The Garbage Chronicles

by Brian Herbert

  “Earth linguistics is a different thing,” the meckie gargled. “I did find one familiar symbol, however. Here.” She touched the wall.

  Lord Abercrombie leaned close to study the symbol. It was a circle with four tangential triangles spaced evenly outside the circumferential line. Jagged lines inside the circle touched each triangle, looking like bolts of lightning between the triangles. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Well, without the circle it’s the symbol of magnetics.” She moved her hand along the wall. “See here? It’s beneath each of the three magicians.”

  “Hmmm. Yeah. Magnetics, huh? Maybe they used magnetics somehow in their magic.”

  “Could be.”

  “What about the circle? What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And the cartoons?”

  “Maybe something funny was going on,” the meckie said.

  “Well, nothing seems very funny around here to me. Any incantations there, or magical potion recipes?”

  “None that I’ve been able to figure out yet.”

  Lord Abercrombie put his hand on his hip. “Some kinda history here, eh? Well, add my story to it.”

  “That’s a good idea, Lord. There are sharp pieces of obsidian on the floor here, evidently used by others to carve on the wall.”

  “Good.’?

  “I don’t draw very well, Lord. I will need artistic programming.”

  “Report to Servicing for that.”

  “Yes, Lord Abercrombie.” The meckie paused for a moment, then said, “If I’m to portray you accurately, however, I will need to know more about you.”

  “Such as?”

  “You’re kind of a confusing personality, Lord. You wanted to set up a recycling base here, using the Earth-catapulted gar-bahge as raw material. Then you were going to ship the recycled products back to Earth.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you had all that trouble with Uncle Rosy and his sayermen. You were forced to hide here, beneath the surface. You managed to set up a system of getting gar-bahge down here to your recycling facility, and now you’ve got caverns full of recycled products—so much stuff you hardly have room to move around.”

  “So?”

  “What are you going to do with all the stuff? Is it supposed to stay here forever, proof to yourself and to no other human that recycled goods could be manufactured?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s right.” Lord Abercrombie’s eye stared at the dirt floor. He focused on a piece of obsidian. ‘The work kept me busy, I suppose. Maybe I held out a hope that some big shot from Earth would come here and beg me to go back, saying Earth needed my expertise to set up a recycling industry there.”

  “All right. But what about your obsession with creating planetary disasters? You spend half your time in the Realm of Flesh, and half soil-immersed in the Realm of Magic. In flesh, most of your time is spent with that old Earthian disaster control equipment, trying to create earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and the like. In magic, that’s all you do: Every waking instant is spent trying to impose your will upon the elements.”

  “Well, it’s been something to do. It can get kinda dull around here. Haven’t I told you that before?”

  “It’s power, isn’t it? You want to feel absolute, dominating power over the planet and all its inhabitants.”

  “Could be. I don’t know. Say, I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed by a meckie! Just put what I tell you on the wall!”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Tell how Uncle Rosy’s evil sayermen came after me, and how I was fortunate enough to find the Sacred Scroll of Cork. Show that the scroll led me to this place and instructed me in the ancient methods of soil immersion.”

  “Okay, Lord. Shall I also relate your difficulties in magically inducing disasters? After all, you have only come up with one magically willed rockslide in four years of soil immersion.”

  “I’ve been here four years,” Abercrombie said, irritated. “Only half of that time was spent immersed.”

  “Pardon me, Lord.”

  “Give me a break, historian.”

  The meckie picked up a piece of obsidian and placed it on a wall ledge. “What about your fleshy half, Lord? Should I show you and those old rebuilt meckies working with patched-together Earthian disaster control equipment?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have created some dust storms with the equipment, Lord. An earthquake, too. And three floods.”

  “Yeah, but the atmosphere goes haywire each time I get something going real good. That damned reverse rain, coming right up out of the planet!”

  “That is a big problem,” the meckie said. “We shouldn’t dwell on the, negative, I suppose.”

  “Make it heroic,” Abercrombie said. His brow furrowed.

  “Guess I’d better not depict your indecision, either, Lord. You know, the way you’re halfway between the realms of Flesh and Magic, afraid to commit yourself to either one.”

  “Leave all that out too.”

  “There isn’t much you’re permitting me to say about you, Lord,” the meckie gargled.

  “Just show me getting here,” Lord Abercrombie snapped. “Then leave a lot of blank space. My story isn’t over yet.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Cork: Called Guna One by the AmFeds. A planet abandoned by soil-immersing magicians aeons ago. Declared unfit by the Council of Magic for the safe and efficient practice of magic. Unusual magnetic and ionic conditions encountered there.

  From the Encyclopaedia of Magic, one of the microdata books kept in Stone 31-12

  “See if the garbage can do us any goddamned harm!”

  With these urgent words from President Ogg on his mind just minutes after takeoff, Captain Tom Javik mentoed the speed toggle on the chrome and white plastic dashboard. The scout ship Amanda Marie accelerated through the stratosphere, stretching to reach the limits of Earth’s atmosphere. The licorice smell of G-gas wafted under Javik’s nose:

  “We’re clear,” Evans said moments later as they reached space. She glanced to her left at Javik.

  “Speed twenty-seven thousand k.p.h. and beginning hyper-acceleration,” Blanquie reported. He sat behind Javik and Evans at a midships science officer’s console.

  Javik mentoed course coordinates into the ship’s mother computer—simply “Mother” to the crew—causing the ship to bank gracefully. The Amanda Marie’s E-cell-powered ion engines emitted quiet blue flames, which Javik saw on the console screen between him and Evans. Looking at Earth, he saw that the hole in the gray cloud cover below was sealed now, evidence of the continuing tug of war between Bu-Tech and the Great Comet. The idea of Sidney as a comet seemed ludicrous to Javik. At the same time, it frightened the hell out of him. Gyros whirred as the ship’s gravitonics system kicked on.

  Wizzy buzzed out of Javik’s pocket and flew around the cabin, examining each article of equipment with a child’s fascination.

  “That’s Wizzy,” Javik said, with a nod over his shoulder. “A newfangled flying meckie.” Javik retreated inwardly to his thoughts: If Wizzy is Sid’s boy, and Sid is a comet . . .

  “Hi, Wizzy!” Evans said, cheerily.

  Spotting a mirror on a half bulkhead behind Javik, Wizzy hovered in front of it to admire himself. “Does my tail look longer today?” he asked, directing his cat’s-eye gaze at the back of Javik’s head.

  Javik shot Wizzy a quick backward glance. “I dunno,” he responded, noting that Wizzy’s tail was silvery and translucent, his rock body pale and golden. Wizzy is a friggin’ comet! Javik thought, as he faced forward. I’d better take him aside . . . keep it from the crew.

  “Hmmm,” Wizzy said. “The silver is nice.”

  “I’d like a word with you, Wizzy,” Javik said, mento-unsnapping his safety harness.

  “It is a beautiful tail, Wizzy,” Evans said. “Kinda like on that big comet.”

  Gotta move quickly, Javik thought.

  “Ain’t like no meckie I ever
seen,” Blanquie drawled.

  Javik swung his long legs out from under the instrument panel. “Did you hear me, Wizzy?” he snapped.

  “Watch me change colors,” Wizzy said, paying no attention to Javik.

  Javik chewed nervously on his lower lip as Wizzy’s tail and body switched colors. Now the tail became a sputter of gold light, with a lumpy, silver body. Wizzy’s yellow cat’s eye darkened, matching his tail.

  A brilliant flash of orange light off the starboard bow diverted Javik’s attention. A fraction of a second later, Wizzy was perched on the dashboard beneath the curved windshield, looking out at the return of the Great Comet. Wizzy did not speak this time. He, like the others, watched in awe.

  The Great Comet approached fast, causing Javik to squint in the increasing orange-hot glare. He mentoed for a collision report.

  “Comet-like body at fifteen thousand three hundred kilometers,” Mother said, using a mellow, computer-synthesized voice. “Not on a collision course with this ship.”

  Spinning on his chair to look out his side window, Javik saw the comet swoop below them to Earth, pushing away part of the cloud cover and creating another opening. Through the new hole, Javik saw the soft brown and green tones of Earth. Feeling his pulse quicken, he wondered, Will it hit Earth this time?

  Wizzy let out a little squeal of excitement. He was on the sill of a side porthole now.

  Suddenly the Great Comet rose and veered off, beginning a series of loops and swirls as it trailed a stream of white smoke.

  “W,” Javik thought. It made a W!

  “A message!” Evans said.

  Javik glanced to his side at the co-pilot’s seat, focusing for a moment on Evans’s robust chest. It seemed automatic to look there, with the eyes homing in like smart missiles on their target. This time, however, Javik looked away quickly before she caught him.

  He heard Evans rustle, and sensed her looking at him.

  Javik’s face felt hot. He fumbled in his jumpsuit for the titanium pillbox. Leaning away to conceal the box, he selected a brown sex-sub pill and a clear water capsule. Hurriedly, he swallowed the pills and replaced the tin. Cool water molecules expanded in his stomach. He waited for the sexual sublimation to take hold.

  “What’d ya take there?” Evans asked.

  Javik did not answer or meet her gaze. Closing his eyes, he felt a warm, satisfied feeling soak into his bones. Inaudibly, he sighed.

  Evans snickered. It was not a loud snicker. But Javik heard it just the same.

  He wiped beads of perspiration from his brow.

  “Warm, Captain?” she asked, noting a scar on the bridge of Javik’s aquiline nose. His deeply set blue eyes darted around like those of a cornered animal.

  Feigning interest in a digital weather screen, Javik cursed himself for the continuing moments of weakness. Evans is a transsexual! he thought. If the guys ever heard I dabbled like that, I’d be the laughingstock of the . . .

  Evans rolled to a midships porthole to get a better view of the comet. Javik pictured her attractive features in his mind’s eye: soft, creamy skin, with smooth, rounded cheeks and a small nose that turned up slightly at the tip. Long black lashes and dark eyebrows overhung the eyes.

  “We are . . . not . . . your . . . garbage dump!” Evans read, squinting to read the skywriting. “That same message for more than eight months! What does it mean?” She turned to look at Blanquie.

  Blanquie winked at her.

  The gaze of Evans’s large olive green eyes darted away like a timid fawn under pursuit by a buck.

  “I think I know!” Wizzy said, in a tiny voice. “I think I know!”

  “Shutup, Wizzy,” Javik snapped.

  “Well!” Wizzy huffed.

  Javik watched the Great Comet speed off into deep space. A parallel with guerrilla warfare struck him: This comet was employing hit and run tactics. But Javik sensed the comet did not have to flee. It was playing games with the AmFeds.

  If that is Sid, Javik thought, bemused, he’s getting even with the bureaucrats now . . . making them run around . . . embarrassing the bastards.

  “Damn, that thing’s fast!” Blanquie said. “Just a pinprick of orange light now!”

  Rolling to Wizzy’s side, Javik spit out a terse command: “Come with me.”

  But Wizzy remained on the sill of the porthole. “Just a minute,” he said, glowing red. His voice became hollow and faltering: “I sense trouble ahead . . . Davis Droids . . . signal intermittent.”

  “Davis Droids,” Blanquie said. He flipped the selector on his CRT screen. “Here it is,” he said. “Directly in the target of Abercrombie’s garbage shots. Not much land mass there. Twenty million kilometers this side of Guna One, in the same Aluminum Starfield with the Guna planets.”

  “Wizzy,” Javik said. “I want you—”

  “Begin searching for garbage in the droids,” Wizzy said.

  “Is that meckie an official part of this crew?” Blanquie asked.

  Irked, Javik snatched Wizzy from the sill and moto-shoed aft.

  “See here!” Wizzy protested. “Put me down!”

  “Shush!” Javik said. He rolled into the bathroom and slammed the door. “Keep it down,” Javik husked, “Or by God, I’ll flush you into outer space!” He held Wizzy over the unlidded toilet.

  The gravitonics system whirred noisily here. A wall plaque beneath a Patterman gravitonics indicator read:

  CAUTION!

  Do not use bathroom

  if gravitonics

  inoperable

  Seeing the toilet, Wizzy understood Javik’s threat. He almost told Javik to go ahead, but reconsidered. It was cold out there. And a long way from Papa Sidney. “But the signals I’m receiving,” Wizzy said. “We must heed them!”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Javik said, smelling a chemical odor from the toilet. “You’re comets, aren’t you? You and Sid . . . ”

  “There’s no secret about that.”

  “Some kinda magic? I mean, comets with personalities aren’t your everyday sort of thing.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “Good magic? I mean, uh . . . ”

  Wizzy laughed. “It’s not Witchcraft. Trust me.”

  Javik’s expression was very intense. “I don’t want my crew disrupted with this sort of information. They’re flaky enough as it is, and I need their undivided attention to duty.”

  “All right.”

  “Keep it between you and me. As far as everyone else is concerned, you’re a meckie. A comet-like device some Bu-Tech pal of mine thought up to be cute. You got it?”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  “It’s yessir from now on,” Javik said, holding Wizzy close to the toilet bowl. “That or I flush you,”

  “I understand!” Wizzy snapped. He glowed orange-hot.

  “Ow!” Javik yelled. He dropped Wizzy and blew on his hand. “Why, you little . . . ”

  Wizzy hovered in the air. “Let’s get something straight, shall we?” he said. “Don’t play big-time operator with me, fella. I know your background—the girls, the fights, the whole bit.”

  Javik continued to blow on his hand.

  “You’re a trashman.”

  Javik’s eyes flashed angrily. ‘This assignment isn’t like garbage shuttle duty. This is important. Really important.”

  “You’re still chasing trash.”

  “Yes, but on a larger scale.” Javik rubbed the palm of his burned hand. “You saw the President back there.”

  Wizzy laughed. “Large-scale trash? Trash is trash in my data banks.” He had become dark blue again, with a short green tail.

  “Just remember what I told you,” Javik said tersely. He jerked open the door and rolled into the cabin. Mother’s computer voice was completing a course projection for Evans. Then it fell silent.

  “Check those droids,” Wizzy shouted. He flew by Javik, alighting on a wall-mounted oxygen tank behind the captain’s chair.

  Javik seethed as he rolled forw
ard.

  “Sounded like a fight back there,” Evans said, watching Javik slide into his chair. “Amazing, the way they can build personalities into meckies now.”

  Javik glowered as he stared out the windshield. His hand still hurt.

  “Ogg’s cloud cover isn’t working worth a damn,” Blanquie said.

  Mento-swiveling her chair, Evans looked aft. Blanquie’s freckled face was pressed against one of the portholes. His soft, round body seemed inappropriate for the rigors of Space Patrol duty. “Sure isn’t,” she agreed.

  “Maybe the comet is God,” Blanquie said, “just cruisin’ around tryin’ to decide if Earth is worth savin’.”

  uYeah,” Evans said. “Like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

  Blanquie laughed nervously. Then he coughed. “Maybe it’s Uncle Rosy,” he said, “angry because the AmFeds are off schedule on his Thousand Year Plan.”

  Javik watched another scout ship speed into space along a different course. Bullet-shaped and cream-colored, with AmFed markings, the other ship was moving faster than the Amanda Marie. Javik mentoed a speed increase and felt his ship respond instantly.

  “Confirmed,” Mother said. “Will accelerate to seventy-five thousand k.p.h. and hold.”

  “Hey, Cap’n,” Blanquie drawled. “What them boys gonna do about the comet?”

  “Haven’t been invited to any ministerial sessions lately,” Javik said acidly. “You can bet they’re fuming about it, though. I hear a hundred missiles have been fired at it already. Maybe they’re assembling a super-missile right now. Who knows?”

  Blanquie giggled. “What if it is God?” he asked, looking at Javik’s back with a silly leer on his face.

  Javik looked around to see the silly expression, then turned forward, shaking his head in dismay. At least the video gameaholic isn’t shaking now, Javik thought.

  Blanquie concentrated on the back of Javik’s jumpsuit. Gold captain’s epaulets rested regally on the shoulders, with thin, stitched-on gold braids encircling the armpits. Javik’s smooth, amber hair gave off a soft sheen.

  “Just think on it!” Blanquie gushed. “If we blasted God with a missile!”