Dumpiter

by David Fletcher

  'Oh yes,' smirked Lysaars. 'And just what is it to do with then, O-mighty Know-it-all Mr Guvner? Space-fever? Inebriation? Epilepsy?'

  'No,' replied Langail, 'jitzies.'

  Lysaars' face froze.

  'Jitzies? What do you mean, jitzies?'

  'I think you know full well what I mean, my dear Lysaars. Jitzies are…'

  'Yes, yes, I know what jitzies are. What I mean is why the bloody hell are you suggesting it's them? This is the Ennovator we're on, not one of those effin' junk buckets we painted up back on Dumpiter. We didn't get onto the wrong ship, you know.'

  'I know we didn't,' observed Langail quietly.

  'So why suggest jitzies? The raydox in this ship is the pukka stuff. I know. I make damn sure about things like that. So shut your mouth about jitzies, old man. You don't know what you're talking about.'

  'Oh, but I'm afraid I do. You see…'

  'Stop it, you old fool. If you think for one minute that I'd believe anyone's managed to switch the raydox in the Ennovator, you're out of your mind. This ship's had a round the clock guard on it, and there simply hasn't been the time to do a switch anyway. It takes days to do that and you know it.'

  'It doesn't take days to drain it. It's the re-raydoxing that takes the time.'

  'What?' coughed Lysaars.

  'And if you think your round the clock guard is any more use than a concrete life jacket, then you're a bigger fool than I thought.'

  'What? What do you mean?'

  'I mean, Mr Lysaars sir, that this ship, the one we're on now, has no raydox in it at all, not the real thing nor any of Mr Xu's stuff. My man, Trellahell, had all the time he needed to drain it. But, as you quite rightly observe, there wasn't the time to put anything back. And, of course, no need to, no need at all.'

  Lysaars stared at Langail. His brain was whirring round - trying desperately to come to terms with what he'd just heard. But then he was distracted. Rattlepitt had burst into a fit of the giggles. Two plates and a saucer had descended onto an oversized soup bowl, with the plates breaking up and the saucer rolling clean across the table and onto the floor. And Rattlepitt had clearly found it amusing.

  'What the fuck!' shrieked Lysaars. 'Stop it, you ugly great insect, or I'll knock your fucking head off. Clean off your fucking body. Get it?'

  Rattlepitt got nothing at all. He just leant over the table and collected together a few bits of shiny cutlery for his next juggling trick.

  'You're wasting your time, Lysaars,' said Langail. 'You must understand. He's got the jitzies. Bad. He won't respond to any amount of shouting - or to any threats. You might as well ignore him.'

  'Crap!' shouted Lysaars. 'You're winding me up. Even assuming this man of yours did manage to drain the ship… And I don't for a moment believe that he did. But if he did, it hardly explains why you were so happy to join us. If I were in your situation - you know, being taken onto a ship that I knew hadn't got any raydox in it - well, I'd have done whatever it took not to get on it. And I mean, whatever. Hell, anything would be better than ending up on an unshielded ship. Anything!'

  'Not, my dear Lysaars, if you were a broken man who had failed your planet. But then had one last chance to make amends. One last chance to kill a disease at its source, a disease that you yourself had made its people endure. No, it wouldn't be then.'

  'Bullshit!' responded Lysaars. But there was now a hesitancy in his tone and he realised he'd begun to feel clammy.

  'OK,' he went on, 'if this ship's got no raydox in it, why's it not shaking itself about then? It's been as smooth a flight as I've ever known. You're lying, Langail. So forget it. I'm not impressed.'

  He reached over for one of the boiled eggs that Rattlepitt hadn't yet used in his juggling act. He was going to put a full stop to this conversation and get back to some sensible eating - and ignore these two fools…

  But then, as he lifted the egg from its bowl, the Ennovator juddered. It went on for almost ten seconds. Then there was complete quiet. Lysaars could hear his heart pounding. He looked up and Langail was wearing a look of contentment on his face. There wasn't a trace of glee or malice there - or even the relish of another's discomfort - but just pure contentment.

  Lysaars knew then that it was all over. Langail had been telling the truth. He didn't have to wait for the second judder to be sure. And when it did come, just two minutes later, he hardly noticed. He was slumped in his chair, and he was sobbing like a child.

  When, five minutes after that, the third and final judder came, Langail still wore a mask of contentment, Rattlepitt was still juggling - now with an impossible combination of toothpicks and jam pots - and Lysaars was chewing some oefedge. But he didn't realise he was. It was just an automatic reaction - of someone in deep shock, of someone who knew he was stuffed. The judder caused his whole body to shake. And as it grew in intensity, the oefedge box he was holding in his hand vibrated, and it began to spill its contents into his lap. The last thing he saw was a piece of thick, green, honey-buzzard oefedge, the one piece of eggshell that remained in his otherwise empty delicacy box. After that, both the eggshell and Lysaars were gone.

  As was every trace of the Ennovator…

  77.

  Renton couldn't keep his eyes off Madeleine. On their way back from the arena, he was constantly on the lookout for the slightest clue that Madeleine had finally succumbed to Lysaars' unremembering. Although quite what he would have done if he'd have spotted anything, he had no idea. If she'd have begun to act strangely - or if she'd have looked as though she was about to expire - he wouldn't have had a clue what to do.

  So it was just as well she didn't. And that she was still the regular and unexpired Madeleine when they finally made it back to FRODUP HQ - where, waiting for them, was the disreputable Doggerbat, still showing the marks of Boz's earlier assault. Only now he didn't look particularly disreputable at all. He just looked alarmingly happy.

  'Doggerbat!' started Boz. 'Hey yeah, this is Doggerbat,' he continued, turning to Narry, 'the guy we told you about, ole Lysaars' mate, the one who decided he didn't want to be quite so matey no more…'

  'He's dead,' interrupted Doggerbat. 'Lysaars is dead.'

  'What!' shrieked Madeleine.

  'What… You mean… You mean…' added Renton, entirely redundantly.

  'I mean his locater's dead, the one I told you about. It went off a few minutes ago. Just as Trellahell said it would. The bugger's dead alright. I'd stake my life on it…

  'Who's Trellahell?' asked Narry.

  'Langail's servant. And the guy who emptied the raydox out of the Ennovator on Langail's orders. So when Lysaars next flew in it…'

  'What!' interrupted Narry. 'You mean the Ennovator's disintegrated? And Lysaars has gone with it? Is that what you're saying?'

  'Well, from what I understand, they don't so much disintegrate as sort of dematerialise. Like pretty explosively. But yeah, my not very nice boss… well, he ain't with us no more.'

  'But…' started Narry.

  '…Langail must have known that there was a pretty good chance he'd be in it too,' finished Doggerbat. 'But I think that was what he intended. He wanted to… you know, make amends, as it were.'

  Narry didn't respond. He just stared at Doggerbat, clearly trying to take in the significance of what he'd just heard - for Dumpiter and for his own feelings for the planet's now departed Guvner.

  And it was in this silent interlude that Boz asked his question, the same one that Renton would have asked had he not been terrified by the prospect of the wrong answer. It was directed at Doggerbat and it was: 'What about the transmitter?'

  'It was with him,' came the immediate reply. 'I'm sure of it. And that means it's gone as well. And…'

  'And if it's gone, so has the danger,' interrupted Renton. 'The unremembering stuff - it's been stopped in its tracks.

  'Madeleine, you're OK! You're OK! We've done it! We've done it!'

  And then he threw his arms around her and hugged her as though he intended to stic
k to her forever. Which was by no means impossible… He was, after all, still covered in a thick layer of industrial effluent, which not only had the stinking power of glue but also its sticking power as well…

  …but Madeleine didn't seem to mind. Obviously, the prospect of being stuck to this idiot - or even with this idiot - for as long as this idiot liked, was a prospect she now welcomed. And this, despite all her still-intact memories of his… well, let's say his “uneven performance” (and to be honest, no promise of a more even performance in the future, either)…

  78.

  So the adventure was over. But the story was not…

  For whilst Dumpiter might now be free of Lysaars, it was still a very long way from being free of the devastation wreaked on it by centuries of abuse. And there was the small matter of a vast fleet of unsafe freighters out there. Not to mention the disparate remnants of Lysaars' criminal network - which might just warrant some attention. In short, there was an awful lot of cleaning up to do - in every sense of the word.

  But it got done. All of it. More quickly and more thoroughly than Renton - or anyone - would have dared hope. Because when what had been happening on Dumpiter - and the resultant state of Dumpiter - became general knowledge throughout the populated universe, the population of the universe really pulled its finger out.

  The recycled spaceships were dealt with first. In a matter of days, the records on Dumpiter and a set of secret records on Crabbsbab had been used to identify them all. Within days after that, they'd all been recalled, grounded and impounded. There would be no more disappearing spaceships - and no more disappearing spaceship stories. The universe's news channels had been robbed of one of their best airtime fillers ever - forever.

  Then Lysaars' affiliates were tracked down. There were more than anybody had imagined. But largely through Doggerbat's memory, which proved a revelation, and his zeal, which was equally astonishing, they were all rounded up. From the likes of the scumbag, Gruspic, to the most insignificant collaborator on the farthest flung planet, they were all hooked and netted. It took years after that to decide their various punishments, but they were all punished. And some of them terminally…

  The most difficult cases to deal with were those of the mad professors - the motley collection of seekers after eternal life. Some, like the already ionised Rattlepitt, were found to have had more than just a passing acquaintance with Lysaars' criminal activities, and they got a number of volumes of the proverbial book thrown at them. Others were simply fools, innocent in their intent and entirely unaware of what Lysaars was up to. They received no punishment at all other than a sudden and permanent withdrawal of their funding. And they received little in the way of sympathy for their reduced circumstances. Well, poverty was good for the soul, wasn't it? And wasn't the soul what eternal life was all about anyway?'

  …and meanwhile, of course, there was Dumpiter to sort out.

  The universe was shamed into the biggest clean-up project it had ever undertaken. If people knew about Dumpiter at all - and few did - then they had no idea of the way it had been abused. So, when they found out, they were consumed with a communal guilt. So much so that the locals' little venture into spaceship re-use was pushed aside as a total irrelevance. After all, the planet had suffered so badly and for so long, hadn't it? And all that anybody wanted to do now was to see it put right - and very soon.

  It was a stupendous task to take on: the restoration of an entire planet, a planet coated in filth, pollution and centuries of thrown-away junk. It was barely imaginable that it could be done. But the universe was an enormous place. Its resources pushed at the edges of the infinite. If it wanted to do something, even on a planetary scale, it could do it.

  And it had the help of the Dumpiterians themselves, Dumpiterians whose morale had never been higher. They had, after all, rid themselves of Lysaars. And they could now contemplate ridding themselves of that nightmare they'd known as their life. And they had new leaders, people who had kept the flame of self-pride alive throughout the worst of times and who had sparked the beginning of all that now seemed possible: the leaders of FRODUB.

  Just five weeks after the freighter dock at Scorran had witnessed the most famous war-paint incident of all time, it was being cleared of the junk that had lain there for years. It was being prepared as one of the many receiving sites for the aid and equipment about to pour in.

  It came in a torrent. The skies over Dumpiter were filled with inbound freighters for month after month as everything you'd ever need to clean up and rebuild a planet with but had never dared ask for was delivered to the Dumpiterians - along with the hundreds of thousands of trained volunteers who'd come to help out.

  For a year or more the focus was on clean up. Scrap heaps were fed into giant machines, state-of-the-art marvels, which could recycle and re-form just about anything you cared to mention. The landscape began to change from a pickle of dumps of every description into an open-air warehouse of stockpiles - of metal sheeting - and of metal girders and metal panels and plastic panels and plastic bars - and plastic sheeting and foam blocks - and more sorts of other stuff than you could ever imagine. Machines were chewing up the spoil on Dumpiter and spitting it out as building material for a new world. Nothing existed anywhere on the planet that could not be converted from absolute dross into something useful.

  And when enough of these building blocks had been gathered together, the rebuilding was started. Dumpiter was to be re-modelled - but carefully and sensitively. It would take time but it would be done properly. The universe and the Dumpiterians were really going to get this one right.

  If Langail had been able to return, just two years after his final journey from his home planet, he would have been able to recognise it only because the same sun followed the same arc across the same sky. Otherwise it had been totally transformed.

  It was clean, beautifully clean. Even the drifts of styrene strips, which had coated its surface, had gone - forever. They now formed the insulation for millions of new homes. And they were homes, not hovels. And there were bigger buildings as well. New factories. Offices. Shops. Stadia.

  But most striking of all, there was greenness. Not the powerful deep green of mature forest and dense jungle, but the pale marbled green of new life - newly planted saplings - and shrubs, grass banks, a few mosses here and there, the beginnings of what the planet had almost forgotten it had been. It was no less than stunning. The Dumpiterians had been given back their world.

  They had also been given the facilities to keep it, to sustain it and to maintain this fantastic improvement. Dumpiter would still be the breakers' yard for the universe, but the same equipment that had so successfully formed this new world out of the old would now be used to recycle the redundant spacecraft - as they should always have been - into just useful material with no waste and no spoil. The process would now be clinical rather than diabolical.

  They were set up with a new world and a new future. A leap forward in their fortunes for which, in a perverse way, Lysaars had been the agent. Not that anyone ever thanked him. No, gratitude was reserved for Narry and his men - and a handful of odd outworlders, and the generosity of the universe - and Langail. In fact, for Langail most of all…

  79.

  And so that just leaves Dumpiter's leading citizens - and how they fared themselves…

  Like Narry, for example, who, within days of Langail's death, had been installed as the caretaker Guvner of Dumpiter. Langail had left no descendants, and Narry seemed the ideal choice to run the planet and oversee its reconstruction. He did a fantastic job. And no more than six months after he'd first been appointed, his efforts had earned him the removal of “caretaker” from his title. The house of Zubfraim had ascended to the throne of Dumpiter. And it would stay there for generations.

  Pipkim, Narry's lieutenant, became the first commander-in-chief of the planet's newly formed army, a force designed more to assist in the clean-up and rebuilding programme than to have any real military purpose. It w
as, however, staffed with an officer corps drawn from the underground militia that had fought so successfully against Lysaars' men. And it included in its ranks two of that militia's former enemies.

  Pipkim visited his troops, met emissaries from other planets, toured the new bases and the new towns - and travelled wherever he could - in a battered old jeeper he'd driven himself as Narry's lieutenant. But now it was driven by a sergeant-driver by the name of Doggerbat. And when he returned in this ancient boneshaker after another long and arduous day - which was life in the mending Dumpiter - his batman, one private Chegeta, would make his homecoming a comfortable one. Dumpiterians were known not to bear grudges indefinitely and they were pragmatists as well. And besides, Pipkim liked Doggerbat and Chegeta. And whose army was it anyway?

  That was the sort of sentiment that another ex-member of FRODUB would have understood, a former soldier-agent who had now abandoned that aspect of his life entirely.

  He'd given it up to pursue the real love of his life. Not in the form that he'd dreamed of previously, but in a way that was arguably better. After all, why design just women's costumes when instead you could design what you liked?

  And he could do just that.

  Dumpiter had its first new theatre in generations. And its brand new principal costume designer was a crumpled old bloke from the Pummisson Plateau by the name of Dopotompo.

  He called his studio at the theatre the Easipeas Room. He was one of the happiest people on the planet.

  But what of our principal adventurers? What happened to Renton? What happened to Madeleine? And where did Boz end up?

  Well, let's just say that Renton never really became a graduate in the art of face-painting - or body-painting, for that matter. And Madeleine never became a film star - or even a porn star. Instead, they both just grew up a bit. Not enough to become completely sensible and not enough to let love replace lust. But easily enough to realise that their adventure had made them different people - and closer to each other than either of them would ever have thought possible. And that's not just in terms of their need for each other but also in terms of their need for excitement.