Dumpiter

by David Fletcher

  'Umm, I see,' conceded Narry. 'Well, I don't think I'm in any position to stop you. But…'

  He frowned. He was clearly resolving a question in his mind. Then he went on.

  'Well, if we do point you towards the palace, I think you ought to know exactly what's going on here. Because I don't think you do. And it may be important. For all of you. I mean, it may save your lives.'

  'Can't think of any better reason,' announced Boz. 'An' to tell you the truth, I'm dyin' to know anyway. Like how this here Lysaars is runnin' his business an' all.'

  'Umm, and I suspect it's not quite how you imagine he is,' countered Narry. 'And so you understand completely, I'd better start at the beginning.'

  'Suits me,' said Boz. 'Shoot when you want.'

  'OK,' started Narry, 'first things first. And that means I need to explain our situation here on Dumpiter. What it's like for the whole population here. And in a nutshell, we're all prisoners here. Lysaars had made damn sure that there's no way we can leave this planet. And on top of that, he's rounded up the few Bastards we used to own. So we now can't even send messages. And that means we're not only his prisoners, but we're also completely isolated. And I do mean completely.

  'There are, of course, the foreign delivery crews who bring the old ships here. And the odd official who pops in to police the scrapping process. But we're never allowed to get anywhere near them. Lysaars' men see to that. Just as they see to the paint getting here - under the guise of milk shipments. But I think you already know that.'

  Boz nodded. 'Yeah, ole Renton here worked that one out.'

  'Right. Well, anyway, we're on our own here. And nobody in the rest of the universe knows our plight…'

  'You mean, the state of this planet?' interrupted Renton.

  'That and more,' responded Narry. 'But let me go on.'

  'Of course,' mumbled Renton.

  And Narry did go on.

  'Do you know what raydox is?' he asked.

  Well yes. All three of his audience knew exactly what raydox was. Everybody did. It was a fluid, a quite unique fluid, which was very rarely seen but without which the populated universe could not have been colonised - and without which interplanetary space flight would still be impossible. For raydox was the only substance in the universe that could act as an effective barrier to all those zillions of sub-atomic particles that whizzed about in space. And for that reason it was found as a bubble-thin liquid layer in the skin of every spaceship in the universe. Even their windows had a raydox film sandwiched between their layers. Without the raydox envelope a spaceship could not operate. Everybody knew this.

  But why had Narry posed this question? Why this strange non-sequitor. And why now? All three of his guests were clearly puzzled. But despite their shared confusion - and Renton's dawning recollection of Gruspic's fleeting reference to the substance - they all still managed to respond to Narry's question - not with words but with a nod of the head…

  'Do you know what happens if a spaceship operates without raydox - either in hyper or normal space?' continued Narry.

  The response on this occasion was not synchronised nodding but looks of mild embarrassment. Raydox was such a basic, all-pervading part of space travel that it was never really given a second thought. And Renton and his colleagues were amongst those who had no idea what a sans-raydox status would mean. After all, it never happened.

  'OK, well I'll tell you. First of all the crew would be affected. The various particles - which would now be free to whistle through the ship - would attack their brains. They'd go doolally. They'd act in all sorts of unnatural ways.'

  'The jitzies!' exclaimed Boz.

  'Exactly,' confirmed Narry. 'The jitzies. And there's no way of avoiding them. All the time they're in space…'

  'Or just afterwards. They can go on like for a while after they've landed, can't they?' added Boz.

  'Yes. That's right,' replied Narry. 'For quite some time, I believe…'

  Renton and Madeleine both exchanged knowing looks with Boz as Narry continued. 'As you can imagine, the jitzies can be very bad news. Irrational behaviour isn't usually very safe behaviour. But that's not the worst of it. These particles streaming through a spaceship have a rather more serious consequence. They'll attack its engine as well as its crew. And whether it's an old neutron job or a fiz-fuz, the engine will always succumb - and with literally devastating results.

  'What happens - and I confess I don't understand the physics here - but what happens is that the particles cause some sort of surge in the engine. And I'm told that if you're on a ship where this is happening, you will feel it. And it may even be visible as a huge vibration - if you're observing the ship from the outside.'

  Renton interrupted. 'Does… I mean, can that happen even when the ship's come out of deep space? I mean, like when it's in a planet's atmosphere? Errh, like when it's docking, for example?'

  'Oh yes,' replied Narry. 'Once the process has started, it's… well, it's sort of cumulative. As far as I understand, even a dormant engine could surge - and it could happen anywhere. It's just more likely to happen in flight because then it's getting hit by more and more particles. And I suppose most ships spend most of their time in flight anyway - and not in dock. But yes, the surges can happen anywhere.'

  Renton gazed at the image that had now filled his mind. It was the image of an enormous shiny red and silver freighter coming in to dock at Ranamavana spaceport - and shivering. He remembered it so well. And now he knew his eyes had not deceived him. He had seen that great craft behaving impossibly. But now he knew that it wasn't impossible after all.

  'And the fact that the effect is cumulative has an inevitable result. The surges begin to grow in intensity. And the last one, as far as anybody can tell… well, it seems to involve a sort of super-surge in the engine. I mean the engine grows and extends throughout every molecule of the ship. The whole ship becomes the engine. But only very briefly. A few nano-seconds later and it's oblivion. This ship-engine monster disintegrates in the only way a neutron or a fiz-fuz can. It explodes into nothingness. Its mass becomes energy and it ceases to be. And it goes without saying that so does the crew. We have a disappeared spacecraft. Ring any bells?'

  'Just a few,' responded Renton, 'just a few.'

  Madeleine looked puzzled. 'You'll have to forgive me,' she said, 'but I can't quite see how this raydox problem ties in with the paint scam. I thought… although I confess I'm a little confused now, but I thought that these ships had disappeared because Lysaars was stealing them - to repaint them. But you're telling us something completely different, aren't you?'

  'I certainly am,' responded Narry. 'And that's why I'm giving you this briefing. You do need to understand everything. And that, I'm afraid, even includes "the systems".'

  He closed his eyes for a second, as though bringing an old lesson to mind, and then he went on.

  'You see, there are certain systems connected with the way raydox is used. Because, as you might imagine, there have to be some really tight controls to ensure that every ship gets its full quota of raydox - and that it can't get a licence to operate without some guarantee that the raydox is in there and the ship is fully protected. This is where the Raydox Executive comes in - the RE as they're known. They check every ship that's built - and its raydox shielding. And on top of that they tag the raydox liquid in every ship - with a unique radioactive tracer. So every ship's got its own recognisable and unique dose of the stuff. It's only after the RE have done their job and issued the necessary paperwork that our friends at the Pan-Universal Registration Council will issue an operating licence. There's total reliance within the systems on the RE. Too much in fact - as Lysaars realised. But I digress. Let me go on.

  'Years have gone by and our licensed spaceship - let's say it's a freighter - has lived out its useful life. And now it's fit for nothing other than the breaker's yard. It's time for it to visit Dumpiter. We're the only planet in the universe, my friends, that every spaceship ever built visits at le
ast once in its life. And, of course, generally it's the last one it visits.

  'So our freighter arrives here, and we start to dismantle it. Only first the raydox has to be dealt with. And what happens is we drain it - and then we barrel it. You can get all the raydox off the biggest freighter into just two small barrels. One barrel does for the smaller stuff. And then the barrels are collected by RE cargo launches. And they test and check the contents. They make sure the right amount of the right raydox has come out of the right ship. And only then can we go ahead and break the thing up.

  'They notify the Pan-Universal Registration Council. They cancel the operating licence and that ship can never fly again. And it's not as though we can just wait until the RE's back's turned and decide not to dismantle it. Because we couldn't ever get the raydox back - or a new licence. The freighter's no longer a ship. It's just junk.

  'That's the system. The system that's been in place for hundreds of years now. And infallible for all those years…

  'Oh, and incidentally the RE reprocess the raydox and the next time it gets injected into a new ship, it's retagged and so the process goes on. They hold all the raydox there is - or they know where it is - in which spaceship. Nobody else can get his hands on it… Which is why a certain clever little bastard called Xu cooked up his own version of the stuff. All on his own. And then this Xu bloke met Lysaars. And guess what. Lysaars knew exactly what to do with this counterfeit raydox - how they could use it to make themselves rich. You're probably ahead of me now, but I'll finish the story anyway. There's a few further twists you still need to know.

  'As you've seen, Dumpiter is a mess. We live on the most blighted planet in the universe. Our livelihood has been the ruin of this world. Over the centuries the way we've dismantled spaceships - and just part-recycled them - has turned what was once a green world into a nightmare world. Life here is grim. And I mean really grim. And you can easily imagine how receptive anyone would be to an idea that held out the promise of change. And not only change but renewal, nothing less than the re-greening of Dumpiter, something that would wipe away the years of despoilment - and the years of despair. Lysaars came with that idea. He came with a plan. A scheme that would make our world so wealthy it could clean itself, wash off its grime and make a new start. And that scheme was as simple as it was wicked.

  'We would use Xu's near cousin of raydox. And we'd use it to re-shield some freighters - some of the freighter hulks that had been drained of the real stuff and left here as junk. We could refurbish them, enough anyway to extend their lives a bit, and then we could paint them. And then we'd have some spaceships that could be passed off as serviceable vehicles and fed back into the system. At a price, of course. And as you know, even old spaceships command fortunes these days.'

  'And you got false licences from Gruspic,' interrupted Renton. 'Only how can he do that? There must be some controls in place - you know - in the Registration Council - to prevent people doing that…'

  'There are, I believe,' said Narry, 'but they've become so reliant on the RE - whose methods are watertight, believe me - that they've let their own procedures slip. They're now completely ineffective. Gruspic can do as he likes.'

  'This rubbish raydox doesn't work, does it?' enquired Renton.

  'No, it doesn't,' replied Narry quietly. 'We thought it did - when we went along with the idea. That's to say when Langail our Guvner agreed to it - with popular support, I might add. But it wasn't too long before its real qualities became only too obvious. It's not as though it doesn't work at all. And in fact, there are some freighters out there now where all may be well and will stay well indefinitely. But there are others where the Xu raydox is really bad - and where problems emerge quickly…' he lowered his voice '…and these are the ones that have already gone - or could go at any time. And there are others… well, the majority in fact, where the raydox is probably… well no, where the raydox is certainly degrading. And when it's degraded enough - then they'll go and disappear too.'

  'Jeeze!' said Boz. 'How many of these babies you got out there?'

  'Nearly five thousand,' said Narry slowly.

  'Five thousand?!' exclaimed Madeleine. 'How can there be that many? That's unbelievable.'

  'I wish it were, Madeleine. But I'm afraid you forget the size of the universe and the number of spaceships in operation - and what that means for the number we scrap. We've had no problem at all in pushing out that number in less than three years. And if you don't believe me, just think about how much paint we've got through, how much we've taken from Spazum.'

  'God, this is a bloody sight worse than I ever imagined' said Renton. 'Are these ships… are they all freighters, or is there passenger stuff out there as well?'

  'They're mostly freighters. They're much easier to slide back into the market. There's a few small passenger ships, but they're that much more difficult to pass off. The operators have a few more rules to adhere to. And they tend to be a bit picky about what they take on - as you might well imagine.'

  'Well, that's a crumb of good news, I suppose,' said Renton, 'but not much more than a crumb.

  'And crikey, it's not even as though this place is good news, is it?'

  'No, it isn't,' responded Narry. 'And that's the other part of our problem. As well as being drawn into a scheme that is killing people - and stands a very good chance of killing a great many more people - we've also managed to choose a scheme that isn't paying. Whatever Lysaars has been getting for the ships, it simply hasn't been coming our way. There've always been excuses. Always costs to deal with - which has meant that any income's been deferred - indefinitely. In fact, I don't believe this planet's earned a single penny from all this terrible wickedness. Crazy, isn't it?'

  'So why haven't you kicked the bastard out already? Why hasn't there been some sort of uprising against him? Why are you still… well, you know - still underground? I don't understand.'

  'The answer's easy, Renton,' responded Narry. 'And it falls into two parts. The first is Lysaars' thug army with its thug tactics - and its thug weaponry. And we've none. And the second is our population's misguided loyalty to Langail. They just don't want to rise against their leader. And before you ask, our leader does still lend his official support - to Lysaars' scheme, that is. And I used to think he did this because he couldn't let go of his dream - of turning his terrible inheritance into a place of beauty. But now I suspect it's nothing to do with dreams and more to do with weakness. Our leader has become feeble, frightened and feeble, and too weak to make a stand…

  'And so, as you can see, we've got ourselves into a real mess. And considering the state of this place when we started, that's quite an achievement.'

  'I can't dispute that,' said a shocked and sobered Renton. 'It's a real pisser. It really is.'

  'Well, anyway,' continued Narry, 'now you know what's going on here. And what sort of villain you're dealing with. Lysaars isn't just a crook. He's a monster. And he's dangerous, very dangerous. And you'd be well advised to remember that.'

  'We will,' confirmed Renton. 'But what are you going to do? I mean, can't you do anything - even if it's just on your own? You know, without Langail? Hell, there must be something you can do to stop all this nonsense.'

  Narry sighed a long sigh, and the lines on his face seemed to deepen.

  'There may be. But that's all I can say. And, Mr Tenting, that's our concern. Yours, as you've already pointed out, is to help your colleague here. And that's what you should now do. I haven't told you all this to win your sympathy - or your opprobrium. I've told it you to help you, to make sure you don't unwittingly fall into any traps. And to make you aware of just what you're up against, and just how difficult a task you're taking on. And remember. It's not just Lysaars. It's all his gangsters as well. There's a whole army of them out there. And a fair number of them will be around the palace. I can guarantee it.'

  'Yeah,' said Boz. 'I think we get the picture, Mr Zubfraim. And we thank you for your time and for your explanation. But if
we stays here any more time, we'll probably start to see sense. An' that wouldn't be too healthy for our young Madeleine here.

  'So what say you to givin' us some directions directly like? An' then we'll be on our way. Like away straightaway. An' without no delay…'

  Narry smiled.

  'Well, if you put it like that, my friend, I think we may be able to go one better. Like, how about us taking you there? Direct delivery rather than direct directions. How would that suit you?'

  'Perfect,' pronounced Boz. 'But on the understandin' it ain't in that easipeas thing. Shoot, I don't mind bein' taken, but I do mind bein' shaken. An' I sure hate bein' shaken to hell…'

  52.

  While they waited for their lift to the palace, Madeleine had conducted and lost a debate with her two male companions. The motion had concerned the wrongs of endangering three lives when only one was at risk, and in specific terms, the ill-advisability of dragging Renton and Boz into a perilous situation when it was only Madeleine who needed to go.

  It was a two to one defeat, with neither Renton nor Boz finding anything good to say about the proposition, but instead both putting forward the view that Madeleine would have to incapacitate them completely to stop them coming along. And that, as her succeeding in this endeavour was about as likely as Boz succeeding in passing himself off as a cup-cake, she might as well just save her breath, put the motion to the vote, and let them get on with it - all three of them.

  So now they were on their way, Madeleine, her two limpets, and a guy by the name of Pipkim, one of Narry's lieutenants. He was driving their ramshackle jeeper. And he was giving them some advice.

  '…so I think it's your only chance. And it might even be better to try it separately. Three cloaked figures, all walking in together, might well cause suspicion…'

  And that, God help them, was the extent of their plan: dress up in cloaks, pretend to be three of Lysaars thugs, walk into the palace, and then, as usual, work out what to do from there. And Renton's cloak wasn't even a proper cloak. It was a curtain, with a nice bit of pencil pleating round the neck - the only thing they'd been able to find. And even though it was a fairly subdued green, it clashed awfully with his wellies.