The Garbage Chronicles

by Brian Herbert

  Rebo and Namaba used their forelegs as weapons now, laying waste to the quartet of clamoring lawyers. “Faster!” Namaba said. “We’ve got to get away!”

  Although he had no idea what lay ahead on the steep trail into the hills, Rebo knew he had to go that way. Visions of police chases in Mora City flashed across his mind as he and Namaba reached the trailhead.

  Their feet struck a rocky surface. The trail became steep quickly, skirting a rockslide. Ahead, Rebo saw a bend in the trail with a large rock outcropping over that point. Beyond the bend, wisps of fog curled invitingly, offering security for the pursued.

  “Adarka!” a police bullhorn blared.

  Rebo did not understand the word, and did not realize the function of the pretty pendant which lay on the trail far behind them. But the authoritative sound was enough to make him pick up his pace. Glancing back, he saw thousands of lawyers at the trailhead, falling behind as they fought, with one another for position.

  “Adarka!” the police repeated.

  When the fleeing Moravians reached the trail bend, Rebo looked back again and saw purple-uniformed police officers struggling to get past the clog of lawyers.

  Rebo and Namaba rounded the bend, stretching their legs to climb a steep, rugged trail. The trail moved into thin fog now, skirting a dry creekbed. Then it leveled out for a time. But soon it rose steeply once more, cutting around gnarled trees that clung to the rocky hillside. Soon the din of police and lawyers could be heard no longer. .

  They galloped more slowly now. “We’ve got to find food soon,” Namaba said, glancing back at Rebo. “Our boiler pressures will be low after all that exertion.”

  Prince Pineapple, Javik, and Wizzy were traversing a narrow switchback trail, still going up sharply. The path was hard and rocky at this point, but curiously enough there was soft forest soil only a few steps to one side. It appeared as though someone had intentionally selected the most difficult route. Ahead of Javik, Prince Pineapple’s stubby legs moved rapidly, pulling him forward with unaltering, powerful steps.

  Feeling warm and drained from the exertion and only half a bio bar back at the ship, Javik wondered how the soft-looking pineapple man could keep up such a pace. And only the day before, the prince had been so weak . . . He’s had another recharge, Javik thought.

  The rugged path seemed to grow steeper and more rocky with each step. Javik saw no end to it. Gnarled pine trees along the trail sparkled in streaks of sunlight that filtered through the fog.

  “You won’t believe what’s on top,” Prince Pineapple said as he stepped over a jagged, fallen rock. “A high desert, with no way around it. There’s sheer cliffs all around, making this the only approach.”

  The trail cut into woods now, offering some shade. The ground beneath their feet was softer here, with more moisture and less rocks.

  “We’ll need to find water soon,” Javik said. “I finished the only water capsules I could find. Brought along a couple of collapsible plastic containers we could fill.”

  “I remember a creek along here somewhere,” Prince Pineapple said. No sooner were these words spoken when he stopped and pointed a quivering finger at a tree. “Three dots!” he exclaimed. “Sign of the magicians!”

  “We’re on the right trail,” Wizzy said, inspecting the dots closely. They were raised and white, in the form of a triangle. The dots don’t actually touch the tree,” Wizzy said. “They float just off the surface. Portable dots, I guess.”

  “No time to concern ourselves with that,” Prince Pineapple said.

  They continued on the trail, and presently Javik heard running water. At first it was only a distant, welcome murmur. Then it became louder, sounding like the flow of autocars on a New City expressway.

  “Strange how it’s so green and wet here,” Prince Pineapple said, stopping at a viewpoint and looking at the ridge ahead. “But just beyond that ridge . . . ”

  Javik looked back. There was no movement downtrail. Much of the mist had burned off now, condensing in the rays of the Corkian suns. The clearing from which they had started was visible far below, with the Amanda Marie glinting in sunlight.

  Wizzy flew by him.

  Squinting, Javik made out movement around the ship: thousands of tiny, shifting specks that had to be Fruit people. Got out of there just in time, he thought.

  “It’s like another world on top,” Prince Pineapple said, continuing on and leaving Javik behind. The prince’s words became more distant. “I was there once, you know, but turned back. It’s so desolate. This time there’ll be no turning back.”

  Javik quick-stepped to catch up with the others.

  Wizzy circled Javik as he arrived, then flew at Javik’s side.

  “Why does Sid want us together so badly?” Javik asked, turning his head toward Wizzy. “For your good, or for mine?”

  “For both, I’m certain,” Wizzy said. “I as his son and you as his closest friend.”

  “His closest friend?” Javik’s blue eyes opened saucer wide. “But I didn’t even see the guy for twenty years before our reunion!”

  “Time doesn’t always erase deep feelings,” Wizzy said. “Besides, Papa Sidney sees things on a universal scale now. Twenty years is but a moment to him.”

  “I think you’re starting to understand love, Wizzy,” Prince Pineapple said.

  After a while they reached a place where a narrow band of running water crossed the trail. Stopping here, Prince Pineapple removed his helicopter beanie and said, “I’m going to recharge. There’s a good spot for you to get water off the trail.” He set his cap on a rock and trudged off.

  Javik removed his survival pack, feeling a twinge from his shoulder. He knelt on the ground and searched in the pack, pulling out two collapsible water pods. Afraid he might get his automatic pistol wet, he unsnapped the holster from his belt and placed it on top of the pack.

  Prince Pineapple was seated on the ground now, opening his folding shovel. Javik passed him, reaching a little waterfall that cascaded down the hillside into a pool. After splashing water on his face and drinking, he began filling one of the pods.

  Wizzy circled over the prince’s head, looking down on his leafy green headdress. Ceremoniously, Prince Pineapple wrapped one bare foot with the barbed nutrient-transmitting cord. Soon the foot was inside a little hole he had dug.

  Javik watched Prince Pineapple too, while filling the second water pod. He saw contentment on the prince’s face now as nutrients from the rich soil flowed into his pineapple body. Prince Pineapple had a dreamy far-off expression, with half his face in sun and half in shade. Javik thought again of the videodome commercial. This prince was another distortion in this garbage-distorted world, like an Earth videodome fantasy come to life.

  With the three travelers thus engrossed, and with the camouflage sound of running water, none of them noticed two hairy, black-jacketed creatures approaching from below. Talking as they rounded a switchback in the trail, Rebo and Namaba did not see Javik’s survival pack until Namaba nearly stumbled over it.

  “The thunder piece!” she said, seeing the gun.

  Javik and Rebo saw one another at the same instant. Javik dropped the water pod in the pool and ran for his pack, thinking he might be able to frighten the creatures by running directly toward them.

  Instinctively, Rebo grabbed the service pistol. Remembering how Javik had held it, he gripped the handle, pointing the barrel at Javik.

  Javik stopped cold. “Be careful with that thing,” he said, hearing strange but understandable words cross his lips as the language mixer did its job. He was less than a meter from the business end of the barrel. It looked very large.

  I see how to use this, Rebo thought, eyeing the trigger. His forefinger inched toward it. Then he stopped. For the first time in his life, he consciously questioned ways which once had been automatic for him. He felt guilt for past killings, especially for the old flower vendor.

  Wizzy was in action now. He streaked toward Rebo in a blur of orange light.


  Javik was a little quicker. Seeing Rebo hesitate, he slapped the gun away.

  Then Wizzy hit Rebo hard on the side of the head, knocking the bulky three-legger hard to the ground. Rebo rolled on his stomach with a moan, exposing the grapple bird insignia on the back of his coat.

  Javik retrieved the gun, noticing that Namaba was making no effort to get it. “Over there,” he said to her, motioning toward Rebo with the pistol barrel.

  Namaba moved to Rebo’s side.

  Rebo sat up, rubbing the side of his head with one hand. His head moved slowly in a circle, with his eyes clamped shut. His hair-framed face was contorted in pain. Then his eyelids lifted slowly, revealing dazed, dull-red eyes.

  “Lucky for you I was here,” Wizzy said. He was dark blue now, hovering in midair at Javik’s eye level.

  “Whattaya mean?” Javik snapped. “I knocked the gun away!”

  “That guy’s a lot bigger than you. He would have smashed the hell out of you before you got to the gun.”

  Javik pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Maybe,” he said grudgingly.

  “Look at my body!” Wizzy exclaimed. “I’ve grown since yesterday. I feel it. Do you see any difference?” Wizzy stretched his yellow cat’s eyeball, trying to get a glimpse of himself. But he couldn’t even see his tail.

  “You look lumpy again,” Javik said, smiling thinly as he studied Wizzy. “Pebbles and dirt are stuck all over you.”

  “Always critical, aren’t you!” Wizzy snapped. “For your information, Captain Tom, the dirt and pebbles make me stronger. I’m gaining strength every day.”

  “Sure, sure.” Javik looked away, seeing that Prince Pineapple was finishing his recharge.

  Wizzy glowed bright, molten orange. The lumps on his body became smooth and liquid, sparkling in the sunlight. Then he cooled to a glistening hue of dark blue.

  Prince Pineapple walked up, buttoning his shovel to his belt. “Had a little trouble, I see,” he said.

  “Thanks for helping, Your Highness,” Javik said, sneering,

  “I only just noticed,” Prince Pineapple said, sputtering with surprise at the remark.

  “Finish filling those water pods, will ya?” Javik said to the prince. “I need to think about our guests for a moment.”

  “I am a prince of Cork,” Prince Pineapple announced haughtily. “I do not fetch water.”

  “Now look,” Javik said, turning his gun halfway toward Prince Pineapple. “I don’t have time to . . . ”

  Wizzy flew to Prince Pineapple’s side, saying, “Captain Tom is throwing his weight around. Let me help you with the water, Prince.”

  “Maybe just this once,” Prince Pineapple said, reassessing the situation. Scowling, he turned and went with Wizzy toward the little waterfall.

  Javik watched Namaba as she knelt and cradled Rebo’s head on her lap. Her red eyes had an intriguing softness to them. The light brown face was delicate and hair-framed, remotely simian, with light brown hair on her body that glistened golden in the places where sunlight touched it. Although she wore a black jacket matching Rebo’s, the only other article of clothing was a yellow ribbon with black polka dots secured to the mane of her long neck. Catching Javik’s intense gaze, she looked away shyly.

  As Javik had nearly finished filling the pods before the interruption, it did not take Wizzy and the prince long to complete the task. Prince Pineapple filled the second pod, and Wizzy capped it, sticking the cap to his underside with suction and then spinning it securely over the pod opening.

  “Whee!” Wizzy said as he spun.

  When they returned, Javik was still looking at Namaba. Glancing up at Prince Pineapple as the prince brought back one of the pods, Javik said, “They’re going with us. I don’t want to lug that water and a survival pack across the desert.”

  “No argument by me,” Prince Pineapple said. “That water’s heavy.” He went for the other pod.

  “But what will they eat?” Wizzy asked, hovering at Javik’s side.

  “I’m not sure we need to be concerned with that,” Javik said. He secured his holster to his belt and slipped the gun into it. Then he fumbled in the survival pack. Locating a roll of nylon cord, he said, “Maybe we’ll use ‘em till they drop.”

  Namaba looked at Javik in a way that made him regret the statement. It was a scolding expression, the reproachful look a child might receive from its mother.

  Javik looked away uneasily, wishing he had not snapped at everyone. He was tired and in a mean mood, feeling that events were slipping from his control, and with a hunger pang knawing incessantly at his belly. He cut off a length of cord. “This will secure our water pods to that big guy,” he said.

  As Prince Pineapple returned with the other pod, Javik focused on the shovel and nutrient cord attached to the prince’s belt. Maybe, Javik thought. Maybe I could . . . Javik resolved to wait until the last possible moment before making such a radical decision—the moment when there were no more scraps of food in the pack.

  Early that afternoon the travelers reached a high wall of closely fitted granite stones. Prince Pineapple said this comprised a portion of the rock bowl holding Dusty Desert. A howling wind blew on the other side of the wall, filling the air above them with particles of grit.

  “According to legend,” Prince Pineapple said, “this was once a great high lake. But it dried up long ago, leaving only sand and dust.”

  “Dust?” Wizzy said. “I understand the sand, but the dust-that is another matter, beyond my geologic knowledge.”

  “Don’t worry your lumpy nucleus about it,” Javik said. “We have to cross this thing, whether you understand its origin or not.”

  “One must seek to comprehend,” Wizzy said. “One must always seek to comprehend.”

  Prince Pineapple found a way of scaling the wall, stepping in narrow rock chinks with the sides of his shoes. Reaching the top, he removed his beanie and knelt to protect himself from the wind.

  Javik followed, then dropped his Tasnard rope over the edge to bring up the water pods. After this, he dropped the rope back, mentoing it to help Namaba and Rebo up. Javik kept his distance from the Moravians, and always held one hand near his holstered pistol.

  The howling wind subsided now. Javik looked out on the desert, watching dry, powdery dust and sand swirl in little whirlpools. A number of red, yellow, and blue AmFed garbage cannisters were scattered about, half buried.

  Prince Pineapple walked the wall to Javik’s left, searching for a way down to the desert floor. A mottled black and gray rat dashed across the top of one of the prince’s shoes. It paused nearby, staring up at him with beady, bulbous little eyes. Then it scampered down the wall to the desert, disappearing in a mound of dusty soil.

  Prince Pineapple knelt and looked over the edge where the rodent had descended. “Here’s a good place,” he said, stuffing his helicopter beanie in his back pocket. Finding a foothold, he lowered the other leg carefully, locating a second chink to support his weight. Soon his leafy headress was below the top of the wall.

  The wind picked up again as Javik descended.

  When all were gathered at the bottom, Wizzy surveyed the great expanse of Dusty Desert, rolling his cat’s eye gaze around in awe. “We have to cross that?” he asked.

  “Only an early obstacle,” Prince Pineapple said. “There will be others. Some may not be shown on the scroll.” Moha, he thought. Now, what is that?

  They brought forth the Sacred Scroll and studied it.

  “No headings shown here,” Javik said. “We’ll have to guess on a course.” Glancing at the map and getting his bearings as best he could, Javik sighted across the desert along his outstretched arm. “Off that way, I’d say.”

  While Prince Pineapple put the scroll away, Javik mentoed his wrist digital to activate the land compass feature. “Three-five-two,” Javik said. “That’s our course.”

  Prince Pineapple kicked at a clump of sandy dirt.

  “I’ll carry your shovel and barbed cord now,”
Javik said, touching the prince’s arm.

  “Wha-what?” Prince Pineapple’s scaly brown face took on the twisted countenance of surprised rage.

  “I’m in charge of this mission, and I’ve just given you an order.”

  The prince glared down at Javik. “You’re in charge? Wherever did you get that idea?”

  “You question my authority?” Javik asked, his tone menacing. He placed one hand on the handle of his automatic pistol and looked up at the prince with his best icy stare. Javik knew the stare was fear-inspiring. Once, someone had called it a “death stare.” It was the sort of thing that could send women and small children scurrying for safety.

  Prince Pineapple was no match for the death stare. His gaze flitted away nervously. “But why must you have my nutrient kit?” he asked. “Surely you don’t intend to attempt a charge on yourself?”

  “It has occurred to me. But I’m not ready to take that risk. Not until the food’s gone.”

  “You feel this will control me in some way, then?” Prince Pineapple stared at the ground as he spoke. He sniffed the warm odor of sun-drenched dust.

  Javik smiled stiffly. As Wizzy and the Moravians watched, Javik gripped Prince Pineapple’s arm.

  “Ow!” Prince Pineapple said. Angrily, he pulled away and removed the shovel, cord, and sheath.

  Javik secured them to his own belt.

  They covered their mouths and noses with scarves, then ventured out on the desert, with everyone walking ahead of 3avik. This was at his command, for he was feeling increasingly alienated from everyone in the group. Javik’s feet slipped often in the mixture of sand and dirt. He wondered why. It should be less slippery than sand alone.

  Aw, to hell with the answer, Javik thought. I’m getting like Wizzy.

  Hearing Javik’s thoughts with the red star crystal embedded in his nucleus, Wizzy studied a bit of gritty sand adhering to the agate dome over his eye. Let me see, Wizzy thought. Intermingled face-centered cubic crystals and young, rich latosol . . . an odd combination of old and new geology.