Read The Garbage Chronicles Online
Authors: Brian Herbert
Tags: #Humor & Entertainment, #Humor, #Satire, #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #science fiction, #Humor & Satire
“It’s been giving me trouble since we left the meadow. I get no indication now at all.”
“Back a ways, all I could think about was getting the hell out,” Javik said. “Now I’m not so sure I did the right thing.” He paused and looked back.
Just then a cacophany of angry voices rose from the rear. Javik saw something bright red on the cliff just above Prince Pineapple. A group of tubby little creatures stood on a ledge up there. They shouted in froglike voices and waved their arms angrily.
Strawberry people?
Javik thought
Prince Pineapple looked up. “Outcasts!” he yelled. He ran uptrail to get away from them. A thrown rock glanced off his back.
Javik and the others ran until they were out of range of the hurled missiles.
“They live in caves up there,” Prince Pineapple said, looking back. “I think we interrupted a sacred ceremony. That’s why the chanting stopped. They’re mutants that grow on the ground. His voice became a hiss as he added, “Like Vegetables.”
“I remember your argument with Wizzy,” Javik said. “But don’t melons grow on the ground too? I saw several in the royal court.”
“I’m not going to tell you a melon person is as good as any other Fruit,” Prince Pineapple said. “We’ve all heard of melon-heads. But a melon is much better than a strawberry.”
“How so?” Javik asked.
“It just is, that’s all.”
“I guess we’re not turning back,” Javik said, seeing strawberry people swing down to the trail on ropes. They gathered there, chattering excitedly in throaty, croaky voices that made them sound like a pond full of bullfrogs.
Prince Pineapple’s mouth curled downward in revulsion as he looked at them. “Mutants,” he snarled.
The strawberry horde moved closer. They took a few steps, chattered nervously, then took more steps. They appeared to be building up courage.
“Maybe we could block them off with a rockslide,” Rebo suggested, pointing up the wall. “Aim your thunder piece about there, Captain.”
“We may have to come back this way,” Javik said. He began to run uptrail. “Let’s go!” he said.
The quartet took short, quick steps, looking down constantly to keep from taking a misstep on the loose trail. Just centimeters to their left the sheer dropoff waited like a predator toying with its prey.
They didn’t have to look back to know the strawberry people were in pursuit. Angry grunts and the scuffling of many feet told them this. A small rock glanced off the back of Javik’s head. He heard Prince Pineapple and the others curse as they were pelted. Javik’s implanted mento unit throbbed.
Javik broke into a full run. His feet skipped over loose slabs of shale. Some pieces fell from the trail toward the ribbon of blue lake far below. The trail began to drop down steeply now, and it was all Javik could do to keep from tumbling forward head over heels.
They ran down, ever down, in daylight that was fast becoming dusk. Javik’s knees ached. Quick glances back told him the pursuers were slow, and he was relieved at this. The lake was far behind them now, and the trail widened. The sheer dropoff became more of a gradual incline across white granite.
With the strawberry people out of sight, Javik and his group were nearing the bottom. In shadows ahead, Javik saw the pass between the cliffs. Charred streaks along each side of the pass told a story only the planet knew. Layers of orange covered the sky.
They slowed to a walk, passing near a cluster of AmFed garbage cannisters. Prince Pineapple gave them a longing look, but did not ask to stop. One was split wide open, with government forms and pamphlets spread around. The other cannisters were basically intact, with only a few bright objects showing.
As they neared the pass, it became apparent that something on the ground was wedged between the cliffs. It was round and large, but somewhat difficult to see in the waning light.
“A big boulder?” Javik said, in a low voice.
“We’d better be careful,” Prince Pineapple said.
The excited voices of strawberry people behind them caused them to quicken their steps. Javik was just about to bolt when he glanced back and saw that the pursuers were stopped on the trail.
“Mo-ha!” they chanted. “Mo-ha!”
“I told you,” Prince Pineapple said, looking around nervously.
“Mo-ha . . . Mo-ha . . . Mo-ha . . . Mo-ha . . . Mo-ha . . . Mo-ha . . . Moha-Moha-Moha!” Faster and faster they chanted, sounding to Javik like the tape of an old-style train that Sidney Malloy had played for him once. It was one of the illegal things in Sidney’s safe.
“The Moha is here somewhere,” Prince Pineapple said. “The scroll said where the cliffs meet.”
Javik started when dozens of long tentacles popped out of the boulderlike mound. “That’s no rock,” he said.
The quartet approached carefully, with their small complement of weapons drawn. This amounted to no more than Javik’s automatic pistol and Rebo’s switchblade knife. Namaba and Prince Pineapple found heavy stones. The mound was less than fifty meters in front of them now, and in the dim light they saw eyes on the tip of each tentacle. The eyes had black pupils with white corneas. Each tentacle was poised, cobralike, and the eyes stared sullenly at Javik’s group.
“Why,” Namaba said, leaning forward to get a better look, “it’s a . . . a potato! A giant potato!”
“Yeccch!” Prince Pineapple exclaimed, feeling disgust. “A Vegetable mutant!”
“Is there any chance it might be friendly?” Rebo asked.
“Not this monster!” Prince Pineapple said. “If I remember my epic right, it destroyed an entire Fruit army.”
Rebo’s dark eyebrows furrowed. “But should we assume . . . ?”
“You
get close enough to find out,” Prince Pineapple said to Rebo. ‘Then we’ll know for sure.”
“I’m gonna do that,” Rebo said. He dropped his knife. Looking at one of the potato monster’s eyes, Rebo decided it was sad. Rebo felt honor-bound to protect Javik from the monster, and he still felt love for Namaba. But he also felt something else: an inexplicable desire to understand the creature.
“Wait,” Javik said, catching Rebo’s arm. “One of those tentacles could strangle you. The eyes don’t look friendly at all.”
“Maybe he’s just afraid,” Rebo said. “A protective posture. I’ve seen it many times in gang combat.” He looked at Namaba.
“My yenta is not working,” she said. “It’s been out since we passed through the magic barrier in the meadow.” She thought for a moment, then dropped her rock. “I’m going with you.”
“Don’t,” Javik said.
“I’m going,” she said simply. It was the female tone of determination Javik had heard from Earth women, the mindset that could not be resisted by mortal man.
Rebo and Namaba approached the Moha. They walked slowly. “Don’t show fear,” Rebo whispered. From the hill far behind them, Namaba heard the strawberry people’s chant: “Mo-ha! Mo-ha! Mo-ha!” With each step, Namaba’s steam engine heart raced faster, pumping air and water through her system. She felt pressure building. Then it released as steam shot out of her cuplike ears.
Show no fear,
she thought.
Rebo extended his arms to the Moha in a friendly gesture. “Friends,” he said in a soothing tone. “We are your friends.”
The tentacles coiled back and looked to Namaba as if they were about to lash out. The Moha seemed to be waiting for them to get closer.
Namaba closed her eyes with each step, occasionally opening them narrowly to peer at the potato monster. Its lumpy skin was the rich brown color of the soil.
“Friends,” Rebo repeated. “We are your friends.”
Namaba squinted, afraid to see fully what was going to happen next. They were only a few steps from the Moha now, well within reach of its tentacles.
To Namaba’s surprise, the tentacles relaxed and started swaying gracefully. She opened her eyes all the way.
Rebo laughed. “That’s a good fellow,” he said. “No one’s going to hurt you.” He stroked the Moha’s side.
“Thank God,” Namaba said. “I didn’t think you could do it.”
Rebo looked at her with eyes that burned from hurt. “You didn’t? You came with me out of
duty?”
“Well, you did save my—”
“You owe
me
nothing,” Rebo said, still stroking the Moha. “That obligation is to the other Rebo, the one I left on Morovia.”
Namaba was sorry she had not met Rebo later in her life. They had done too many bad things together. It all seemed so long ago. She had to have someone new, someone untainted by the terrible old memories of Moro City. She looked back at Javik.
Javik slid his service pistol back into his holster, then retrieved Rebo’s knife. Seeing Prince Pineapple was still holding a large rock, Javik told him to drop it.
Prince Pineapple knew he had no choice—not if he wanted to reach the Magician’s Chamber. Grudgingly, he complied. As he joined Javik, however, a thought struck him. “I am a Fruit,” Prince Pineapple said. “And that is a potentially ferocious Vegetable. There are natural hatreds between us.”
“Just don’t call it any names,” Javik said. “And no quick movements.”
“If the Moha tries to strangle me,” Prince Pineapple said, “will you use your gun against it?”
“Maybe,” Javik said. He was not teasing the prince this time. Javik honestly was not sure what he would do if such a thing occurred. “Let’s hope it doesn’t happen,” he said.
Prince Pineapple said a little prayer as he walked with Javik to the Moha. Rebo was being lifted high by one of the tentacles.
“Gently,” Rebo said, stroking the suction-cup-covered tentacle. “Up and over.” The tentacle lifted him to the other side, out of view of the others. “That’s it,” Rebo was heard to say.
Prince Pineapple and Javik were beneath the Moha’s swaying tentacles now. The prince shook with fear. A Moha eye was just centimeters away, looking at him intently.
“Go with him, Namaba,” Rebo yelled from the other side. “I’m safe on the ground now.”
Soon all the adventurers, even a perspiration-covered pineapple prince, had been lifted over the top and deposited safely on the other side.
“He just needed a little love,” Rebo said. “Most folks probably throw rocks at him.”
They camped nearby for the night.
CHAPTER 15
Five magician trainees were discussing the comparative storage capacities of a rock, a grain of sand, and an atom. All knew from their lessons that no correlation existed between size and storage capacity. But then a black-robed magician appeared, asserting that a rock afforded far more storage capacity and ease of data retrieval than its smaller brothers. Through a series of elaborate demonstrations, the magician proceeded to prove his assertion. At the height of his audience’s confusion, he admitted it was all a practical joke, that he was not a magician after all. “Actually,” he said, “I am a droplet of Markesian slime brought in on one of your shoes.”
One of the Rejected Stories
As they broke camp the following morning, the suns seemed cheerier to Rebo. He was not certain whether they reflected what lay in store for the group, but felt some part of their brilliance had to emanate from what he had done the previous evening.
While Javik loaded his survival pack, Rebo looked back at the Moha. The Moha was not moving now, having withdrawn its tentacles.
Poor ugly, lonely fellow,
Rebo thought. On the cliff trail beyond the Moha, there was no sign of the strawberry people. Rebo wondered if they had seen the Moha lift them over its back.
That will be the stuff of legends,
Rebo thought.
They’ll say we were magicians, of course.
Although it amused Rebo to think of himself as the subject of a legend, he knew it was not an important thing. Namaba was the thing of most consequence to him now, but she no longer wanted anything to do with him. Hearing Javik and Namaba laughing together behind him, Rebo thought sadly,
Perhaps the suns sparkle for them.
Beyond the white cliffs and across the denuded meadow-land, Wizzy remained in the underground compartment he had dug with his last spurts of strength. As Wizzy awoke now, he had no idea how long he had been asleep. It might have been a million years. Or only a million deci-seconds. It occurred to him that time was virtually meaningless so far beneath the surface. No suns marked the passing of days, and there was no variation in the temperature. Without visible cycles of life and death, happiness and sadness were muted.
Wizzy felt only one reality: He was buried and forgotten.
So it was in this cold and lonely place that Wizzy stirred and opened his cat’s eye. In the white glow light of his rested body, he surveyed the specks of dirt along the ceiling of the tiny chamber. The specks looked very large to him, since they were exceedingly close. He studied them in minute detail, noting a most unusual crystalline shape.
Insoluble silicon,
he thought.
With aluminum, oxygen, hydrogen, iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium
..
.so much in such a small space!
Wizzy may have stared at this speck of soil for only a few moments. Or perhaps it occupied him for the better part of a thousand years. Eventually he did look away, for one can only stare at something like that for so long before losing interest.
He stretched and yawned, then stretched again. “Oh my!” he exclaimed. “I wonder what has happened above?”
Wizzy envisioned Javik and the others long dead now, among many skeletons bleached white on the surface and visited often by the suns, the wind, and the rain.
He cried out at this thought. The sob of a millennium nearly overwhelmed him. But Wizzy held his tears, fearing even mercuric moisture might harm him. Soon his sadness passed.
Then it occurred to him that he could call upon his data banks to see how long he had been buried. So Wizzy glowed bright red, filling his little space with a warm glow.
Let me see,
he thought.
How many millions of years was it?
His
microminiature magical circuits brought forth the startling answer.
“Thirty-eight hours!” Wizzy said, bellowing so loudly that it made his tympanic sensors ring. “Can it be?”
He verified the data. It was correct.
Wizzy moved around a little bit in the cramped quarters, trying to find the most comfortable position. For a while, he lay upside down, then on each side, then again on his bottom. No position seemed particularly satisfactory.
He spent some time wondering what to do next. Then he realized that he had been burrowing into the soil overhead. Pieces of dry dirt were being displaced in this unconscious maneuver, moving down along the sides of his lumpy body and piling up beneath him.
He stopped moving, afraid to twitch for fear of breaking through into Bottomless Bog.
How long have I been doing this?
he wondered.
How far am I from the bog?
Then he remembered how close he had been to the shore when he fell in, and recalled the straight dropoff he had bounced into just before hitting bottom. Maybe he was no longer directly beneath the bog. Possibly it was a natural survival instinct that had moved him, causing him to burrow laterally just enough to get under dry land. If that had happened, he only needed to rise straight up to freedom. Wizzy knew up from down, being able to sense the pull of gravity.
But what if I’m beneath a curved portion of the bog bottom?
he wondered. There was only one way to find out. If he became wet again, he could burrow back down and go to sleep for another thirty-eight hours.
Now Wizzy made a conscious effort at burrowing upward. He moved slowly at first, afraid that he would break through the bog at any moment. After traveling a good two meters, Wizzy became confident and increased his speed. This led to another increase seconds later. Soon Wizzy was a molten orange fireball, rising upward at a high rate of speed. Encountering rocks in his path, he dodged the larger ones. The smaller stones embedded themselves in his malleable skin.
Wizzy exploded out of the soil into the clear, cerulean blue sky above Cork. Three suns undimmed by clouds warmed his body. He rose a thousand meters above the planet, then did a series of joyous loops, trailing white smoke behind him.
It’s wonderful here!
he thought.
A great time to be alive!
Recalling the map on the Sacred Scroll of Cork, Wizzy flew over the barren land that once had been a meadow.
The planet has changed in a short time,
he thought.
There are no flowers on this portion.
Fresh doubts struck him concerning how long he had been entombed. He felt strong now, perhaps too strong for having been asleep only thirty-eight hours.
Maybe my data banks have been damaged,
he thought.
And I’ve been asleep for a long time.
In the distance, Wizzy saw a high white cliff. He flew toward it. After a while, he noticed that the cliff did not seem to be drawing nearer. He increased his speed.
A short time later he burst through the magical barrier and hit the face of the cliff. His momentum and bulk broke away large pieces of shale, and he tumbled to the ground among them.
Wizzy felt embarrassed as he emerged from the rubble, although certainly no one had witnessed his faux pas. He alighted on a flat piece of shale to think.
Something colorful on the ground caught his eye. It was black with yellow polka dots—a strip of cloth. A thought struck him, but he dismissed it immediately. It couldn’t be that!
He moved closer to it.
The ribbon from Namaba’s mane!
he realized. It looked fresh and nearly new. It hadn’t been there long.
On the cliff just overhead, Wizzy saw a three-dot trail marking.
They’ve been this way,
he thought.
Recently.
Reaching the cavernous Dimensional Tunnel room, a nude, dirty, and thoroughly disheartened Lord Abercrombie tried to compose himself. Shivering in front of a wall mirror, he saw that his body was completely flesh, without a single magical void.
I may as well make the best of it,
he thought, seeing the reflection of his packed train of trunks in the mirror.
I can’t stay on this planet.
The galactic wind howled behind him.
Wanting to freshen up for his Dimensional Tunnel trip, Lord Abercrombie mentoed his wardrobe ring and took a dry shower. The ring played its cheerful tune. It was a novelty for him to see electrolyzed dirt falling off the side of his fleshy body which had not been there only a short time before.
“It’s fresh-up time!” Lord Abercrombie sang, following the tune played by the ring. “It’s fresh-up time!”
He began to feel better.
At his next mento command, a bright yellow caftan with black braiding on the arms and neck stitched itself around his body, followed by white satin slippers and a full thistle crown. His powers were diminished now, but at least he looked more regal than before. He turned before the mirror, admiring each angle.
Petulantly, he decided to change the outfit.
At his mento command, the old outfit disappeared in a
poof
and everything except the standard-issue thistle crown changed. His caftan became bright purple with slender gold stripes. Gold slippers adorned his feet.
He turned in front of the mirror and decided that this looked very nice. But improvements could be made. So he changed the outfit. Then he changed again. A dazzling array of colorful caftans and slippers flashed in front of the mirror as Lord Abercrombie put on a one-man fashion show.
But none of them suited him to perfection. An inexplicable element was missing each time. So Lord Abercrombie made a ferocious, pouting face in the mirror and leaned towards the glass with his hands on his hips.
“None of these outfits will do for my trip!” he shouted. “None will do at all!”
The glassplex mirror became hazy. Then it rippled. Seeing his reflection distorting in the mirror, Lord Abercrombie stepped back, alarmed. Distant, cackling laughter echoed inside his skull. It grew louder. He threw his hands over his ears, but this did no good.
“Stop it!” he screamed.
His caftan, slippers, and thistle crown disintegrated in a small explosion that startled him. He had not mentoed this. Then the wardrobe ring slipped from his finger and flew across the cavern, disappearing into the blackness of the Dimensional Tunnel.
His brain reverberated with laughter. Red and white striped crew socks appeared on his feet, then disappeared. Next, a royal purple ascot wrapped itself around his neck, pulling itself tighter and tighter as the laughter continued.
“Guggg!” he said, gagging.
Now the ascot disappeared, leaving behind a red burn mark on Lord Abercrombie’s neck. He rubbed it.
The laughing voices receded. All became quiet, with the exception of a slight, whistling wind from the Dimensional Tunnel.
“I didn’t want to keep that ring anyway!” he exclaimed, laughing nervously. This became two short laughs. Then two longer laughs and a confident chuckle. Soon he was howling, with his nude body bent over in mirth.
“A-ha. A-ha-ha. Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” His glee bounced off the cavern walls and entered the Dimensional Tunnel, ending up who knows where.
Lord Abercrombie thought of his laughter reverberating across the universe. This struck him as so funny that he laughed even harder.
“Well!” he finally said. “This has been a good joke on me!”
He scampered into the outer passageway, intending to find something recycled to wear and a meckie to accompany him on the trip.
Before setting out that morning, Javik and the others found that they could again recharge. No one understood what had happened the day before, when Prince Pineapple and Javik had almost been sucked into the ground. They theorized that it had been a peculiarity of the meadow.
Everyone, even Prince Pineapple, said goodbye to the Moha and thanked him for being so helpful. Shortly after they set out for their final assault on the Magician’s Chamber and the Dimensional Tunnel, Rebo ran back to pat the Moha again. There was no response from the potato creature other than a graceful waving of its tentacles, so no one was certain how much intelligence it had.
“I really liked that guy,” Rebo said as he rejoined the group.
They turned uptrail, moving into agate country, with sparse and gnarled noble fir trees dotting the way. In all directions they saw massive slabs and hills of translucent, ochre-colored stone. Morning sunlight permeated the agate rocks, making them appear liquid.
Soon they reached a one-story oriental gazebo that had a wooden wall on the side facing the trail. The other side of the structure opened in a half circle. Eight neat stacks of dark brown fabric were spaced evenly around this half circle, under the shelter of the roof.
Javik found a sign on the inside of the wall, written in three languages, each of which he recognized with the aid of his language mixer pendant. “Interesting,” he said. “It’s in English, Morovian, and Corker.”
The others gathered around and verified this.
Reading one of the versions, this is what Javik saw:
THESE ARE THE EIGHT FOLDING PATHS.
SELECT A PATH.
PUSH IT OPEN.
IT WILL UNFOLD BEFORE YOU
WALK ON IT.
No one knew which trail to select, so each unfolded two paths. They flip-flopped open into the distance like the binding displays of an encyclopedia salesman. When all were open, they found that one had three-dot markings every few hundred meters. The others were unmarked.
They set out along this path, with Prince Pineapple forging into the lead. “The Magician’s Chamber is close,” he said. “I know it.”
Soon the path became a dirt trail. As they reached dirt, the cloth path folded up behind them, returning to the gazebo. On both sides they watched the other paths flop back as well.
After only a few more steps, Prince Pineapple was forced to stop suddenly, for a large wooden sign painted with white letters had sprung up in his path. This was printed in the three languages of the group.
“‘Go back!’” Prince Pineapple said, reading the Corkian version. “‘Wrong way!’” He scratched his head.
After a moment of thoughtful silence, Javik said, “I don’t believe it, Prince. Go around.”
Prince Pineapple agreed. “An Abercrombie trick,” he said. He started around the sign.
But the sign moved to block his path.
Javik tried to go around the other way, but the sign split into two neat halves, with a wooden portion blocking both him and the prince.