Bill, the Galactic Hero btgh-1

by Harry Harrison

  “It looks clear. Schmutzig, you stay here and give the alarm if anyone comes, Sporco you go down the hall to the next bend, and you do same thing. You, new Golph, come with me.” The two sentries scrambled off to their duties, while Bill followed Litvok into an alcove containing a locked metal door, which the burly leader opened with a single blow of a metal hammer he took from a place of concealment in his ragged clothes. Inside were a number of pipes of assorted dimensions that rose from the floor and vanished into the ceiling above. There were numbers stenciled onto each pipe, and Litvok pointed to them.

  “We gotta find kl-9256-B,” he said. “Let's go.” Bill found the pipe quickly. It was about as big around as his wrist, and be had just called to the bunch leader when a shrill whistle sounded down the hall.

  “Outside!” Litvok said, and pushed Bill before him, then closed the door and stood so that his body covered the broken lock. There was a growing rumbling and swishing noise that came down the hall toward them as they cowered in the alcove. Litvok held his hammer behind his back as the noise increased, and a sanitation robot appeared and swiveled its binocular eyestalk toward them.

  “Will you kindly move, this robot wishes to clean where you are standing,” a recorded voice spoke from the robot in firm tones. It whirled its brushes at them hopefully.

  “Get lost,” Litvok growled.

  “Interference with a sanitation robot during the performance of its duties is a punishable crime, as well as an antisocial act. Have you stopped to consider where you would be if the Sanitation Department wasn't…” “Blabbermouth,” Litvok snarled and hit the robot on top of its brain case with the hammer. “WONKITY!!” the robot shrilled, and went reeling down the hall dribbling water incontinently from its nozzles. “Let's finish the job,” Litvok said, throwing the door open again. He handed the hammer to Bill, and drawing a hacksaw from a place of concealment in his ragged clothes he attacked the pipe with frenzied strokes. The metal pipe was tough, and within a minute he was running with sweat and starting to tire.

  “Take over,” he shouted at Bill. “Go as fast as you can, then I take over again.” Turn and turn about it took them less than three minutes to saw all the way through the pipe. Litvok slipped the saw back into his clothes and picked up the hammer. “Get ready,” he said, spitting on his hands and then taking a mighty swing at the pipe.

  Two blows did it; the top part of the severed pipe bent out of alignment with the bottom, and from the opening began to pour an endless stream of linked green frankfurters. Litvok grabbed the end of the chain and threw it over Bill's shoulder, then began to coil loops of the things over his shoulders and arms, higher and higher. They reached the level of Bill's eyes and he could read the white lettering stamped all over their grass-green forms.

  CHLORA-FILLIES they read, and THERE'S SUNSHINE IN EVERY LINK! and THE EQUINE WURST OF DISTINCTION, and TRY OUR DOBBIN-BURGERS NEXT TIME!

  “Enough… “ Bill groaned, staggering under the weight. Litvok snapped the chain and began twining them over his own shoulders, when the flow of shiny green forms suddenly ceased. He pulled the last links from the pipe and pushed out the door.

  “The alarm went, they're onto us. Get out fast before the cops get herel” He whistled shrilly, and the lookouts came running to join them. They fled, Bill stumbling under the weight of the wursts, in a nightmare race through tunnels, down stairs, ladders, and oily tubes, until they reached a dusty, deserted area where the dim lights were few and far between. Litvok pried a manhole up from the floor, and they dropped down one by one, to crawl through a cable and tube tunnel between levels. Schmutzig and Sporco came last to pick up the sausages that fell from Bill's aching back. Finally, through a pried-out grill, they reached their coal-black destination, and Bill collapsed onto the rubble-covered floor. With cries of greed the others stripped Bill of his cargo, and within a minute a fire was crackling in a metal wastebasket and the green redhots were toasting on a rack.

  The delicious smell of roasting chlorophyll roused Bill, and he looked around with interest. By the flickering firelight he saw that they were in an immense chamber that vanished into the gloom in all directions. Thick pillars supported the ceiling and the city above, while between them loomed immense piles and heaps of all sizes. The old man, Sporco, walked over to the nearest heap and wrenched something free. When he returned Bill could see that he had sheets of paper that he began to feed one by one into the fire. One of the sheets fell near Bill and he saw, before he stuffed it into the flames, that it was a government form of some kind, yellow with age.

  Though Bill had never enjoyed Chlora-fillies, he relished them now. Appetite was the sauce, and the burning paper added a new taste tang. They washed the sausages down with rusty water from a pail kept under a permanent drip from a pipe and feasted like kings. This is the good life, Bill thought, pulling another filly from the fire and blowing on it, good food, good drink, good companions. A free man.

  Litvok and the old one were already asleep on beds of crumpled paper when the other man, Schmutzig, sidled over to Bill.

  “Have you found my ID card?” he asked in a hoarse whisper, and Bill realized the man was mad. The flames reflected eerily from the cracked lenses of his glasses, and Bill could see that they had silver frames and must have once been very expensive. Around Schmutzig's neck, half hidden by his ragged beard, was the cracked remains of a collar and the tom shard of a once fine cravat.

  “No I haven't seen your ID card,” Bill said, “in fact I haven't seen mine since the first sergeant took it away from me and forgot to give it back.” Bill began to feel song for himself again, and the foul frankfurters were sitting like lead in his stomach. Schmutzig ignored his answer, immersed as he was in his own far more interesting monomania.

  “I'm an important man, you know, Schmutzig von Dreck is a man to be reckoned with, they'll find out. They think they can get away with this, but they can't.

  An error they said, just a simple error, the tape in the records section broke, and when they repaired it a little weensy bit got snipped out, and that was the piece with my record on it, and the first I heard about it was when my pay didn't arrive at the end of the month and I went to see them about it and they had never heard of me. But everyone has heard of me. Von Dreck is a good old name. I was an echelon manager before I was twenty-two and had a staff of 356 under me in the Staple and Paper Clip Division of the 89th Office Supply Wing.

  So they couldn't make believe they never heard of me, even if I had left my ID card home in my other suit, and they had no reason clearing everything out of my apartment while I was away just because it was rented to what they said was an imaginary person. I could have proven who I was if I had my ID card…

  have you seen my ID card?” This is where I came in, Bill thought, then aloud, “That sure sounds rough.

  I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll help you look for it. I'll go down here and see if I can find it.” Before the softheaded Schmutzig could answer Bill had slipped away between the mountainous stacks of old files, very proud of himself for having outwitted a middle-aged nut: He was feeling pleasantly full and tired and didn't want to be bothered again. What he needed was a good night's rest, then in the morning he would think about this mess, maybe figure a way out of it. Feeling his way along the cluttered aisle he put a long distance between himself and the other deplanned before climbing up on a tottering stack of paper and from that clambering to a still higher one. He sighed with relief, arranged a little pile of paper for a pillow and closed his eyes.

  Then the lights came on in rows high up on the ceiling of the warehouse and shrill police whistles sounded from all sides and guttural shouts that set him to shivering with fear.

  “Grab that one! Don't let him get away!” “I got the horse thief!” “You planless bowbs have stolen your last Chlora-filly! It's the uranium-salt mines on Zana-2 for you!” Then, “Do we have them all-?” and as Bill lay clutching desperately at the forms, with his heart thudding with fear, the answer fina
lly came.

  “Yeah, four of them, we been watching them for a long time, ready to pull them in if they tried anything like this.” “But we only got three here.” “I saw the fourth one earlier, getting carried off stiff as a board by a sanitation robot.” “Affirm, then let's go.” Fear lashed through Bill again. How long before one of the bunch talked, ratted to buy a favor for himself, and told the cops that they had just sworn, in a new recruit? He had to get out of here. All the police now seemed to be bunched at the wienie roast, and he had to take a chance. Sliding from the pile as silently as he could, he began to creep in the opposite direction. If there was no exit this way he was trapped-no, mustn't think like that! Behind him whistles shrilled again, and he knew the hunt was on. Adrenalin poured into his bloodstream as he spurted forward, while rich, equine protein added strength to his legs and a decided canter to his gait. Ahead was a door, and he hurled his weight against it; for an instant it stuck-then squealed open on rusty hinges.

  Heedless of danger, he hurled himself down the spiral staircase, down and down, and out of another door, fleeing wildly, thinking only of escape.

  Once more, with the instincts of a hunted animal, he fled downward. He did not notice that the walls here were bolted together at places and streaked with rust, nor did he think it unusual when he had to pry open a jammed wooden doorwood on a planet that had not seen a tree in a hundred millenia! The air was danker and foul at times, and his fearridden course took him through a stone tunnel where nameless beasts fled before him with the rattle of evil claws. There were long stretches now doomed to eternal darkness where he had to feel his way, running his fingers along the repellent and slimy moss covered walls. Where there were lights they glowed but dimly behind their burdens of spider webs and insect corpses. He splashed through pools of stagnant water until, slowly, the strangeness of his surroundings penetrated, and he blinked about him. Set into the floor beneath his feet was another door, and, still gripped by the reflex of flight, he threw it open, but it led nowhere. Instead it gave access to a bin of some kind of granulated material, not unlike coarse sugar. Though it might just as well be insulation. It could be edible: he bent and picked some up between his fingers and ground it between his teeth. No, not edible, he spat it out, though there was something very familiar about it. Then it hit him.

  It was dirt. Earth. Soil. Sand. The stuff that planets were made out of, that this planet was made out of, it was the surface of Helior, on which the incredible weight of the world-embracing city rested. He looked up, and in that unspeakable moment was suddenly aware of that weight, all that weight, above his head, pressing down and trying to crush him. Now he was on the bottom, rock bottom, and obsessed by galloping claustrophobia. Giving a weak scream, he stumbled down the hallway until it ended in an immense sealed and bolted door. There was no way out of this. And when he looked at the blackened thickness of the door he decided that he really didn't want to go out that way either. What nameless horrors might lurk behind a portal like this at the bottom of the world?

  Then, while he watched, paralyzed, with staring eyes, the door squealed and started to swing open. He turned to run and screamed aloud in terror as something grabbed him in an unbreakable grip.

  Chapter 5

  Not that Bill didn't try to break the grip, but it was hopeless. He wriggled in the skeleton-white claws that clutched him and tried futilely to pry them from his arms, all the time uttering helpless little bleats like a lamb in an eagle's talons. Thrashing ineffectually, he was drawn backward through the mighty portal which swung shut without the agency of human hands.

  “Welcome…” a sepulchral voice said, and Bill staggered as the restraining grasp was removed, then whirled about to face the large white robot, now immobile. Next to the robot stood a small man in a white jacket who sported a large, bald head and a serious expression.

  “You don't have to tell me your name,” the small man said, “not unless you want to. But I am Inspector Jeyes. Have you come seeking sanctuary?” “Are you offering it?” Bill asked dubiously.

  “Interesting point, most interesting.” Jeyes rubbed his chapped hands together with a dry, rustling sound. “But we shall have no theological arguments now, tempting as they are, I assure you, so I think it might be best to make a statement, yes indeed. There is a sanctuary here-have you come to avail yourself of it?” Bill, now that he had recovered from his first shock, was being a little crafty, remembering all the trouble he had gotten into by opening his big wug.

  “Listen, I don't even know who you are or where I am or what kind of strings are attached to this sanctuary business.” “Very proper, my mistake, I assure you, since I took you for one of the city's deplanned, though now I notice that the rags you are wearing were once a trooper's dress uniform and that the oxidized shard of pot metal on your chest is the remains of a noble decoration. Welcome to Helior, the Imperial Planet, and how is the war coming?” “Fine, fine-but what's this all about?” “I am Inspector Jeyes of the City Department of Sanitation. I can see, and I sincerely hope you will pardon the indiscretion, that you are in a bit of trouble, out of uniform, your plan gone, perhaps even your ID card vanished.” He watched Bill's uneasy motion with shrewd, birdlike eyes. “But it doesn't have to be that way. Accept sanctuary. We will provide for you, give you a good job, a new uniform, even a new ID card.” “And all I have to do is become a garbage man!” Bill sneered.

  “We prefer the term G-man,” Inspector Jeyes answered humbly.

  “I'll think about it,” Bill said coldly.

  “Might I help you make up your mind?” the inspector asked, and pressed a button on the wall. The portal into outer blackness squealed open once again, and the robot grabbed Bill and started to push.

  “Sanctuary!” Bill squealed, then pouted when the robot had released him and the door was resealed. “I was just going to say that anyway, you didn't have to throw your weight around.” “A thousand pardons, we want you to feel happy here. Welcome to the D of S.

  At the risk of embarrassment, may I ask if you will need a new ID card? Many of our recruits like to start life afresh down here in the department, and we have a vast selection of cards to choose from. We get everything eventually you must remember, bodies and emptied wastebaskets included, and you would be surprised at the number of cards we collect that way. If you'll just step into this elevator…” The D of S did have a lot of cards, cases and cases of them, all neatly filed and alphabetized. In no time at all Bill had found one with a description that fitted him fairly closely, issued in the name of one Wilhelm Stuzzicadenti, and showed it to the inspector.

  “Very good, glad to have you with us, Villy…” “Just call me Bill.” “… and welcome to the service, Bill, we are always undermanned down here, and you can have your pick of jobs, yes indeed, depending of course upon your talents-and your interests. When you think of sanitation what comes to your mind?” “Garbage.” The inspector sighed. “That's the usual reaction, but I had expected better of you. Garbage is just one thing our Collection Division has to deal with, in addition there are Refuse, Waste, and Rubbish. Then there are whole other departments, Hall Cleaning, Plumbing Repair, Research, Sewage Disposal… “ “That last one sounds real interesting. Before I was forcefully enlisted I was taking a correspondence course in Technical Fertilizer Operating.” “Why that's wonderful! You must tell me more about it, but sit down first, get comfortable.” He led Bill to a deep, upholstered chair, then turned away to extract two plastic cartons from a dispenser. “And have a cooling Alco-Jolt while you're talking.” “There's not much to say. I never finished my course, and it appears now I will never satisfy my lifelong ambition and operate fertilizer. Maybe your Sewage Disposal department…?” “I'm sorry. It is heartbreaking, since that's right down your alley too, so to speak, but if there is one operation that doesn't give us any problem, it's sewage, because it's mostly automated. We're proud of our sewage record because it's a big one; there must be over 150 billion people on Helior…” “WOW!�
�� “… you're right, I can see that glow in your eye. That is a lot of sewage, and I hope sometime to have the honor of showing you through our plant.

  But remember, where there is sewage there must be food, and with Helior importing all its food we have a closed-circle operation here that is a sanitary engineer's dream. Ships from the agricultural planets bring in the processed food which goes out to the populace where it starts through, what might be called the chain of command. We get the effluvium and process it, the usual settling and chemical treatments, anaerobic bacteria and the likeI'm not boring you am I?” “No, please…” Bill said, smiling and flicking away a tear with a knuckle, “it's just that I'm so happy, I haven't had an intelligent conversation in so long…” “I can well imagine-it must be brutalizing in the service,” he clapped Bill on the shoulder, a hearty stout-fellow-well-met gesture. “Forget all that, you're among friends now. Where was I? Oh yes, the bacteria, then dehydration and compression. We produce one of the finest bricks of condensed fertilizer in the civilized galaxy and I'll stand up to any man on that “ “I'm sure you do!” Bill agreed fervently.

  “-and automated belts and lifts carry the bricks to the spaceports where they are loaded into the spaceships as fast as they are emptied. A full load for a full load, that's our motto. And I've heard that on some poor-soiled planets they cheer when the ships come home. No, we can't complain about our, sewage operation; it is in the other departments that we have our problems.” Inspector Jeyes drained his container and sat scowling, his pleasure drained just as fast. “No, don't do that!” he barked as Bill finished his drink and started to pitch the empty container at the wall-disposal chute.

  “Didn't mean to snap,” the inspector apologized, “but that's our big problem.

  Refuse. Did you ever think how many newspapers 150 billion people throw away every day? Or how many dispos-a-steins? Or dinner plates? We're working on this problem in research, day and night, but it's getting ahead of us. It's a nightmare. That Alco-Jolt container you're holding is one of our answers, but it's just a drop of water in the ocean.” As the last drops of liquid evaporated from the container it began to writhe obscenely in Bill's hand, and, horrified, he dropped it to the floor, where it continued to twitch and change form, collapsing and flattening before his eyes.