The Garbage Chronicles

by Brian Herbert

  Reaching the eight folding paths, Wizzy nudged them open. In doing this, he clumsily destroyed the gazebo with the fire from his nucleus. Fortunately, a foresighted magician had treated the cloth paths with flame retardant.

  While the gazebo burned, Wizzy checked each path. Quickly he located the one with three-dot markings. Streaking along this path, he reached the dirt area so rapidly that the magical agate did not have time to warn him.

  “Wait!” the agate called out. “Not that way!”

  But Wizzy was so far uptrail that he did not hear the agate.

  With Prince Pineapple trudging ahead and Rebo bringing up the rear, Javik and Namaba walked beside one another holding hands. At first the lovers found this difficult to do, owing to the markedly different cadence of their steps. Namaba’s gait was more of a lope, with her head bobbing up and down, while Javik walked erectly and smoothly in the Earthian manner. After a kilometer or so, they found a middle ground, with Namaba moving more smoothly and Javik herky-jerking it.

  “We’ll be married in Moro City,” Namaba said. “My minister can do it.” The light brown fur on her mane was gold-tinged from the sunlight.

  “Where would I work?” Javik asked, squinting. “Is there a Moravian Space Patrol?

  “We have an Air Guard,” she said. “But Moravian ships are more primitive than yours. And we have nothing to compare with the technology in your wardrobe ring.”

  “That’s not technology,” Javik said with a wink. “It’s magic.”

  She smiled.

  “I don’t mind if the place is a little backward,” Javik said. “Just as long as we’re together.” He thought about how sappy his words might have sounded to him once. But it struck him that the really important things in life were sappy.

  Catching up, Rebo said, “It won’t be easy for you on Morovia. I’m not saying that out of jealousy. Most folks will be afraid of Tom.”

  Namaba’s eyes flared. “They can all go to Morovian Hell.”

  “It’s easy to say that,” Rebo said. “But you’d better think it over carefully. They’ll think Tom is a freak.”

  “Then I’ll make my living touring the planet,” Javik said flippantly. “We’ll make enough money off freak shows to build a rocket and get the hell out of there.”

  “We’re not doing any sideshows,” Namaba said. “You’re no freak. A Moravian on Earth would face the same situation. You’re different, that’s all. We’ll prove to people that different is not bad.” She squeezed his hand tightly. “We’ll make them understand,” she said. Her lips were a thin, determined line.

  “Good luck to both of you,” Rebo said. “Maybe I can help, when we all get back—if the Dimensional Tunnel works out the way we hope.”

  Namaba glanced back at Rebo and saw sincerity in his eyes. They glowed a soft shade of red.

  “Say,” Rebo said, looking at Namaba. “Do you remember Jamaro? Remember how he came back all deformed after the Hoka Wars?” His expression became troubled as he realized he had placed himself into a hole.

  “Jamaro returned with only two legs,” Namaba explained, glancing at Javik.

  “Pretty horrible, eh?” Javik said.

  “I used a bad example,” Rebo said, biting nervously at his lower lip. “I was just thinking I could work with those kinda guys—you know, in therapy.”

  Javik thought of Sidney.

  “Sounds fine, Rebo,” Namaba said. “You’ll do fine. All of us will!”

  “We have wars on Earth, too,” Javik said. “I was good at that game. Seems like a long time ago, though.” He reflected upon the Atheist Wars, when he and Brent Stafford swaggered across half the star system. “Hell, I’d be a young general now if I’d been able to keep my nose clean.”

  Seeing Namaba looking at him curiously, Javik forced a laugh. “Guess I’m pretty funny, eh?” he said. “Someday, Namaba, we’ll be gray-haired, sitting in rockers on our front porch. A little Moravian kid’ll be sitting on the steps, and I’ll be starting to tell a war story. You’ll say, ‘Not that one again!’ Or maybe you’ll smile softly and leave, knowing I’ve changed the story with each telling, making more of myself than there really was.”

  “Anything worth saying is worth exaggerating,” Namaba said, nodding her head. “That’s what Grandma used to say.”

  “Sounds like your grandpa told his share of tall tales.”

  Namaba laughed. “Maybe that little Moravian kid will be our grandchild.”

  “That’d be somethin’,” Javik said. “Yessir. That’d be some-thin’!”

  Engrossed in the conversation, Javik suddenly realized they had fallen far behind Prince Pineapple. He could just see the top of the prince’s helicopter beanie beyond a rise in the path. Then Prince Pineapple turned and ran back toward them. When the prince’s face came into view, Javik saw that he was shouting something. The words were lost in the wind.

  “Looks like he’s found something,” Rebo said.

  They picked up their pace and moments later found Prince Pineapple standing over a pile of sun-bleached bones.

  “A Yanni tribal burial ground,” Prince Pineapple said, brimming with excitement. “With long goat bones in a triangular pattern.”

  “There’s a significance to that?” Javik asked.

  Prince Pineapple looked full in his face with the expression of a scolding Freeness Studies instructor. “Triangle . . . three dots.”

  “Oh, sure,” Javik said. “A magical sign. What do you think it means?”

  “It’s a sign that we’re close,” Prince Pineapple said.

  “Speaking of signs,” Namaba said, pointing uptrail. “I see another one.”

  As she spoke, a wooden sign was rising slowly from the ground beside the trail just a few meters ahead. When it was all the way up, she saw it rested on two legs and was red with white lettering,

  Javik walked up to it and read. It was printed in English:

  DIMENSIONAL TUNNEL 2 KILOMETERS

  Javik stepped aside so Rebo and Namaba could read it. Now it changed to Moravian. When Prince Pineapple read it, the printing became Corkian.

  “Three languages again,” Javik said.

  They set off, and soon were out of sight of the sign. Minutes later they heard rapid footsteps approaching from downtrail. Turning their heads, they were surprised to see the sign running after them. Two arms had sprung from the edges of the signboard, and its legs had big, clumpy feet. Jumbled letters were shaped in the form of a cherubic, smiling face.

  As Javik’s jaw grazed his boot tops, he watched the sign run by and plant itself in the ground a few paces uptrail. The sign’s arms folded in and melded with the board. The facial letters formed English words. the feet disappeared, leaving two rigid board legs planted in the ground. Here is the message Javik saw:

  DIMENSIONAL TUNNEL 1 KILOMETER

  Approach at own risk. Strong galactic currents.

  They continued on their way. A few minutes later the sign again rushed past. This time it planted itself in front of a large flat stone and began to glow like a New City neon sign. There was a new message:

  DIMENSIONAL TUNNEL

  LAUGH TO ENTER

  They searched the base of the flat stone, looking for a tunnel or a doorway. Seeing nothing, they looked at one another and shrugged.

  “Guess we’d better laugh,” Prince Pineapple said.

  So they laughed.

  And laughed.

  And laughed some more.

  Their laughter echoed off the rocks, trees, and shrubs around them. They laughed so hard that the sign broke into uncontrollable giggles. Its lettering became a muddled, unreadable mess.

  With tears in his eyes, Javik saw two humanlike puffy white clouds drop feet first from the sky. They were not very large as clouds go, being perhaps twice as tall as Javik. But they were quite muscular. Ceremoniously, with stern expressions on their puffy faces, they took positions on each side of the giant slab of stone.

  “It’s under the rock!” Prince Pineap
ple said.

  Javik wiped tears from his eyes and cheeks.

  Using its little finger, one of the clouds lifted a corner of the slab and peeked under it. “Oooh!” the cloud squealed, dropping the slab. “A big worm touched me!”

  “Oooh!” the other cloud said.

  “Oooh!” the sign said. And the sign jumped completely out of the ground, landing in a clump of bushes.

  Now the clouds leaped high in the air and were carried off by the wind. Soon they had floated out of sight.

  The sign crawled out of the bushes and ran downtrail. Soon it was gone too, leaving the travelers in a most bewildered state.

  Just then Javik heard a faint little chuckle. He didn’t know where it came from. Looking at the solemn and confused expressions of his companions, he knew they hadn’t done it.

  You must realize that this was perhaps the tiniest chuckle in the Aluminum Starfield. It might have been trapped beneath a pebble and then kicked free by someone’s foot. Or maybe it was simply a slow echo, having just completed its bouncing journey from surface to surface.

  Whatever the source, it was just enough of a chuckle to complete the required amount of laughter. As Javik looked at his companions, he became aware of a creaking noise. It came from the large slab of rock.

  “It’s moving!” Namaba exclaimed.

  Sure enough, the stone was lifting like a megalithic hatch, creaking higher and higher until it fell over the other way on its top. It might not have creaked so much if only someone had been there to oil its magical hinges. Unfortunately, there was a decided shortage of magician’s helpers in this part of the universe.

  Moving to the edge, Javik saw steps leading down from all sides of a square hole. It resembled an inverted, hollow pyramid. In a wild flight of fantasy, he envisioned a pyramid rocket landing here and plowing into the ground. It was a preposterous thought, causing Javik to wonder if a magician was playing tricks with his mind.

  Prince Pineapple started down the steps.

  “Hold it, Prince,” Javik. said, grasping Prince Pineapple’s arm firmly. “I want you to wait here.” Javik released the prince.

  “What do you mean?” Prince Pineapple asked. “We were going to get rid of Abercrombie together.”

  “I’m going to see what Abercrombie’s been up to,” Javik said. “If he’s no threat to Earth, I’ll leave him and enter the Dimensional Tunnel with Rebo and Namaba.”

  Prince Pineapple’s black button eyes opened wide in shock. “Leave him? You can’t do that!”

  “I’m not going to get rid of him for you,” Javik said. “I’ve never trusted you.” Javik removed his Tasnard rope from the pack and mentoed it. The black and white striped rope looped around Prince Pineapple’s arms and torso, pulling his arms tight against his body. Javik pulled the struggling prince to the surface.

  “Now see here!” Prince Pineapple said. “You can’t—”

  “Shut up,” Javik snapped. He mentoed the rope again, instructing it to tie the prince to a nearby willow sapling.

  The Tasnard rope curled out of Javik’s grasp and dragged Prince Pineapple to the tree. It tied him there in a standing position.

  “Earthian bastard!” Prince Pineapple said. He pulled at the rope and kicked, but it held him fast.

  “That’ll keep you on ice,” Javik said. He turned to Namaba. “Stay here,” he said. “It might be dangerous.”

  “I agree,” Rebo said.

  Namaba leaned down and gave Javik a kiss on the mouth. “I’ll watch the prince,” she said.

  “And this is one tough lady,” Rebo said.

  Namaba half smiled. Her eyes were full of concern for Javik and Rebo. “I should go with you, Rebo,” she said. “My Moravian obligation

  “You can help by staying here,” Rebo said. “Keep an eye on Prince Pineapple. We can’t have him getting in the way.”

  “All right,” she said softly.

  Javik and Rebo stepped carefully into the hole. The upside-down pyramid was larger than it appeared to be, and soon Namaba saw their forms diminishing in size as they proceeded. She lost her sense of perspective. For a moment she thought they were climbing up the steps.

  With her back to Prince Pineapple, Namaba did not see that the Tasnard rope was beginning to slip. Something in the bog had damaged the rope’s delicate mechanism. Quietly, Prince Pineapple removed the rope from his arms and torso, pulling it over his head. He pulled a long goat bone out from under his coat. It was sharp on one end, having been broken in the indeterminate past.

  They plan to leave me on the surface! the prince thought desperately.

  Javik and Rebo reached the base of the hole now. Namaba watched as Javik leaned down and looked inside a square, black hole. He jumped into it, followed by Rebo.

  Prince Pineapple swung the bone mightily, hitting Namaba on the side of her skull and slashing her skin sack with the sharp portion of bone. It was a mortal blow.

  A loud sound of releasing steam came from Namaba. Her body took off like a discharging balloon, looping in the air and wetting Prince Pineapple’s face and clothing with steam. Soon Namaba’s body was no more than an empty, hairy bag of flesh. It dropped to one side of the entrance.

  The Sacred Scroll of Cork fell from Prince Pineapple’s coat, unnoticed by him. He leaped down the steps with the zeal of a fanatic, carrying the long goat bone. “It’s mine!” he said. “The Magician’s Chamber is mine!”

  Wizzy’s path brought him to a Vegetable village by the sea. Here tiny white stucco houses clung to hillsides and to cliffs overlooking the blue water. Over the center of town, Wizzy looked down on a cobblestone square thronging with thousands of Vegetable people.

  Glowing kelly green from his flaming nucleus to the tip of his wispy tail, Wizzy dipped low over the square. He heard the excited conversation of the people.

  “Did you hear the news?” a voice said. “Brother Carrot is victorious.”

  “Wonderful!”

  “Death to the Fruits!”

  “Things will be different now!”

  While Wizzy had grown to many times his original size, he still was not such a large comet. At first only a few Vegetables noticed him over their heads. Gradually, however, the word was passed and fingers began to point. Soon, Wizzy had become the center of attention.

  “I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere,” Wizzy mumbled. He felt embarrassed. His nucleus changed to a bright shade of crimson, and his tail matched that.

  In the next hour and a half he retraced his flight carefully, finally arriving back at the burned-out gazebo. Flying slowly along each of the eight folding paths now, Wizzy encountered a wooden sign which had sprung up in his path.

  Wizzy burst right through it.

  “You foolish fellow!” the magical agate yelled after him. “Come back here!”

  Sheepishly, Wizzy returned and spoke with the agate. Wizzy had his faults, but he knew the truth when he heard it. Shortly he was on the correct path.

  How stupid of me, Wizzy thought as he sped along the path in a bright green blur. All that wasted time.

  “Curious fellow,” the magical agate said, watching Wizzy flash in the distance. The agate felt warm in the rays of three suns. Now, as it grew quiet once again, he drifted off to sleep, his history storehouse just a little bit richer.

  With weapons brandished, Javik and Rebo dropped to a rocky passageway surface. The passageway walls were gray stone, dimly lit from unseen sources. Rebo’s eyes glowed bright red, casting an eerie light. Seeing darkness in one direction and light in the other, they walked toward the light.

  It was cold here, so Javik paused to mento on a pair of vari-temp pants, matching his orange coat. “You want anything?” he asked, looking at Rebo.

  “Naw. I’m fine.” Rebo was cold, but decided he didn’t need more than his club jacket.

  The passageway opened into a wide, well-lit cavern. One wall of the cavern faced a series of clear glassplex tubes.

  “This place looks familiar,” Rebo
said.

  Moving around a stocky pillar, they came upon a gray rock throne with black satin cushions. Junk sculptures made of scrap pieces of metal, plastic, and glassplex flanked the throne.

  “Of course,” Rebo said, touching a throne cushion. It was smooth and cool. “The half-faced creature sat here.”

  “Half-faced?”

  “Namaba and I were in those tubes out there, going around and around. Then we landed next to your ship.” Rebo’s red eyes darted around nervously. “He’s here somewhere.”

  “Abercrombie? You think it was Abercrombie?”

  “I don’t know. But he was very angry with us.”

  On the other side of the chamber they found another passageway. They moved from light to dark in this passageway, not speaking. It was very quiet. It was colder here, and Javik saw Rebo shiver.

  “You sure you don’t want something to wear?” Javik asked.

  Rebo did not answer. He moved ahead of Javik, extending his knife in front of him in the low light of the passageway. Rebo glanced back often as they proceeded, revealing fear in his face. Presently they came upon a side cavern full of silent machinery. Meckies were piled near the doorway. Nothing moved in the room.

  “I thought I heard something,” Javik said, pointing up the passageway.

  Rebo listened intently for a moment. Then he shrugged his big shoulders. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “I don’t hear it now,” Javik said. “Let’s go on.”

  They passed dozens of other caverns similar to the first. Inside each it was the same: meckies piled motionless near the doorway and not a gear moving anywhere.

  Soon the passageway widened like a funnel opening and grew lighter. They rounded a turn and were in another cavern. This cavern had three mirrored walls. The fourth side was black, with no wall visible. Javik heard wind noises in the room and felt cold through his vari-temp clothing.

  Judging from the shadows, Javik decided this cavern was illuminated from above. There was a considerable amount of light where he and Rebo were, contrasting with the darkened fourth side of the room. Oddly, however, when Javik looked up he saw only dark gray rock with no source of illumination. A long train of trunks was in the center of the cavern. Javik saw something move behind one of the trunks.