Rebo and Namaba. “Maybe we’ll find food after we get out of this valley,” Javik told them.

“He expects to find a restaurant out here,” Namaba said. “I think we’d better learn to hunt.”

“I haven’t seen that many wild animals around,” Rebo said.

“There are very few animals on Cork,” Prince Pineapple said. “This is explained in one of our legends, which says that—”

“Hang your legends!” Javik snapped.

“We’d better figure something out soon,” Namaba said, looking at Javik, “or that shovel on your hip will be used to bury us.”

Javik closed his pack and put his arms through the straps to pull it on his back.

A short distance down the trail, they dropped underneath the fog. Now, less than thirty meters below, they could see the snow-and ice-covered valley floor, stretching into the distance like a placid white lake.

“It’s clearing,” Javik said, glancing warily at the others. The trail became less rugged, dropping gradually. As Javik negotiated this section, he looked back often and remained well ahead of the others, fearful that he might catch a heavy rock on the back of the head.

Reaching the valley floor, Javik saw that the foggy mist formed a rather uniform ceiling all the way across the valley. The terrain was almost perfectly flat, permitting him to see a distant rock wall. It struck him as unusual that snow and ice would be on the valley floor but not on the trail they had just traversed.

When the balance of the party caught up, Javik scrutinized the scroll again. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to a spot on the parchment. “At the base of the cliff trail. Another trail should be somewhere over there.” He pointed across the valley to his right, approximately along the line of a nearby path formed by small animal tracks. Javik counted four sharp toes on each track. He wondered what sort of an animal it was, and if he had the nerve to kill one and eat it. Looking up, he saw Namaba staring at him.

Wizzy flew in the direction Javik had designated. “There’s a pretty good trail here,” he called out, hovering over a slight rise in the terrain.

When Javik and the others reached the trail, Javik found it to be a trough of ice, perhaps a meter below the level of the surrounding terrain. Fresh, powdery snow lay on the ground all around, but there was none in the trough. Here the brown earth was visible beneath a thin layer of ice. As Javik stepped down to the trail, he felt the ice crackle under his feet. He kicked at the ice, lifting a slab and exposing a section of ground.

“Can you explain this, Wizzy?” Prince Pineapple said, stepping into the trough next to Javik.

Wizzy glowed red, but came up with no answer. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s a mystery to me.”

Javik knelt, removing one glove. He dug in the soil with his bare hand. “Ground’s warm,” he said.

“Magicians have passed this way,” Prince Pineapple said.

The travelers set out single file on the trough trail, led by Wizzy and Prince Pineapple. “Kinda pretty here,” Wizzy said, tilting his yellow cat’s eye toward the prince.

Prince Pineapple did not respond.

“I said—”

“I heard you,” Prince Pineapple said curtly. “Just keep your distance.”

“You still sore at me?” Wizzy asked, hovering near the prince’s face.

Prince Pineapple pushed Wizzy out of the way and trudged past him.

“I’ll find a friend somewhere else,” Wizzy said.

“I’m hungry,” Namaba said, looking back at Javik.

“There isn’t much food left,” Javik said.

“We’ve got to eat,” she said. “It’s that or die.”

“I’m hungry too,” Javik said.

“Then let’s finish off what’s left,” Rebo said, loping along the trail and looking back at Javik.

“There’s two bio bars left,” Javik said. “And some dried apples. I’ll split it all up now. You can do what you want with yours.”

This was agreeable with the Moravians, so Javik stopped and opened his pack. The remaining food was divided. Then Javik wrapped his portion and returned it to the pack, while the Moravians gulped theirs.

“Don’t ask for any of mine,” Javik said.

Noticing some crumbs on the trail, Namaba fell to her knees and pressed her face against the ice. She scoured the trail with her tongue until all the stray crumbs had been retrieved.

Javik watched her intently as he pulled on his pack. Glancing up the trail, he saw Prince Pineapple and Wizzy waiting.

“Thank you,” Namaba said as she stood up.

Javik nodded. “Water anyone?” he asked. He held his mouth under the spigot of one of the water pods on Rebo’s back, filling his mouth. He shut off the spigot and straightened, holding some of the water in his mouth.

He swallowed slowly, watching the Moravians drink. Seeing Rebo take too much, Javik stopped him.

“But all the snow around,” Rebo said. “We could melt it and drink it.”

“Might be contaminated,” Javik said.

Rebo put his mouth to the spigot again, disregarding Javik’s instructions.

“Enough!” Javik barked, giving Rebo’s large head a stiff shove.

Rebo straightened and met Javik’s gaze. They stood two meters apart, with their gazes locked, portending mortal combat. Rebo was first to look away. Then he looked back at Javik, saying, “l could take you now, before you had a chance to pull that thunder piece near your hand.”

“I doubt it,” Javik said. The fingers of his gun hand twitched.