by M. D. Cooper
“Naturally,” Banty said. “Discretion is my eighth name, after Bantram Plebbodorous Scootable Xineeran Aranibble Pruther Yodleeighhihoo and before Hepplehiggy.”
Her face remained utterly straight as she spoke, and Jaquil didn’t think she could have made up all those names on the spot, though he didn’t think she was being quite truthful about the eighth one.
Cilia and Banty went on to discuss the trash disposal fee—a figure that Jaquil was gratified to hear. It was a shame he was only along on the trip for the experience and wouldn’t receive even a new employee’s one percent commission, let alone the larger percentages garnered by more experienced crew. But if he played his cards right, Banty might take him on after he finished school. He would rake in the creds and enjoy his work. Though Lollololp would clearly be a thorn in his side, he quite liked Banty and U8AB, and he thought of Fred as a new friend.
Cilia was giving Banty the space and planetary coordinates of the proposed dumping ground.
“Thanks,” said Banty. “We’ll get onto this right away. Where’s the trash?”
“It’s in the grounds of my estate. I would be grateful if you could bring your starship over to collect it. I believe that would be more discreet.”
“Sure, we can do that,” Banty said. “If that’s all, we’ll head back to our ship now.”
“Er, that isn’t quite all,” said Cilia. A tendril briefly rose from the milky liquid. “As I understand it, it’s customary for trash disposal companies to screen the garbage for items or information that might lead someone back to the originator of the illegal dump. I won’t be availing myself of this part of your service.”
“You don’t want us to screen your trash?” Banty asked. “That could be risky. If a debris detective finds out whose garbage it is, it wouldn’t be hard to uncover the name of the company that did the dumping. I’m not sure about this.”
“I could, of course, pay additional compensation,” said Cilia. “It’s just that there are some items in the pile that are a little embarrassing to me. I’d rather not explain more. I can assure you that the trash has already been thoroughly screened for any incriminating evidence.”
“More creds isn’t going to help us if we end up in jail,” Banty said. “Hmm...I don’t know. I’d like to discuss this with the rest of my crew.”
She withdrew beyond the spiral door and beckoned the others to follow. Jaquil was happy to find that he was also invited to the confab.
“Whaddya think, guys?” Banty asked. “Something’s going on here that Cilia ain’t telling us about. I’d bet Starblaster on it.”
“The auto-augur told us that things wouldn’t go well today,” Jaquil said. “Didn’t it say the mistress will send us to our foe? Cilia has to be the mistress. Maybe we shouldn’t accept. Though it is a lot of creds.”
“That piece of junk always says something won’t go well,” said Lollololp. “Its messages are so vague they seem correct after the event. When does anything go a hundred percent right? I say we take the money and do what she says. I didn’t wanna see some gelatinous sea creature’s underwear anyhow, if that’s what she means by embarrassing items.”
“What do you think, U8AB?” asked Banty.
The android had become distracted by the spiral door’s mechanism.
“U8AB,” Banty exclaimed. “Keep your control center on the job. Sheesh!”
The android’s head snapped around.
“What do you think of Cilia’s request?” Banty repeated.
“I already came to a decision about that,” U8AB replied. “I say that we agree to her condition, but screen the garbage anyway. If the client is only embarrassed by some items in her trash, all that matters is that she doesn’t know that we saw them. If there is something in the pile that can be traced back to her and so possibly to us, we eject the identifying junk into space and dump the rest in the designated spot.”
“U8AB,” said Banty, “I just remembered why I don’t sell you.”
But the android had already returned his attention to the door mechanism. He was staring at it, his head tilted.
They returned to the waiting Cilia. “Okay, we’ll do it,” Banty said.
Chapter Six
Banty put Jaquil in charge of Starblaster’s grabber to pick up Cilia’s garbage pile from the grounds of her estate and transfer it into the hold. The ship hovered above the heap, and Janquil sat in the bridge, manipulating the grabber’s controls to gather the trash in its pincers. Jaquil found that it was like working the grabbing machine at an amusement park—only with awful prizes.
U8AB took over from him for the fiddly little bits of trash when most of the hill of waste had been transferred to the ship. As soon as they had it all, Banty closed the hold door, input the destination coordinates, and sent Jaquil into the hold with U8AB and Lollololp to screen the waste.
The trash heap stank, but Jaquil was used to that after many practice sessions at college messing around in garbage of one kind or another. He put on his hazard suit and cracked his knuckles. Now was his moment to shine. Garbology was his subject, and he was sure that he remembered something from his lectures. At least enough to impress the metal man and the yellow worm.
To Jaquil’s eyes as he picked through the pile, it looked like regular stuff. Broken appliances, items made of metal and plastic that might have been the furniture of alien races, old electronics, rotting food, and so on—the standard detritus of most civilized societies. Nothing particularly toxic or life-threatening, which was a pity in a way because he could have shown off his specialist knowledge. He didn’t find anything that Cilia should have found embarrassing, unless she was hyper-sensitive or ignorant about normal waste.
What he did discover was that the pile had clearly been thoroughly prepared for illegal dumping. Scratch marks were all that remained of identifying serial numbers or code squares on appliances. He didn’t see any data storage devices nor anything else that might hold a record of personal information. It was all anonymous, standard garbage that could have come from anywhere.
“Found them,” Lollololp called. He was holding up what looked like a gigantic pair of transparent, gauzy, many-holed, baggy panties. “I reckon these were what we weren’t supposed to see. There’s a whole pile of them over here.”
Jaquil’s mind instantly flew back to the tendrilled Cilia in her bath. His stomach turned over.
“We don’t have to look anymore, do we?” Lollololp asked U8AB.
“I agree,” the android replied. He’d stopped sorting through the pile and was fiddling with a wire protruding from his chest. Jaquil looked away.
The three returned to the bridge and reported to Banty that the heap was clean. They didn’t have long to wait until Starblaster was nearly at her destination. Banty explained to Jaquil that most of the time it was only a short trip to dump the trash: old enemies were almost always close neighbors in galactic terms. Their disputes usually dated from the time that the two societies had invented space travel and made first contact.
The coordinates Cilia had given them led to an area of the planet that was facing away from its sun when they arrived. It was a rocky world with oceans and seas. The landmasses were evident from the artificial lights that shone out during the night.
“Now, kid,” Banty said as Starblaster made ready to land. “Here comes the tricky part. We have to take the garbage down to the correct location, dump it, and get outta there as fast as we can. Most of the time, we can do all that from the ship. Depends on the location. Some folks want the trash dumped somewhere near a home, governmental building or suchlike. Other clients want us to throw it somewhere specific, and that often takes a little finagling to get right in and do it without being seen. Those jobs are the hard ones. Cilia’s job is kinda in the middle. The place is remote, so there shouldn’t be many people around, but she specified she wanted it inside a building. Some kind of glasshouse used for research. To dump the trash inside, we’re gonna have to leave the ship.”
&n
bsp; “I’ll help,” Jaquil said.
“Thanks,” Banty replied. “I want to use all the forklifts, and Lollo can’t drive.”
“Yes, I can,” Lollololp protested.
“Horseshit,” said Banty. She leaned closer to Jaquil and lowered her voice. “He has a habit of crashing forklifts on account of having no hands.”
Jaquil noticed that one of Lollololp’s eyes was fixed on him.
“I need to you to look after the ship,” Banty said to the yellow creature.
Blops and blurps sounded from under the flight console. Fred was saying she thought that was her job.
“Sheesh! I need both of you to look after the ship.” Banty continued to Jaquil, “From what I can tell, this isn’t gonna be hard, it’s just gonna take some time.”
Jaquil sat in his seat as the ship descended, the straps holding him tightly in place. When the soporific vibrations started up this time, however, he managed to stay awake.
The ship landed on a bare patch of ground a hundred meters or so from the glasshouse, which was the closest they could get without risking breaking the glass. As far as they could tell, no one was around to witness the illegal dump.
Jaquil went to the hold with U8AB and Banty. Jaquil wasn’t too bothered about Lollololp’s jealousy. The yellow grub already disliked him for no reason. It wouldn’t make a difference to give him one.
Soon, Jaquil’s forklift bore a sizable load of garbage, and he was waiting alongside the others in their vehicles for the hold door to lower. The three forklifts were in a row, the trash pile behind them. A crack appeared at the top of the hold door and grew wider as the door lowered, revealing a starry night sky. A dark building that reflected the light of the stars lay in the distance.
Jaquil was the first over the threshold. His forklift trundled gently over the terrain toward the glasshouse. The entrance was already open wide. It was the only part of the building that wasn’t softly lit by the stars. Jaquil wondered if Cilia had arranged inside help in her effort to thumb her nose at her kind’s ancient foe.
When he’d crossed around half the distance between the ship and the glasshouse and was already well ahead of the other two, a bolt of light shot across the gaping black hole. The leafy interior was briefly lit up. Another bolt of light flew out, going the other way. Jaquil braked, wondering what was going on. Banty hadn’t said that anything like this could happen.
“Holy shit,” the Trash Iz Uz owner shouted. “That’s weapon fire. Looks like some kind of firefight’s happening. Back to the ship, everyone. Now!”
From behind Jaquil came the sound of electric engines whining as Banty and U8AB quickly reversed. As another bolt of light flew out. This one came out of the entrance, heading in their direction. Jaquil didn’t need to be told twice. He also threw his forklift into reverse.
Unfortunately, forklift trucks are not designed for fast getaways. Jaquil trundled toward the safety of Starblaster’s hold at a speed not much faster than he’d been going when he left it. He craned anxiously behind him, guiding the vehicle, wondering if it would save time to turn around. He looked forward and saw figures emerge from the glasshouse. At the distance and in the dark he couldn’t make out them out very well, but they were headed his way and they were firing.
A pulse of light hit a metal strut next to his head, causing it to fizz and melt. Jaquil clenched his buttocks together tightly. His bowels felt like they were going to melt too. His forklift was already going at its top speed of a fast walking pace. A glance behind told him that Banty and U8AB had reached the hold and were driving inside it.
He finally realized how stupid he was being. A forklift and a load of trash weren’t more important than his life. He leapt from his vehicle and abandoned it as he ran toward the hold and safety, his dungaree pants gathered in his fists. Remembering what he’d seen of battle vid-games, he didn’t run in a straight line but veered randomly from side to side. His strategy paid off when a bolt of light hit the dirt where his boot had been a moment before.
The hold door was already rising. He jumped onto it and rolled down into the hold. He lay on the floor, panting, watching the door close. The vibration from the floor told him that Lollololp had started the engines.
“What the heck that was about?” asked Banty.
“I’m not sure,” U8AB said. “There seems to be a lot more to this trash dump than Cilia told us.”
The ship swayed as it took off.
“Looks like we got away anyway,” Banty said. “This whole deal stinks more than the Bogs of Bruallion V. Those guys who were doing the shooting knew we were coming. I’m sure of it.”
“Then why were they shooting at each other as well?” U8AB asked.
“The less we know about it the better,” Banty replied.
“Sorry about the forklift,” said Jaquil as he rose to his feet. He bent down and rolled up his pants legs, balancing against the movement of Starblaster’s flight. His dungarees were a liability. Fashionable or not—and he wasn’t too certain about that—they could have got him killed.
“Don’t worry about it,” Banty said. “We got more problems than being one forklift down. I think I’m gonna find a nice, quiet corner of the galaxy and jettison this trash into space.” She added, “By the way, I saw how you ran from those guys attacking us. You got some nice moves on you, kid.”
A banging sound interrupted them. It was coming from inside the trash pile. Banty turned, her eyebrows raised, to U8AB. “I thought you guys said you screened this garbage.”
“We did,” U8AB said. “Until we found the client’s reason for asking us not to screen it. The pile had been cleaned, captain. An expert job.”
“You checked it until you found Cilia’s embarrassing trash? How do you know the garbage is clean if you don’t check all of it?” Banty’s hands were on her sizable hips.
The banging stopped and a muffled voice shouted something like, “Help, help. Get me out of here.”
“On my great-grandmother Hepplehiggy’s life,” said Banty, “what the hell have we got ourselves into?” She slapped her forehead and took a few short steps to and fro before jabbing a finger at U8AB and Jaquil. “You two. Find out whatever’s making that noise and get it out.”
Jaquil and U8AB worked their way through the trash toward the sound of whoever was trapped.. They pulled open the pile using a forklift, then waded closer to the person’s voice, stopping every minute or so to home in. After a few minutes they reached an old wardrobe that was lying on its back. Three of its legs were broken and the mirror was shattered. The person’s voice was loud now and the wardrobe doors were jerking as if it was being hit. Jaquil and U8AB cleared away the misshapen metal casings that were piled on top of the doors.
One door flew open. A young woman stood up, brushing dust from her clothes. “Thanks.” She stepped out of the wardrobe and smoothed down her brown mop of hair. “Where am I? I seem to be lost. Oh, I’m on a starship. How did I get here? Could you please take me home?”
The woman’s speech was delivered in near-monotone. Even Jaquil—who knew himself to be predisposed to believe young women telling tall tales—was not remotely convinced by what she said.
“Lost?” exclaimed Banty. “You ain’t lost. You better tell me what the hell you were doing in the middle of that trash pile.”
“Well,” said the woman, “I was out for a walk when I suddenly felt tired. I found this old wardrobe and thought I would lie down for a nap. When I woke up, I was trapped. I heard you all talking and so I called for help.”
Her expression was neutral and her eyes were wide, but Jaquil thought he detected a sparkle somewhere deep within their depths.
“Horseshit,” Banty yelled. “The only part of that story that was true was the part about LYING. Now tell me what the heck’s going on here.” Banty’s usually good-natured features had creased into stern disapproval and she was trying—but not fully succeeding—to fold her arms across her bosom.
“I don’t know what you mean
,” protested the woman. “That’s exactly what happened. And I resent your implication that I made up a word of it.” She also folded her arms across her chest. She planted her feet wide apart and glared at Banty.
“Hmpf,” Banty said. “I’m guessing you’re the reason those people were shooting at each other and then at us. Well, the faster we wash our hands of this trash and you, the better. After we jettison this load, we’re going right back to Kranablehater III and dropping you off at the spaceport.”
“Oh no, please don’t,” said the woman. “I can’t go back there. Drop me somewhere else. I can pay you.”
“Look around you,” Banty said. “Does this look like a cruise ship? We don’t take passengers. No. The minute that garbage is gone, so are you. Right back where you came from.” Banty turned and marched out of the hold.
The woman turned to U8AB and Jaquil. “I can’t go back there. I really can’t. I have to persuade her to take me to another place. You two will help me, won’t you?”
Chapter Seven
They dumped the trash in a quiet region of the galaxy, far from the shipping routes. Then it was the woman’s turn to leave. Banty had input coordinates to take them directly back to Kranablehater III. The stranger was hanging around the bridge, trying to persuade Banty to change her mind.
“Please,” she said. “It’s dangerous for me on Kranablehater III. If I go back there, I could be killed.”
“Killed, huh?” Banty huffed and exhaled. “Would that be why you went for a walk and hid in a handy wardrobe?”
“Maybe it would help us understand your situation a little better if you told us about yourself,” U8AB said. “Starting with your name.”
“Hey,” said Banty. “I’m the captain of this vessel and the owner of Trash Iz Uz. If I say she’s going back to Kranablehater III, she’s going back to Kranablehater III. No need for any discussion.”