The Garbage Chronicles

by Brian Herbert

  Soon Javik’s bare right foot was wrapped in the barbed cord and immersed in cool, moist soil. His foot tingled. Juices flowed up his leg to the rest of the body. Thinking of Wizzy as he recharged, he gazed dreamily across the camp toward the glistening, dark bog. There was no sign of life there. He could see one part of the log where it had split and recalled poor Wizzy there, clinging for his life.

  I miss the little fellow, Javik thought. I’d like to give him a swift kick, but damnit, I miss him.

  Javik spent extra time recharging, and this helped make up for some of the sleep he had lost. Afterward he noticed the mosquito-bite bumps on his face and neck were gone.

  He left the shovel and cord on the ground and walked down to Bottomless Bog. Javik looked out at the split log ends and across the murky, vegetation-soaked water. There were no ripples, no mosquitoes, no signs of life whatsoever.

  When Javik arrived back in camp, he saw Prince Pineapple swinging grumpily out of bed. “Damned lumpy mattress,” the prince said. He stretched, then rubbed a crick in the back of his neck. “Bedding’s damp too.”

  “Did His Royal Hind Ass wet the bed?” Javik asked.

  Nearby, Rebo opened one eye. He sat up on the ground and rubbed his hands through the fur on top of his head.

  “Certainly not!” Prince Pineapple huffed. “I was referring to dew upon my covers.”

  “I’m sure Rebo would trade his spot for your comfortable bed,” Javik said. “He slept on the ground last night.”

  “Ruffians belong on the ground,” Prince Pineapple said, casting a wary, disdainful glance at Rebo.

  Rebo lunged playfully at Prince Pineapple, stopping short.

  Prince Pineapple jumped back, then realized that Rebo was only kidding around. “Hrrumph!” the prince said.

  Javik laughed, forgetting for a moment about his problems and aches.

  Namaba emerged from the tent. Smiling at Javik, she said, “New day, old day. Gone is gone.” Seeing a surprised look on Javik’s face, she explained quickly: “Traditional Morovian greeting.”

  “Oh,” Javik said. “I thought you were talking about my mosquito bites.”

  “Gone after a recharge?” she asked.

  “Uh huh. I went down to the bog afterward. No sign of Wizzy.”

  Namaba detected hostility in Javik’s eyes as he looked at her. She moved close to him and asked, “You are angry with me?”

  “You did keep me awake last night,” he said. “Your eyes . . . ”

  “Their glow disturbed you? I’m sorry, Tom. I was awake all night, you know.”

  “But I spoke to you. There was no answer.”

  Nearby, Rebo was winning an argument with Prince Pineapple over who would recharge first.

  “I was deep in thought,” Namaba said. “Thinking of this new land and of our new love. A Morovian in a thought trance cannot hear anything. It is when all of our physical senses are shut off.”

  Javik rubbed the bridge of his nose where the scar used to be. It was smooth.

  “This place!” Namaba exclaimed, gazing out at the meadow that sloped above them. “It’s so beautiful!”

  Javik agreed.

  “If only we could stay here,” she said.

  “You mean, just pitch a tent and live in the meadow?”

  “Sure. Why not? We could use the nutrient cord for food.”

  “But what if Rebo and Prince Pineapple don’t want to stay? We’re all on one cord.”

  “Couldn’t we divide it?”

  “I don’t know,” Javik said. “Wouldn’t want to chance it.”

  After everyone had recharged, Javik was packing his gear for the day’s journey. He heard Rebo call his name from somewhere in the meadow. “Captain Tom! Come look at this!”

  Javik walked briskly, following the sound of Rebo’s voice. Over a little hill he found Rebo standing in the midst of flowers and scattered rubble. An AmFed garbage cannister lay nearby on its side, split open from head to tail.

  “Is this from Earth?” Rebo asked. He stood with his hands on his broad hips, looking up at Javik.

  Javik nodded.

  “Ooh!” Prince Pineapple said, coming up behind Javik. “What beautiful gar-bahge!”

  “I think it’s a goddamn mess,” Javik said, sniffing a peculiar, metallic odor. “We’d better be careful. I don’t see any nuclear material down there at first glance, though.”

  Javik made his way down the hill of scarlet flowers, followed by Prince Pineapple.

  As they arrived, Rebo held up a blue tintette. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Put it in your mouth,” Javik said. “See if you can find a match and light it.”

  “It’s a bomb? An Earthian suicide technique?”

  Javik laughed. Looking up the hill, he saw Namaba loping toward them. “You smoke it,” Javik said, looking back at Rebo. “Here, give it to me.”

  “Nice selection of imported gar-bahge here,” Prince Pineapple said, picking through the rubble. “Here’s a clock, a Charlie Choo-Choo lamp, and a couple of Batman comics.”

  “What’s going on here?” Namaba asked.

  Javik placed Rebo’s tintette in his own mouth. “Anyone got a light?” he asked.

  No one stepped forward.

  “Well, I wanna do this right,” Javik said with a bemused expression. “I’ll be right back.” He ran up the hill.

  “How strange,” Namaba said. She picked up three tintettes from the ground—one blue, one yellow, and one red.

  “Put them in your mouth,” Prince Pineapple said.

  Presently, Javik returned with a tin of lightweight matches. “That’s the way,” he said, seeing Namaba with three tintettes in her mouth. “You’d be a super consumer on Earth.”

  “I’m doing it right?” she asked.

  “Pick one,” Javik said. “It will be easier.”

  She kept the red tintette, discarding the others.

  “I’m gonna take some of this stuff with me,” Prince Pineapple said, loading his arms with junk.

  “Put that down for a minute,” Javik said. “Prince, you and Rebo put tintettes in your mouths too. We’re all gonna have a smoke.”

  When all had tintettes firmly grasped between their lips, Javik told them to gather in a close circle. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you, Prince?” Javik asked, as he struck a match,

  “Oh, sure,” Prince Pineapple said.

  Javik lit the tintettes, then doused the match. “Watch me,” he said, taking a deep puff. He let out a big puff of bright blue smoke.

  Rebo took a shallow puff. “Ugh!” he said, coughing. “I’m your servant now, Captain Tom, but this is asking too much!” he discarded the tintette.

  Prince Pineapple puffed and coughed too.

  Seeing red smoke curl out of Namaba’s nostrils, Javik said, “That’s it! I think she’s got it!”

  “What’s the purpose of this?” she asked, gagging. She had an aghast expression. Her eyes rolled upward.

  “I’m not much of a smoker myself,” Javik said. “It’s not a good habit to have in the cockpit.”

  “Earthians enjoy this?” she asked, picking a piece of tobacco out of her teeth.

  “It’s a leading pastime,” Javik said.

  Namaba shook her head in disbelief.

  “Look, Namaba,” Javik said, taking her arm and leading her up the hill. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to try. We see it on home video all the time.”

  She looked at him inquisitively.

  “Bring your tintette,” he said.

  They walked up the hill of scarlet flowers. The sky was blue and young, an intense, vibrant blue that has been known to grace the skies over lovers. The sweet, delicate aroma of mint touched Javik’s nostrils whenever he kept the tintette away from his nose. He felt sublime.

  Reaching a flat section of meadow at the top of the hill, Javik began to skip, sort of a jerky slow motion.

  Namaba let go of his hand and laughed. “You look so silly!” she said. “
What are you doing?”

  “I’ve seen it on home video,” Javik said. “It’s in magazines, too, and on billboards. We’re lovers, don’t you see? Frolicking in a meadow with tintettes dangling from our mouths. It’s the AmFed Dream. And we found it clear on the other side of the goddamn universe!”

  Namaba took a puff of her tintette and tried to skip. But this turned out to be more of a jerk-hop, owing to her third leg. She coughed, puffed, and laughed, trailing red smoke behind her.

  “Slower,” Javik said. “Do it slower.”

  “But why?” Namaba asked, stopping and looking at him curiously.

  “Because that’s the way it’s done on home video.”

  She skipped in slow motion, with movements that alternated between near grace and total clumsiness.

  “Better,” Javik exclaimed. He caught up with her and blew smoke in her face.

  Namaba took this as a challenge. Gleefully, she inundated his face in smoke.

  They had a short battle like this, then held hands and were off together, slowly skipping and jerk-hopping across the meadow.

  “Hey!” Prince Pineapple yelled to them. “What are you doing?”

  Javik envisioned a camera panning in on them as they frolicked in the flowers. He and Namaba were the stars of a videodome commercial, watched in more than three hundred million homes.

  “What a commercial it would be,” Javik exclaimed. “Me and a three-legger!”

  Namaba stopped and looked at him with a hurt expression. “You’re making fun of me?” she asked. She was breathing hard, with little puffs of steam coming from her ears and nostrils.

  Javik smiled. He stretched up and gave her a little peck on the lips. “I was just being silly,” he said.

  They walked back toward Rebo and Prince Pineapple. At the sight of the prince, Javik was reminded of his recurring thought. Prince Pineapple so resembled a videodome cartoon character, and now the tintettes. . . . Javik discarded his tintette.

  “Hurry!” Prince Pineapple yelled. “We’ve a long way to go today.” His arms were full of salvaged garbage.

  “Hey,” Javik said turning to Namaba. “Remember how silly Wizzy was yesterday in the woods?”

  “We’ve found our moment of happiness,” she said, flipping her tintette away with surprising expertness. Namaba looked down at Javik. Her eyes sparkled.

  This is no goddamn dream, Javik thought. And I’m glad it isn’t

  They stopped; and their lips touched in the Earth way. Javik hardly heard Prince Pineapple as he continued to yell at them. Javik and Namaba were in their own little world. He wanted it to last forever.

  Brother Carrot stood in morning sunlight on the foredeck of the Freedom One, watching his troops disembark. His fleet bobbed in gentle waves next to the granite wall that comprised the limits of the new lake. Carrot soldiers clattered down wooden gangways to the top of the wall. From there they climbed freestyle to the ground.

  “Kill the Fruits!” Brother Carrot bellowed, using a megaphone.

  His men cheered.

  When the Freedom One had been unloaded, Brother Carrot strode triumphantly down the gangway, waving his black and gold cap.

  His troops shouted and cheered their adulation.

  Lord Abercrombie watched helplessly while the Vegetable army marched on the Corker stronghold. After causing so much earthquake damage with his disaster machine, Lord Abercrombie was disaster-shy, afraid to make things worse.

  It was mid-morning when Brother Carrot led his men past Javik’s ship. Rays of sunlight glinted off the undented portions of the ship’s titanium body. Brother Carrot felt warm from the exertion of the brisk march down from what had once been Dusty Desert. He loosened his collar.

  “To victory, lads!” he yelled in the megaphone. “Send the Fruits to their gory, juicy beds!” Looking back, he saw six black and gold uniformed carrot colonels who marched in front of six columns of rifle-carrying carrot men. Each colonel sported a black and gold cap like Brother Carrot’s, except the colonel’s caps had much thinner strands of gold braid on the brims.

  The colonels passed Brother Carrot’s message on down the lines, using their own, smaller power megaphones.

  Boisterous hurrahs rose from the ranks.

  Between Brother Carrot and the colonels, fifteen of the strongest, meanest carrot men in the Vegetable army pulled a towering wood and plastic catapult. Beside that rolled the Fruit Doom bomb trailer, pulled by six carrot men. The Fruit Doom bomb was big, round, and black—a deadly sphere that Brother Carrot knew would annihilate his enemies. Being a live bomb, it buzzed loudly.

  Brother Carrot smiled at the thought of King Corker’s demise. Then he turned and thundered, “There is plunder ahead, lads! Plunder for all!”

  “Plunder!” the colonels announced to the majors, not quite as loudly as Brother Carrot.

  “Plunder!” the majors yelled in unison, their megaphoned voices not as loud as those of their superiors.

  And so the message went down the lines, until the corporals had their opportunities too. “Plunder!” they squealed gleefully.

  Bawdy cheers ran through the ranks.

  The army narrowed to double file, negotiating a trail through the woods. Then it widened to six columns again as it emerged on the other side.

  The earthquake-ravaged remains of Corker Stadium loomed ahead beneath a cerulean blue sky. Corkers and other Fruits in their path fled the advancing juggernaut. Some of the more foolish Fruits sat regally in their carriages, commanding carrot man slaves to pull them to safety. A dark cloud passed in front of the suns, throwing Corker Stadium into shadow.

  A hundred meters to his left, Brother Carrot watched a team of six carrot man slaves unharness themselves, leaving a pudgy casaba man stranded in his carriage. The casaba man was furious, and he shook his fist at them, shrieking, “Back to your stations! Back to your stations!”

  Brother Carrot waved his cap triumphantly.

  His troops cheered.

  The six freed slaves waved to Brother Carrot and shouted their support. Then they overturned the carriage, sending their pudgy former master fleeing for his life. Shouting boisterously and waving clenched fists, they ran to join their brethren in the Vegetable army.

  More slave teams joined Brother Carrot as he marched through the Corker shopping district. The slaves brought stones, clubs, and anything else on which they could lay their hands.

  The burgeoning army entered the expressway now, marching by abandoned Fruit carriages and the bodies of Fruits who had been killed by their slaves. Brother Carrot pushed down the brim of his cap, shielding his eyes from the suns.

  They rounded a turn, bringing the rocky fortress of Corker Castle into view. Brother Carrot saw Fruits streaming across a drawbridge, entering the castle through the main gate. Purple Corkers lined the walkways and ramparts, their weapons glinting in the sunlight.

  “There it is, lads!” Brother Carrot yelled, waving his cap once more.

  His men cheered again, and a thunderous cheer it was. For now the ranks were swelled with thousands of freed slaves.

  They passed a green expressway sign that read CORKER CASTLE—NEXT EXIT.”

  Now Brother Carrot increased the marching tempo, and his men quick-stepped up the exit ramp. Ahead, the castle drawbridge was being closed. Those Fruits who were not able to get sanctuary fled in all directions.

  “Onward, lads!” Brother Carrot urged. Rifle shots rang out from the castle and echoed down the valley. Then a Corker cannon roared. The cannonball arched and landed short of Brother Carrot, off to his right in a banana grove.

  A gunnery officer caught up with Brother Carrot, saying, “We should set up here, sir. We’re just out of range of their guns.”

  “Halt!” Brother Carrot boomed to his colonels.

  The command echoed down the columns, and finally the army ground to a halt.

  “Over here!” the gunnery officer barked, motioning to the carrot men in charge of the catapult.

  The c
atapult squadron positioned the big wooden siege machine on a flat parking strip. Outriggers were cranked down. Then the Fruit Doom bomb was wheeled over and loaded onto the catapult’s sling.

  “Carefully, men,” Brother Carrot said. “Load it carefully!”

  Rifle and cannon shots continued to ring out from the castle. One cannon ball rolled close to the empty bomb trailer and bounced off a fir tree.

  “Hurry men,” Brother Carrot yelled. “That was too close.”

  “Ready, sir,” the gunnery officer reported.

  “Aim carefully,”Brother Carrot said to the gunnery officer. “We’ll only get one shot.”

  “Better move it a quarter of a degree left,” the gunnery officer said, standing next to the siege machine and eyeballing the target. “And raise it just a hair.”

  Carrot men spun positioning dials as the gunnery officer spoke. A platform holding the catapult arm shifted.

  “There!” the gunnery officer shouted.

  “That’s it?” Brother Carrot asked. He heard the bomb buzzing.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then let ‘er go!” Brother Carrot shouted.

  The gunnery officer moved a toggle on the side of the catapult, causing the long mechanical arm to snap forward. The Fruit Doom bomb arched toward Corker Castle, spinning slowly in the air. To Brother Carrot, the projectile seemed to travel in slow motion. He knew it was a terrible weapon to use. But it would prevent Fruit and Vegetable deaths in the field.

  “Oh, no!” someone said. “It’s going in too low!”

  “No,” the gunnery officer said, stretching and using body motions to urge the bomb a little higher. “I think it’ll just barely . . . ”

  Brother Carrot covered his face with his hands.

  The Fruit Doom bomb arched just over the castle wall, landing in the courtyard. A mushroom-shaped black cloud rose over the doomed castle.

  This brought a tremendous cheer from the Vegetable troops.

  Brother Carrot peeked between his fingers.

  “On target, sir,” the gunnery officer reported.