The Garbage Chronicles

by Brian Herbert

  “Hrrmph!” Wizzy groused. He buzzed halfheartedly around the room. Then, as Prince Pineapple watched with one narrowly opened eye, he settled back on the pillow.

  Prince Pineapple shifted to get more comfortable.

  “You want to hear about me?” Wizzy asked. “I’m a baby comet, you know.”

  “Some other time. Let me rest.” He kept one eye open narrowly, trying to conceal it at the edge of the blanket.

  “First you wake me up and then you want me to be quiet while you sleep? That’s a fine thing to do.”

  Peripherally, Prince Pineapple looked out the window at the diagonal sheets of wind-driven rain. He heard trees squeak together from the force of the storm. Sacred Pond will be rough, he thought. Maybe the wind will subside.

  “Funny thing about you,” Wizzy said. “I pick up thought waves from humans. But from you, nothing.”

  “You can read thoughts? Unspoken thoughts?” He sat up in the rocker, staring full-faced at Wizzy.

  “Not yours, dear Prince. Nor those of your brethren. Perhaps you have no brains.”

  “No brains?”

  “Well, not much in the way of brains anyway.”

  Prince Pineapple leaned forward, dropping the blanket to the floor. His eyes were bird alert. “Not much in the way of brains, you say? That may be true of the others, but I’ll have you know I am in possession of a marvelous brain.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. My red star crystal sensors” are quite sensitive—although not yet fully developed. You’d think I would receive something from you if you had a decent brain. Just a hum, mind you . . . or a few garbled thoughts.”

  “I am capable of more than garbled thoughts!” Prince Pineapple jumped up and paced the room. Presently: “Lord Abercrombie tells us to use Decision Coins for all matters. If my brain is damaged, it is from disuse.”

  “That is possible. Entirely possible. Now why don’t you relax? I’ll tell you a little about how I came to be here.”

  Prince Pineapple, sat on a shabby brown and yellow couch against one wall. “And how will I comprehend such things?” he asked. “Not having a decent brain and all.”

  “You do sound rather intelligent. Perhaps my sensors need adjustment. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

  The prince glowered, thinking, Maybe he’ll talk himself to sleep. I have a good brain. I use it all the time.

  The Orgy Building comprised one large, rectangular room with bead curtain doorways at each end. The room was full of partying humanoids when Javik was shown in by a Manno teammate. Nearly everyone in the room wore an electroplated purple badge, signifying conspicuous bravery back on Earth in the face of a disintegrating product. The bulbous-headed Mannos and Wommos swarmed around drunkenly, filling up nearly every square centimeter of space available. There was no music. Despite this, many partyers twisted their hips, swaying to unheard tunes while clutching drinks in tall glasses. It was like an Earth party in some ways, but distorted.

  “After you’ve eaten from the kill,” the Manno at his side said in a characteristic monotone, “find a Wommo bitch and take her in one of the fornication rooms along the wall.” He pointed through the crowd at a row of red doors set very close together along the opposite wall. As Javik gazed across the room, he became aware of movement overhead.

  The ceiling of the room was tinted glassplex or heavy glass, substantial enough to support a throng of Corkers and other Fruits above. They kneeled and peered down at the Earthian party, their eyes open fully in frenzied fascination. Most of them were gathered over the fornication rooms, where they pushed and fought for better views.

  “They enjoy watching all our Earth games,” the Manno said. “Fruits don’t engage in our form of sex, you know. They grow in orchards and vineyards. When they’re ripe, they simply fall off.”

  “No fun in that,” Javik said, smelling what he thought was roast pig. If spoken to an old acquaintance, these words might have given the impression that Javik was his old womanizing self. But Javik did not feel the words he uttered. They came automatically, as if from a politician’s voice tape. He was hungry and angry, hopelessly out of synch with his surroundings.

  “Excuse me,” the Manno said. “I just spied a delectable, if you get my drift.” He sauntered off, wading into the crowd like a bee going for pollen. Soon Javik lost sight of him.

  The room was divided into Manno and Wommo sides, with blue and pink banners designating each camp. On each side were banquet tables covered with red and white checkered picnic cloths. The tables held barred cages from the fallen fighter cars of the day, with the dead and unfortunate pilots spinning inside on spits. The cage bars were black now, having cooled. As Javik watched, tackle sets over each table lifted off the tops of the cages, exposing the humanoid roasts. The spits stopped turning.

  To Javik’s horror, the throngs moved in on the humanoid food, tearing off jagged hunks of cooked flesh which they stuffed in their mouths. Animal sounds shook the room: growls and snarls, sighs and grunts of satisfaction. The tables rocked as hungry humanoids pulled at the roasts from all sides.

  “You’d better hurry,” a Manno at Javik’s side said. “We only got one kill today.”

  Javik only stared. Hunger pangs tore at his stomach. Cannibalism. It was beyond belief.

  “Say,” the Manno said, moving in front of Javik to look at his face. “You got our kill!” The Manno limped as he moved, and carried a deep gash across his abdomen. Black letters stamped on his forehead indicated that he was a Product Failure victim.

  Javik looked away.

  The Manno grabbed his arm, pulling Javik toward the Manno banquet table.

  “Wait,” Javik said, his voice feeble. He offered little resistance.

  “Hey, guys!” the Manno yelled as they neared the swarm at the table. “Save a piece for this guy. He got our kill.”

  Stepping to one side so that Javik could get through, the Mannos greeted him with smiles that dripped meat juice. They patted him on the back and pushed him forward. Javik’s hunger-starved nostrils tried to convince his brain that the strong aroma was roast pork. Then he saw it close up: a shredded female body with great pieces of cooked brown flesh torn away. The body was more dead than the dead, for it had died twice: once on Earth and again on Cork. Javik told himself that it should never have lived, if this was to be the end of it all.

  “Eat,” someone said, thrusting a piece of breast meat into Javik’s quivering hands.

  Javik held the meat unsteadily, staring at it in horror. This was being forced on him. He had to eat it. That made it all right, he told himself. A dull hunger pang tugged at his midsection.

  The Mannos turned their attention away from Javik now, resuming their demonic gluttony. The animal sounds increased.

  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 he
ard 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.”