Greegs & Ladders

by Mitchell Mendlow

  They also have a row of sharp carnivorous-like teeth.

  “Back to Lincra!” shouted Rip. “If there's anything left!”

  The state of things on Lincra had gotten far more intense during our quick Crabbit Collecting/Current Events mission. By now the bonfires had started to spread beyond the desired perimeter of burning. Much of the planet was to be engulfed in the hasty flames. Some of the more perceptive peasants had tried to stop the initial lighting of the fires, for they realized not only was the atmosphere of Lincra already being pushed to the brink of destruction by the daily influx of Investment Banker-guzzling space cruisers, but also the valuable wood the ladders were made from could be broken down and turned into useful, entirely non-ladder related stuff. Everyone else agreed the ritualistic cleansing of the bonfires was a more appealing thing to do. The fires were lit and the dancing and the chanting began. Reg's parking dome compound was the only safe haven from the wild blaze. We found the old goblin drunkenly passed out beside a half-eaten plate of Crabbits. He must have been fairly wasted to have not finished the meal.

  A multitude of surveillance technology encircled Reg's compound, and yet our ship, being one that does impossible things, went completely unnoticed as we hovered silently outside Reg's window plotting our revenge.

  “How do we get the Crabbits from the ship to the room?” asked Rip.

  “Someone takes them over,” replied Wilx.

  “Who?”

  “I don't know. You?”

  “But how?”

  “Just knock them out and put them in a bag. Then dump the bag into the window. The Crabbits will probably reawaken before Reg does.”

  “How do I knock them out?”

  “Hit them with a bottle or whatever you find lying around.”

  “I don't think it'll be that easy,” said Rip. He was noticeably scared of the Crabbits. “Have you seen how quick they are? They'll just slither up and gnaw my legs off. I won't have a chance.”

  “Reg has been hunting these creatures all by himself for years and he's still alive.”

  “Yeah, but Reg is tough. He's a seven foot tall goblin with fangs and claws and red eyes. I can't do the things that a seven foot tall goblin can do!”

  “That's not true!” said Wilx. “Think of all the impossible things you've done in your many lifetimes! Aren't you the guy who successfully orchestrated the orbital direction of eight different proto-stars just so you could line them up in a row? And then didn't you jump through all of them simultaneously? You set the new universal record for Least Amount of Severe Burns After Leaping Through the Most Amount of Proto-Stars.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And aren't you the guy who successfully impregnated the Virgin Mary?”

  “Yeah, that was me.”

  “Can't forget about when you slayed a Galactic Gobbling Groobin, armed only with your conversational routine of droll witticisms.”

  “True.”

  “What about the time you found that mildly interesting fossil?”

  “What's your point?” asked Rip.

  “It had part of a shell.”

  “I didn't mean about the fossil. What's your point to all of this?”

  “My point is that you're better than Reg! If he can survive hunting these creatures then you can do the same. Now go collect those Crabbits... and don't let them gnaw your legs off!”

  “Why can't we have the specimen pod deliver the Crabbits the same way we collected them on Grebular?”

  “All the pods are broken.”

  “I see.”

  Rip took a moment to muster up the courage to face the deadly Crabbits. Just as he opened the door and ran in screaming and flailing his arms, all the Crabbits mysteriously dropped to the floor.

  “Hah!” laughed Wilx. “I already drugged them to pass out for the next hour! You never would have stood a chance against their speed. Only someone like Reg could do that!”

  “You mean, I'm not as tough as Reg?” asked Rip.

  “No. But I give a pretty good morale-boosting speech, don't I? Plus there's still time in the story for you to prove otherwise. Let's get these Crabbits out of here.”

  We delivered the momentarily unconscious Crabbits into the window, which had been foolishly left open.

  Reg had hunted Crabbits from nearly every world they inhabited. Except for Grebular. Yet when these Grebularian Crabbits woke up, they immediately desired revenge against the stranger. With all of his endless hunting expeditions and plans for general extermination, Reg had done so much damage to the Crabbit species that the image of his face had been naturally downloaded into their collective consciousness and transmitted across distant galaxies to all other living Crabbits. That way should any of them be unfortunate enough to cross paths with Reg they will at least be given a heads-up about the whole matter. This particular baker's dozen of lethal abominations were the Chosen Crabbits. They were the summation of everything their species had lived (but mostly died) for.

  The first thing they saw was Reg's furniture, crafted from the skeletons of their universal kin. Other Crabbit bones swung from the ceiling, hanging on thread made of Crabbit-sinew and waiting to be turned into easily breakable tools. Through the immensely powerful collective consciousness of the Crabbit, they vividly remembered every detail of the lives of each of the Crabbits who now swung in pieces in the compound of an insane goblin on a half-destroyed world. This only sent them into a greater rage.

  The first Crabbit gnarled a leg. Reg was so knocked out that it took him a moment to wake up and feel the pain.

  “Hey, what's going on?” he finally asked the darkness.

  Reg clicked on a light and saw that many Crabbits had gnarled away his limbs.

  “Is the age of Reg over?” he asked. “But I only just became a god a few days ago.”

  The vitamin A factor might have saved him, for once the Crabbits had chewed to the bone they conveniently broke all their weak teeth and were unable to continue attacking. This proved to not matter whatsoever, for the gnarling required to reach the bone was more than sufficient enough to kill Reg in less than a minute.

  We raided his refrigerator, but only found a foul type of fermented Crabbit liqueur. Against our warnings, Rip drank it anyway. He was sick for awhile. Wilx chartered the ship toward the next crazy venture.

  CHAPTER 46

  Overdue Intentions

  Meanwhile... something was happening amongst a group of aforementioned creatures. Something within the cave systems of the Planetglomerate.

  The Klaxworms were stirring, having unfrozen from their nightly freezing, prepared to begin another day of overpopulation-induced heatwaves and boiled organs. Yet this was a day unlike any other in the history of the Klaxworm.

  Conversation in the Klaxworm cave is usually about the idea of exploring the rest of the planet.

  “Who's sick of this cave?” yelled someone from the population. “Who doesn't want their organs to boil this afternoon?”

  The crowd was in agreement.

  “Who has ever wondered what's out there? You've all heard the stories of the Grimbat messengers. You've seen their episodic shadow-puppet re-enactments of the exciting bits.”

  “My favorite episode is the one where the Glurj child fell into a schmold pit.”

  “They were all good, but the point is, why don't we go watch some of these Greegs fall into schmold pits on our own time? Have you heard of this schmold television thing? You don't need to do shadow-puppets at all.”

  This was one of the hottest days in the history of the Planetglomerate. The risk of boiled organs within the oven-like Klaxworm home was at a record high. Some rudimentary survival twitch must have finally kicked in, for the Klaxworms were rallied and ready to get out of the death trap and see the Planetglomerate they had only heard about. They had been told about the majestic polished marble floors glinting forever into the sunset-tinged horizon, but what exactly was a marble floor anyway? There was no experience. No frame of reference with which
to enjoy the stories. Klaxworms needed to see the sights and feel the land for themselves, if their lives were to have any validity.

  They left the cave in droves. Aside from the few squished trample victims, the rest went immediately blind from the first-ever exposure to sunlight. All were unprepared.

  CHAPTER 47

  Glassvexx

  While the Klaxworms were making their historical first step, Wilx was chartering our ship for a foolish mission.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I thought we'd check up on those drug dealers from Glassvexx,” said Wilx. “See if we can get in on their racket.”

  “Their racket?”

  “A racket is a less encouraged yet infinitely faster way of making money. The term was coined by humans, you should know these things.”

  “I know what a racket is. Weren't you listening to the drug dealers at all? They don't want outside help. Fralgoth was blasted with a laser cannon for trying to intrude on their racket.”

  “What racket?” asked Rip as he crawled into the room, still incapacitated from the sickness of the fermented Crabbit liqueur.

  “The racket of the drug dealers from Glassvexx,” said Wilx. “We're on our way to claim a share of their lucrative Sativa.”

  “Excellent,” groaned Rip. “Be right back,” he added as he crawled off to go puke in solitude. You couldn't hear the enthusiasm in his death-like speech, but you knew it was there. Rip would never let a severe poisoning detract from the prospect of a lucrative racket.

  “I don't think we should go to Glassvexx,” I urged.

  “We're already there.”

  “Really?”

  “This ship is way faster than our last one.”

  The planet Glassvexx did not come into existence through the usual manner of physics randomly hurling a bunch of rocks and dust together. It was crafted out of glass, an invention of the ancient Yoloronians. They were a race of beings infinitely wise and yet ultimately stupid. Many had questioned their vast intellect from the get-go, saying that only a foolish race would make a planet-sized piece of glass. Logic suggests the only assured known outcome of building a planet-sized piece of glass is that it will one day shatter into many smaller pieces. Dangerous pieces that hurtle freely through space. Something will one day collide with and break the planet. This is inevitable. The Yoloronians declared Glassvexx unbreakable and built her anyway. The fact that they did this means they were at least brilliant with technology, if not as adept at using it to avoid apocalyptic outcomes.

  Once made, Glassvexx was still not a planet, for it could not sustain life, and had no atmosphere or orbital pattern. The Yoloronians needed these things if they were to call their planet a planet. They succeeded.

  First, Glassvexx was put on the Planetary Waiting List. Finally it was granted an orbital permit for somewhere in the great system of Herb. For the problem of atmosphere and life, thousands of greenhouses and boxes filled with dirt were shipped in and placed around the planet. Grown within these boxes were food for colonists and oxygen-generating bushels for the future generations who inhabit Glassvexx. After a few million years of time allowed for the oxygen-creating bushels to take effect, Glassvexx was at last ready to sustain life.

  Over that few millions years of time, many of the plants being grown in the greenhouses evolved into certain psychotropic plants like the aforementioned Luminesco-Cannabid-Sativa. The colonists stationed to live on Glassvexx during the transitional period, the ones who had created the original strain of sativa, had evolved to rejoice in the growing of mind-altering plants. Tending to the plants was the colonists only job on the barren planet, so naturally they looked for entertainment within the plants. In the early days, the textbook chapters on psychotropic herbs were studied with fascination. Soon enough their curiosity led to the successful experimentation of seedlings. Today, the planet is covered with mountainous regions of wild growth, for the plants long since escaped the controlled greenhouses. Enough rock and dirt and ice and other mountain-forming resources were shipped in to layer the entire planet with a natural terrain that sustains the life of plants. The actual glass surface of the planet was no longer visible from anywhere at all. Some go looking for the famous glass planet and believe themselves to be lost, having found only a mountainous earthy planet covered with time-warping plants.

  “Look at all the sativa!” exalted Wilx. “They'll never even know we were here. All we have to do is send some of those specimen-collecting pods down to the surface. I'll program all the pods to scoop up as much of the wild sativa as they can. Then we'll take the sativa to some faraway dimension and make a 200% profit increase.”

  “I guess that isn't as foolish as I imagined,” I said.

  “No worries,” said Wilx.

  “Have we taken the planet yet?” asked Rip, crawling back into the room.

  “We're not here to take the planet,” said Wilx. “We're here to pinch some unnoticed profits without any notice. Engaging our cloaking device. Sending out the specimen-collecting pods now.”

  We all watched as the entirety of the pods drifted quietly to the surface of Glassvexx. After a short amount of time the pods returned. Wilx claimed each of them was filled with enough Sativa to buy at least a hemisphere of a planet.

  As we attempted our prompt getaway, we heard something terrible. It was the arrival of many war-ships intent on the destruction of the planet.

  These war-ships belonged to the extended corporate family of Fralgoth, and they were here to have their revenge on the drug farmers of Glassvexx.

  “We should probably go,” said Rip.

  “Yeah,” we agreed.

  But Wilx didn't move the ship. All of us were suddenly entranced by what was going on. We had noticed many of the war-ships were collectively holding up some sort of massive, flat, square object. It seemed to go on for miles, requiring hundreds of high-intensity cables distributing the weight between 79 complete fleets of war-ships.

  “Is that--”

  “The Chalkboard of Elbereth?” asked Wilx. “Yes. Yes it is.”

  “Why is it here?”

  “Stolen, it seems.”

  “Who would want that?” I asked.

  “The Chalkboard of Elbereth is possibly the most devastating weapon ever made. To scratch the board causes unknown levels of damage. Some suggest the piercing sound made by the scratched chalkboard, if scratched with the right tool, could cause a space-quake powerful enough to tear the separation between dimensions to shreds. Spacial gateways to undesirable locations would loom above the skies of all planets. I don't buy into this theory as much, but it's possible. One thing is known; when you scratch the chalkboard, you go deaf and most things explode. I'm curious to see what happens to a planet made of glass.”

  “Maybe they won't scratch it,” said Rip. “Maybe it's just a threat.”

  “I say they do it,” said Wilx.

  “Care to wager?”

  “How much?”

  “Your share of the sativa?

  “Deal.”

  “Look,” I said. “I think they're about to scratch the board.”

  As I pointed out the window, seconds after Rip made his losing wager, many giant-metal claws were being positioned against the board by an additional 20 fleets of war-ships. It was to be an apocalyptic orchestra of chalkboard scratching.

  “We should go.”

  “Starting to think you're right,” agreed Wilx.

  “We'll call the bet a tie.”

  “Wait a minute, I still win the bet,” argued Wilx. “They're clearly about to the scratch the chalkboard.”

  “But if we leave, there's no proof,” said Rip.

  “We'll have to stay and watch then.”

  At this point we all put our earplugs in.

  The war-ships made no final announcement to the citizens of Glassvexx.

  The board was scratched.

  The reaction was not instantaneous. For a minute no sound at all emerged from the scratching of the
claws. The ancient chalkboard needed time to muster up such horrific sounds from the depths of its essence. All at once the piercing sound slapped the entire galaxy with a staggering shock-wave. Most of the nearby planets suffered some minor level of damage, but the primary destructive force of the chalkboard was being aimed at Glassvess by the harnessing powers of the devastatingly precise Sound-Board of Gorgolosh.

  The glass-core of the planet did not shatter right away. The sound-wave was absorbed and echoed, first causing all the terrain, mountains and sativa to crumble and fall from the surface. The remaining war-ships not involved with the scratching of the board were equipped with tractor-funnels for collecting the sativa-rich land before it was lost.

  After all the land was shaken off, the glass-sphere was shown to still be in perfect condition. We all had the same thought: Had a planet made of glass actually survived the scratching of The Chalkboard of Elbereth? No, of course not. The sight of the intact sphere lasted for only a few seconds (most people missed it entirely) before it shattered, sending millions of shards of formerly unbreakable Jardian mega-glass hurtling into the cosmos. Some of these shards would continue hurtling through space for the remainder of infinity, others had a very short trip to the surface of the Planetglomerate.

  CHAPTER 48

  Life is Random

  “Everybody stay still!” shouted the now blind leader of the Klaxworms. “We shouldn't move too fast.”

  “Do you see that?” shouted a voice from the crowd.

  “See what? Most of us are blind.”

  “There's something falling from the sky. A big chunk of something translucent.”

  “Really?”

  “Must be part of the weather around here.”

  “The Grimbat messengers never mentioned weather involving falling chunks of something translucent.”