'I'm coming back in,' he shouted to Madeleine. 'This place looks like permanent wellie terrain to me. Good job I brought a pair with me… Although I've no idea what you're going to wear!'
And so it was, five minutes later, changed into his burgundy wellingtons, that Renton made his second descent onto the surface of Dumpiter. Close behind him came Madeleine - without wellingtons, but with a very nice pair of spangled pixie-boots. She'd acquired them back on Crabbsbab, and they would just have to do.
Boz wore large pirate-variety boots all the time, and seemed oblivious to the dodgy nature of the terrain. While the Tenting wardrobe was being adjusted, he'd been plodding around the perimeter of his ship, establishing the lie of the land and that sort of thing. Now he approached his newly reunited companions. He greeted them with a cheery 'Welcome to Dumpiter. Yessir, as yous can see, yous really are welcome to it!'
'God, Boz, this place really is a dump. Just look at that view!'
And it was quite a view. The landscape, which stretched out before them, was barely credible.
Renton's oil patch was not unique. They were all over the place. And in all sorts of sinister colours. And there was no relief between them, only a grimy, dusty earth, strewn with metal and plastic scraps and covered in a ubiquitous frost of polystyrene strips and assorted litter. As far as the eye could see, there was wall-to-wall filth.
Here and there, the plateau's surface was studded with what Renton had first taken to be rocks and scrub, the normal topographical furniture of most barren-type planets. But none of these features was natural. On closer inspection, Renton realised that the “rocks” were either lumps of metal or piles of chunky trash, and that the “scrub” was nothing other than rough coils of wire, bent and mangled piping and heaps of twisted rods. It was all absolutely disgusting.
'Ain't gonna win no awards, is it?' said Boz, somewhat redundantly.
Renton agreed.
'I didn't know places like this existed,' he said. 'It's terrible, just absolutely terrible.'
Madeleine joined the conversation. 'It certainly is. I knew Dumpiter wouldn't be very pretty, but I didn't think it'd be as bad as this.'
'It couldn't be any worse, could it?' responded Renton. 'It's bloody criminal. I can't believe it's so horrible!'
'And this is a sort of "rural" area,' added Madeleine. 'Just imagine what the built-up bits are like, the places where they cut up the spaceships and things. God, they must be really grim. I mean really, really grim.'
'Well, my dear,' observed Boz, 'for a rural area, this here place is a little thin on the ole flora and fauna. You notice anythin' that's green? I mean naturally green - not like that puddle over there. An' birds an' insects an' stuff? There ain't nothin'. Hell, I bet the bugs have been scared out o' this place. It's so damned dirty it's probably killed off all known diseases. I know if I was a virus, I'd have cleared out o' here tout de suite.'
'Bloody right,' said Renton. 'If it's like this all over the place, you've got to wonder why anything or anybody stays here at all. I mean, why would anybody want to live here?'
'Coz it's 'ome, good sir. Coz it's all weez got. There ain't nowhere else to go.'
Renton spun round to discover the owner of the rustic voice. It was an old, frail-looking man leaning on a stick. He was dressed in rags, which had long since passed out of the realms of textiles. They looked as though they'd been used to blot up some of the surrounding puddles. Really quite successfully.
'Jeez, where the hell did yous come from?' enquired Boz. 'Yous live in a hole in the ground or somethin'?'
'Well yes, good sir, Ize does, as it happens. But not just 'ere. Ize lives a league or so over there,' he explained, pointing in the general direction beyond Renton's monoflight.
'Oh pardon me, ole pal,' responded Boz, rather uncomfortably. 'I didn't like mean to be rude or anythin'. It's just that you gave me a bit of a fright there. I weren't like expectin' company, you know. I'm really sorry if I've caused you any offence, ole timer. My deepest 'pologies. An' on top o' that, here I am forgettin' my manners an' all. Let me introduce myself and my colleagues. I'm Boz, an' this here is my friend, Madeleine an' our mootual friend, Renton.'
Madeleine and Renton nodded to the old man.
'An' we are like delighted to make your acquaintance. An' to complete proceedin's at this here stage, will yous be so good as to impart your own name to us - so we can keep it all friendly like.'
'Ize be Dopotompo, sir. And I'm very happy to meet you. Ize don't get too many visitors out 'ere - if yer knows what I mean. And I'm sure Ize can't recall the last time anyone came 'ere in no spaceships. They are spaceships, aren't they? Small uns but real uns.'
'Oh yes,' answered Boz. 'They're real spaceships alright. An' we've just landed on your lill' ole world here from a very distant planet.'
'Why? Not the sort o' place I'd spend my money on visitin'. Why you come 'ere?'
'Ah,' interjected Renton, 'a good question. One, as they say, that deserves a good answer.' He smiled rather nervously. 'We're here on a bit of research. We're interested in the way ships are dismantled and recycled. And of course, your world is pre-eminent in…'
'Yer won't find much of that rounds 'ere, young man. You've landed miles from where all that sort o' stuff goes on. Miles!'
Renton saw an opportunity to pick up some useful information and pressed on. 'Ah! You must know where we need to go then. Can you tell us where that is, Mr… errh, Mr Dopopompo?'
'Dopotompo. The name's Dopotompo with a "T". Yes sir, course I can. If you go about sixty miles in that direction,' again pointing beyond the monoflight, 'you'll come to a lot of dismantlin' and the like. Just the sort of thing you want, I reckon. Yes sir, about sixty miles in a straight line - that way.'
'Ah, splendid, Dopotompo. That's just splendid. That really is. But I wonder - if we wanted to leave our spaceships here - out of the way, so to speak - is there any way we could get to this 'ere dismantling area other than by walking? Sixty miles is a bit of a long way. I don't suppose there's any other sort of transport around here, is there? No hovers or anything?'
'Oh yes,' started Dopotompo encouragingly, 'quite right. There's nuffin' like that round 'ere.'
'Oh that's a pity. We may have to take the ships. But I just thought I'd ask.'
'There is the easipeas,' announced Dopotompo suddenly. 'There is that.'
'The easipeas?' enquired Renton. 'Errh, what's an easipeas?'
'Don't you know what an easipeas is? Well, I'll be. Funny that. And you from another world an' all. Well, it's a bit difficult to describe like, but Ize can take you to see it if you want. It's near my 'ome. Don't use it much meself, but Ize does 'ire it out on occasions. And it might be jus' the job for your trippin' requirements, jus' the job indeed.'
Renton looked to Boz and Madeleine. He could see in their expressions that they thought this was an offer well worth following up. It might prove, as the man said “just the job”. And by the sound of it, this machine or whatever it was couldn't be that far away.
'OK, Dopotompo, we're certainly interested,' enthused Renton. 'Why don't you lead the way?'
'Why not indeed, good sir?' And before the matter could be debated any further, Dopotompo was skipping off in the direction of the promised easipeas at a fair old lick. His frail looks belied an obvious wiry, good health and a very strong heart. They all had difficulty keeping up with him.
Finally, however, countless puddles, rubbish piles and tips of debris later, they arrived at Dopotompo's home. It was indeed a hole in the ground - with a door. But Renton didn't notice this. Like his companions, his attention was elsewhere - on what had become visible a mile or so from its resting place: the easipeas. It was like nothing he had ever seen before.
It was a brick of metal, rounded at its front, and sitting on two metal skids. And it was enormous. It stood at least thirty feet high and it must have been more than eighty feet long from end to end. The huge curve of its blunt nose towered above them as they approache
d, a blind girdle of grey metal, smooth, featureless and very solid looking. And, as they discovered later, it was solid. Most of this gargantuan land vehicle was just a chunk of the densest niobium, just a huge mass of very heavy matter. There was only the smallest of cabins inside - accessed by a single door at the rear of the vehicle - a mere tiny void in the heart of the beast. And sandwiched between this void and those giant skids, there was an engine. A fiz-fuz engine. Not a big fiz-fuz, but easily big enough to shift this solid chunk of ironmongery - and to make it a moving vehicle.
Renton was impressed, but it was Boz who spoke first.
'I bet the kids loved goin' to school in this thing,' he whistled. 'I bet they sure did.'
Then he shook his head. 'Shit, Dopotompo, this really is some vehicule yous got yourself here. Some vehicule an' a half.'
'You likes the look of it, good sir?' enquired Dopotompo.
'Yous bet you I do,' replied Boz. 'This here's jus' the sort of runaround we've been lookin' for - even if it might be… well, you know, jus' a touch on the big side o' big. But hell, ain't no way we won't cope with it…'
'Yes, I'm sure we'll be fine,' added Renton. 'But, Dopotompo, tell me, why is it called an easipeas?'
'Well I'll tell you, young man. Coz there's a very simple answer to your question.'
Dopotompo sniffed, adopted a suitably didactic pose and continued.
'The "easi" bit is the giveaway. The "peas" bit's just for rhymin' like. And the "easi" bit… well, that stands for "equal and similar inversion".'
He paused again as though that revelation explained all, but then he continued.
'I'm sures you all know about them there Newtonian physics stuff. You know, the action and reaction bit - and how both of them are equal and opposite like. Well, when this action and reaction stuff ain't equal and opposite, it's equal and similar - and it's changed. You know, it's inverted. The equal and similar inversion thing. And that's how this thing works. And that's why it's called an easipeas.'
Renton looked puzzled and Boz looked positively bemused.
'Errh yes,' said Renton hesitantly, 'I see… errh, up to a point. But what exactly does this equal and similar inversion do? I mean does it power this thing?'
'Oh no, young sir, it don't do that. This here chap's got a standard micro fiz-fuz in its bowels. Small thing, but it'll shift it along at about fifty at top belt. Oh no, the easi bit's not about powerin' it. Oh no, it's about gettin' it to anywhere it wants to go.'
Renton nodded his head. But still he didn't understand.
'I'm still not sure I follow, Dopotompo. You couldn't spell it out for us, could you?'
'Ooh ah, I could indeed and I will,' smiled Dopotompo. And he went on. 'This 'ere easipeas and a few others like 'im were left on some Rangican battlecruiser, which got dumped here for scrappin'. After the Rangican venture into empire buildin' went off the boil, so to speak. Course, none o' them had any guns on or nothin'. They'd all been stripped off before we got 'em. And the fiz-fuzzes had gone an' all. In fact, they were just regular lumps of nuisance scrap - 'ceptin, o' course, they weren't, were they? On account of how they'd still got these 'ere easi things in 'em. And that, yer see, made 'em well worth salvagin'.
'Well, we're pretty good at that round 'ere. And it wasn't too much of a job to put some new fiz-fuzzes in 'em - and get 'em workin' again. Course, they still didn't have no guns. But that didn't matter. Weez just wanted them for a bit of muscle stuff. You know, heavy like work. And yer don't need no guns to do that.'
Renton was enthralled. But he was still some way from understanding the easi principle and what it did for this huge machine. He was about to find out, although he had to work at it.
Dopotompo continued, his eyes now twinkling. 'Well anyway, this easi business. As I said, the fiz-fuz shifts this thing along. And that's what it did when our Rangican friends used it for what they'd put it together for in the first place: a big battle-tank for runnin' all over some planet they were busy con-krin. Only they'd worked out it helped matters considerably like, if this bloody big tank thing was unstoppable. No good summat this size comin' up 'gainst some niobium shielded wall or maybe some really big concrete blocks - an' then gettin' itsel' stuck. Oh no, these Rangican geezers wanted their fightin' machines to be able to just roll through stuff like that - just like it weren't there. And that's where the easi bit comes in. What happens is - and Ize might have to go a bit slow here - coz it's like science stuff - but what happens is that say this 'ere chap comes up against a big concrete block. Like I mean a really big, 'undred feet cube o' the stuff say. Well, what happens is that the easipeas presses on this block an' it… errh, it… errh forces it…'
Renton helped out: 'it exerts a force.'
'Yes, sir, that's right. It exerts a force,' continued Dopotompo. 'That's what it does. And the science is that the block exerts a force back, the same force. That's yer action and reaction and that's what's equal and opposite. You all follow that, don't you?'
They all nodded. They did all follow that.
'Well, what the easi thing does is sense these 'ere forces and, as far as I knows, what it can do is judge when there's just enough of them, like when they've built up enough, to switch what's the reaction into an action like, and some 'ow - an' Ize don't know quite 'ow - it makes the forces equal and similar rather than equal and opposite - from the easipeas end of things. So real sudden like, this 'ere concrete block's got the force of the easipeas on it and the force of the block on it as well. It… errh, it exerts this force on itself along with the force from the machine. And when this happens the block disintegrates. In fact, it bloody well explodes. And the easipeas carries on its way. Clever, ain't it? And impressive, Ize can tell you, very impressive indeed. What I've just described don't take no time at all. If this thing's skippin' along at fifty, when it meets that block, you can't even see it slow. It's all over in a flash. The block's gone before it knows what's hit it. All bloody clever!'
The lecture appeared to be over. And to make entirely sure he'd understood what it was all about, Renton ventured a summary.
'So what you're saying, Dopotompo, is that this thing here's got something in it which fiddles around with Newton's laws and somehow flips one side of the old action and reaction whatsit - so that anything it comes up against gets obliterated. Any obstacle actually helps in its own destruction. It's like a… well, it's like an unstoppable bulldozer. I mean, it's just a bloody great brute, isn't it?'
'Oh, it's a brute alright, sir,' agreed Dopotompo. 'Not the sort of thing you'd want on your own planet, I'm sure. But as you see, weez ain't got ourselves quite a normal planet 'ere, an' it don't matter too much whether it goes round bustin' things up. It wouldn't get used where folks are livin' an' all. But there's plenty of Dumpiter what's like this, an' where this sort o' thing can do some proper useful work - an' right real quick of course. And as Ize said, it could certainly solve yer own little problem in gettin' yer where yer want to go. You'll be there in no time at all. Ize can assure you of that.'
Renton needed little convincing. This magic metal carpet appealed to him immensely. Not only did it provide them with a form of transport that would get them around quickly, but it offered what looked to be a very secure form of transport - ideal for the dangers of Dumpiter. And possibly something that would be of immense assistance in their ultimate confrontation with Lysaars. Not an insignificant consideration.
'We'll take it, Dopotompo. We'll certainly take it. You said you'd hire it. Can we do it that way? Will that be OK?'
'Suits me, sir. Suits me,' replied Dopotompo. 'Course, it's not cheap, you understand. Ize 'ave me overheads an' all.'
Renton hadn't thought this far. And whilst he wasn't fazed by the threat of some expense, he now realised that they didn't have any local money - or whatever was used for money on this planet. Something clean possibly. Anything clean possibly!
'Of course, of course,' reassured Renton. 'Errh, but it's just occurred to me. Errh, I'm not sure we've any lo
cal currency. We may have to owe you for it.'
'Ain't you got no Mastercard or summat?' enquired Dopotompo incredulously. 'Ain't you got no credit discs at all?'
'Discs?' laughed Renton. 'Discs? You take credit discs!?'
'Well, o' course I does,' replied Dopotompo indignantly. 'What d'ya think we use round here - stones or summat?'
'But I just didn't realise… errh, that you… errh, ran a business - and errh, would be taking discs,' was all that Renton could manage.
'Well I does. How d'ya think Ize feeds meself out 'ere? I'm not a bloody hermit, you know. Ize 'ave to run a business like anyone else. There's no 'andouts round 'ere, I can tell you.'
Renton looked a little sheepish to say the least, but Boz came to his assistance.
'Beggin' y' pardon, Dopotompo,' he said, 'but what sort a business does a resourceful gentleman like yourself get up to in these here parts? I must confess I'd have a bit of a problem myself, knowin' like what to put in my business plan in this neck o' the woods.'
As he said it, Boz clearly regretted using a reference to “woods”. Given the state of their immediate surroundings, it was hardly the best choice of words.
'Oh there's more to do than yous might think, young man. Ize finds plenty to keeps meself goin'. A bit of whats we call fine-extraction. You know, pickin' over some of the bits round here to find the really valuable metals an' the like. Fiddly it is but worth it. And Ize does a bit of model makin'. Plenty of stuff to make models out of 'ere. And Ize does a bit of 'irin,' ' he said pointing to the easipeas. 'Oh, an' Ize does a bit of frock-designin' now an' again.'
'Frock-designing?' exclaimed Madeleine. 'You mean frocks for women?'
'Well, what d'yer think? Of course I mean frocks for women. Mind, I'm still developin' my style. An' well, Ize may be a bit before my time. But I think there's lots of promise in frock-designin'. I think it's where I'll soon be devotin' most of my resources - if yer knows what I mean.'
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