The Garbage Chronicles

by Brian Herbert

  The bird had a short beak, with nervous, beady eyes. It looked at Wizzy curiously, then chirped again and flew away.

  “Guess not,” Wizzy said. He tried to cheer himself by remembering his Papa Sidney’s strong friendship with Captain Tom. I’lI find a friend, he thought. Somewhere in this great big universe, there’s a friend.. Just waiting for me to find him.

  Wizzy circled the campsite. Spotting a worm crawling along the ground, he landed in its path and glowed a friendly shade of lavender. Unimpressed, the worm crawled around him.

  “Oh, well,” Wizzy said.

  Just then the chubby yellow bird dived at the worm, snatching it in its beak. A startled Wizzy watched the bird fly off and disappear in the woods.

  “Maybe that’s the way to get a friend,” Wizzy said. “Just swoop down and carry one away.” Resolving to give this more thought, Wizzy flew down to the creek, hovering over Namaba as she washed.

  “That was great!” Javik said after his recharge, leaping up from the hole. He felt nourished and sexually gratified at the same time, a wonderful completeness he had not experienced in recent memory.

  “Pretty good, huh?” Rebo asked.

  “Pretty good? It made the whole trip to Cork worthwhile, that’s all!” Javik knelt and removed the barbed cord from his foot.

  “Say,” Rebo said, looking at Javik closely. “The scratches are gone from your face. So’s the scar you had on your nose.”

  “That so?” Javik said. He rubbed his forehead, the bridge of his nose, and his cheeks. They were smooth.

  Rebo was hesitant to attempt the charge. “I’m not like you,” he said. “This could still kill me.” He took the cord from Javik and wrapped it around one paw. Timidly, he extended the paw toward the hole Javik had used. It touched dirt. He put his weight on the paw. There was a slight tingling. Rebo’s red eyes flashed around nervously.

  “Anything?” Javik asked. He brushed off his own foot and put on his sock and boot.

  Rebo shifted his paw around in the hole. “My skin’s kinda thick,” he said. “So I barely feel the barbs.” He shifted his foot again: There was no change in the sensation.

  “Try a new hole,” Javik suggested. “Maybe that one’s used up for a while.”

  “Huh?” Rebo said, glancing at Javik. “Oh, yeah. Thanks.” He stepped out of the hole and used the shovel to dig a fresh one. Soon he was recharging too. It worked so well that steam shot out of his ears in frosty puffs against the cool morning air.

  “That was good,” Rebo said as he finished. “What a meal!”

  “Did you feel anything else?” Javik asked, keeping his voice down.

  Rebo thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “Now that you mention it. Kind of a noppi noppi feeling,”

  Javik’s language mixer pendant did not translate this expression, but no explanation was required. “A guy could set up one hell of a resort here,” Javik said. “Folks would cross the universe to enjoy some of this. It even heals cuts and scars.”

  Javik noticed brown powder forming all over Rebo’s body, blowing-off in the wind and getting on his black club jacket. Bodily waste, Javik thought, picking up the dull odor again. Not so distasteful as human wastes.

  Rebo smiled broadly. “Ah!” he exclaimed.

  “I’d better fill the water pods,” Javik said. He retrieved the nutrient kit and connected it to his belt.

  Recalling that Namaba was at the creek, Rebo’s smile faded. “I can get it. Wait. Do we even need water now? With the nutrient kit working for us?”

  “The charge might wear off quickly,” Javik said. “And what if something went wrong with the nutrient kit?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Stay here and fill those holes,” Javik said. “You can push the dirt back with your paws.”

  Rebo did as he was told.

  Javik returned to the camp and lifted the partially full water pods and the survival pack out of the tent. Stepping safely away, he mentoed the habitat into a tight little ball.

  What a terrible death, he thought, if I ever mentoed this thing shut while still inside. Javik had heard of a camper getting squeezed into a tight little roll, but wondered if it was just another folktale.

  Moments later, Javik put the tent roll in the pack. Leaving the pack there on the ground, he took the water pods and trudged down a short bank to the river.

  Namaba smiled when she saw him. “I was waiting for you,” she said, securing the yellow and black polka dot ribbon to her mane.

  Javik told her the marvelous news about their new source of nutrition, omitting the prurient details.

  Namaba wiped cool water across her face. “That is good news,” she said. “I’ll recharge too, when we return to camp.” She noticed Javik’s scratches were gone, and commented on this.

  “The recharge,” Javik said. “Some kinda wonder cure.”

  Standing at the top of the embankment, Rebo watched Javik and Namaba. He heard their muted words and saw them smiling at one another. Namaba’s laughter cut through the chill morning air like a knife piercing the center of Rebo’s steam engine heart. He focused on the bolstered thunder piece worn by Javik. But his thoughts of harming Javik were short-lived. Rebo felt ashamed for having them.

  Namaba watched Javik as he knelt on a flat stone and filled the pod. He capped it and reached for the other pod.

  “Do you remember the two trails?” she asked. “Back at Icy Valley?”

  “Yes.” Javik suppressed a burp from the recharge.

  “If I had gone up the first trail,” she said, “I know whose image I would have seen there.”

  “Sure. Rebo’s.”

  As Javik looked at her, a soft smile formed on her lips. “I would have seen you,” she said.

  “Me?” Javik fumbled with the second pod’s lid. He noticed the river level was still dropping, leaving only a few centimeters of water in some places.

  “I love you,” she said.

  Javik forgot about the water level. Feeling his heart kick, he set the full plastic pod on a rock and stood up. Taking a deep breath, he gazed downstream. The river, which was now a creek, reached a bend several hundred meters away, a place where sunlight sparkled cheerily on the water. Two ruby red birds flew close to the water at the bend. Their wingtips touched the water, spraying mist.

  “How can you be so sure?” he asked. “We’ve hardly spoken.”

  “Moravian women know such things instantly,” she said. “We feel love this way. It only takes a glance to know. Or a touch. She moved close to Javik and clasped one of his hands in hers. “We have yenta, you know.”

  Namaba’s grasp was firm. She had light brown hair on the back of her hand. Her palm and fingers were cool from the stream, but Javik felt them warm quickly in his grasp.

  Javik compared Namaba’s feelings with what Wizzy had told him about Sidney Malloy. Sid considers me his best friend, Javik thought, though I’ve only seen him twice in twenty years. Now this. These things don’t fit the normal pattern. You can’t have a friend you hardly ever see t or a lover you barely know.

  “I will tell you a love poem,” she said, looking into his deeply set blue eyes. “One my mother taught me.”

  Javik did not remember the words. It was something about a Morovian maiden whose soldier went off to battle far away. He died on a far-off battlefield while she waited in Moro City, pining away beneath a flashing V.D. clinic sign. It was a sad poem, with words that lilted and drifted across the sun-sparkled water.

  He felt her grip tighten.

  Javik looked up at her. She was a head taller and much heavier, but Javik did not give this much of a thought now. He saw a tear roll down her cheek.

  “I always cry at that story,” she said, brushing the tear away with her free hand. Then she pressed her lips against Javik’s, rubbing gently from side to side.

  Her lips were surprisingly soft to him. He kissed her in the Earth human way that he knew.

  The ways of Earth and Morovia were different, s
o they took turns trying the new techniques. It was a union across the heavens, two different life forms finding common ground. Javik felt it was an important moment. Not just for himself and Namaba, but in a larger, cosmic sense.

  “You have been with many women,” she said. Javik did not hear jealousy or anger in her tone. It was simply an undeniable statement of fact.

  Javik’s entire love life flashed across his eyes. The old life of pleasure-dome maidens and girls in every astro-port had died. He would never return to it. He knew Namaba should seem even more unusual to him than the transsexual, Evans. By all rights, he should be repulsed by Namaba. But his feelings were far from revulsion. He needed constancy, someone on whom he could rely. He wondered how Moravians made love.

  “Do you think we might share a child?” she asked, apparently sensing his unspoken thought.

  Javik smiled. “We will see,” he said.

  They walked hand in hand up the embankment, each cradling a full water pod in one arm. As they entered the campsite, Javik thought Rebo was going out of his way to avoid them.

  Rebo rested on his haunches off to one side, busying himself by picking things out of his fur. He seemed preoccupied and sad.

  Peripherally, Javik saw Namaba as she looked at Rebo. She used to go to him at times like this, helping him to clean himself in the Moravian way. But Rebo was on his own now. Javik knew she had decided this. The touch of her lips and the grip of her hand had told him so.

  Far across Dusty Desert from Javik and his party an ancient riverbed was full. Moments later, from his soil-immersed position, Lord Abercrombie watched the waters roll across the desert, over ridges of pebble and sand, returning the place to its former watery state. Desert palms were uprooted or immersed in a high wall of water.

  “Heh, heh, heh!” Lord Abercrombie’s laugh reflected the turn in his fortunes.

  Nothing can stop a flood, he thought. It’s on the way. He wondered if monopoles could swim.

  “What was that?” Brother Carrot asked. “A low roar? Do you hear it?” He stood at the bow of the Freedom One as the big desert schooner crossed the face of a dune. Twenty-nine other ships laden with eager Vegetable troops followed Brother Carrot’s lead craft.

  Captain Cucumber stood next to him. “I hear something too.” He peered across the desert.

  “It’s getting louder,” Brother Carrot said. “Must be the wind.”

  Suddenly a wall of water appeared, bearing down on them at high speed. Brother Carrot and the captain ran for the passageway. Just as they closed the door behind them, the water hit.

  The Freedom rolled to one side. It became dark in the passageway.

  “We’re going over!” Brother Carrot said, scrambling to find a handhold in the passageway. He grabbed a hand railing. “My beautiful fleet!” he moaned. “My beautiful army!” He heard his men belowdecks as they clamored in confusion.

  The cucumber captain was not so fortunate. Unable to find a handhold, he slid on the pegged floor the full length of the passageway. This left him in a jumbled position on the other end, against a cabin door. “My ship!” he moaned. “My beautiful ship!”

  Water seeped in as the ship was consumed, getting Brother Carrot’s shoes wet. The ship began to rock gently now, and the din of rushing water quieted. Brother Carrot felt the ship right itself and float upward.

  “We’re floating!” Brother Carrot exclaimed.

  At the other end of the passageway, the captain was struggling to his feet. Holding the handrail, he sloshed his way slowly back to Brother Carrot. “You’re right’ he said, a hesitant smile on his cucumber face.

  “You mean this thing was designed to float?” Brother Carrot asked.

  “Sure. We took extra time and sealed the hulls.”

  “Idiot! We could have launched our attack earlier!”

  “But this flood, sir.”

  “We would have missed the flood. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sunlight streamed in the passageway portholes as the Freedom One bobbed to the surface. Brother Carrot peered out a porthole and was overjoyed to see other ships bob up Some had broken spreaders or masts. All had torn sails and rigging in disarray. Two AmFed gar-bahge cannisters popped to the surface below his porthole.

  “Nine, ten . . . ” Brother said. “There’s eleven, twelve . . . I count fifteen ships on this side.”

  He ran to the hatch and slid it open. Knee-deep water rushed in. He waded out, reaching the gunwale on the ship’s starboard side.

  Men were streaming across the decks of the Freedom One now, lining the rails on each side of Brother Carrot. Hearing the chatter of his crew around him, Brother Carrot watched men filling the decks of the other ships in his battered fleet.

  Dusty Desert was gone now, having been replaced by a lake that stretched across the entire rock-lined bowl. Waves lapped gently at the hull of the Freedom One. The ship rocked.

  Brother Carrot removed his familiar black and gold cap, waving it in the air. Boisterous cheers rang across the water as the soldiers on each ship saw him. The men on his own ship cheered too, and patted their leader on the back.

  “All accounted for,” Captain Cucumber shouted. “I count twenty-nine other ships.”

  “Signal each of them,” Brother Carrot said, replacing his cap on top of his leafy head. “Have the rigging repaired in breakneck time. That means I’ll break the captains’ necks if it isn’t done. We’ll float across now.”

  “But none of us have necks, sir,” Captain Cucumber said;

  “Eh?”

  “Our heads and bodies are one, sir.”

  “Then I’ll find a way to separate them. Hop to it!”

  Using sensors in each grain of sand, piece of dirt, and drop of water on the planet’s surface, Lord Abercrombie saw and heard this activity. Damnit! he thought. I didn’t expect this at all. Who’d have imagined it? Those blasted ships float!

  Lord Abercrombie knew he could not remain halfway between realms any longer. It was becoming too much of a strain. I must commit myself, he thought. But to what? A coin flip. That’s what I need. I’ll find someone on the surface who is flipping a coin.

  Using his visual sensors in a patch of grass, Lord Abercrombie found King Corker standing there, trying to decide whether or not to attend the games at Corker Stadium. This was a small grassy area on one side of King Corker’s courtyard. Bending his blades of grass to look upward, Lord Abercrombie saw a castle guard tower silhouetted against a cloudless sky. A purple Corker banner on the tower fluttered in a light breeze.

  “Bring me a Decision Coin!” King Corker thundered.

  A watermelon man aide scurried up.

  Okay, Lord Abercrombie thought. Here’s my question: Do I commit myself to the Realm of Magic?

  “Should I go to the games?” King Corker said to the aide. “Or should I languish in my harem?”

  “You must select a yes or no question, Your Highness,” the watermelon man said.

  “Oh, King Corker said. “You’re quite correct. Very well, then. You pick one.”

  Fools! Lord Abercrombie thought. Hurry up!

  “Should King Corker go to the games?” the watermelon man said. He flipped the coin, then caught it on one palm and slapped it to the back of his other hand. “It says yes, Your Highness.”

  “I would have preferred the harem,” King Corker said, “but bring me my carriage.”

  I have a trip to make too, Lord Abercrombie thought.

  “But he was not anxious to make the commitment to magic. He would do it the following day, after trying a few more events with the disaster control machinery. The monopoles were staying away, Abercrombie reasoned, and he could have a last fling in his fleshy form.

  The path through the forest was easy to follow, with three-dot magical markings on a number of ancient trees and rocks. Prince Pineapple walked briskly ahead, almost but of sight of the others. The continuing confrontation between him and the rest of the party was leaving scars
.

  Sunlight filtered through high pine boughs, making intricate webs of light over Javik’s head. Walking beside Namaba that morning, Javik watched Wizzy spend his time flying through the high, sunny boughs. The little comet’s body and tail sparkled in the slender strands of light that touched them.

  Spending a good portion of the morning up there, Wizzy would yell such things as, “It’s incredible up here! The rays are so symmetrical, so delicate!” Then he would streak along the beams of light, forming parallel streaks of light with his tail.

  “I’m seven days old today!” Wizzy squealed at one point. “And I feel great!”

  Once, Javik scolded Wizzy for being light-headed. “Don’t be so silly,” Javik shouted. “We have important problems, such as figuring out how to get back to Earth. You’re not helping at all.”

  “Can’t one be happy and have problems?” Wizzy replied, alighting on a high branch.

  “No!” Javik yelled.

  This activated the soap box orator in Wizzy’s personality. While a bird warbled sadly in the background, Wizzy gushed philosophy, saying he was starting to understand happiness at long last, that it was to be found wherever you were, despite any problems you faced. “Every situation has bits of happiness,” Wizzy said. “They should be discovered wherever they are hiding and nurtured.”

  “I wish I’d never brought him,” Javik said, leaving Wizzy behind, still discoursing. “He’s out of his mind.”

  “It’s beautiful here,” Namaba said. “Like pictures I have seen of places on Morovia. Country places.”

  “You’ve never been outside the city?”

  “Never before.”

  “I’m looking forward to seeing Morovia with you,” Javik said. “I hope the Dimensional Tunnel will take us there, and not somewhere else.”

  “We’ll have a wonderful life there.”

  “First I have to check on Abercrombie,” Javik said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he’s a threat to Earth, I’ve got to get him out of the Magician’s Chamber. That may mean killing him. If he’s no threat, I’ll leave him there.”