When not washing dishes, Blok Mardem was aspiring to be one of the leading alchemical-scientists in the galaxy. He had become especially adept at the conjuring of vortexes. What was beyond the gateway of the vortexes he created was unknown, but one thing was certain, if you threw something into the vortex you would never see it again.
Blok dispatched his plan only to the dishwashers. The plan went like this:
The dishes were to be deposited into a series of tunnels, all of which would flow into the underground of the northern hemisphere. This particular dish-filled half of the planet would be amputated and aimed into the vortex. How exactly this half-a-planet would be separated is a point that we are nearly arriving at. But first, how Blok rallied together the dishwashers:
More of Blok Mardem's hobbies and skills included computer hacking and a knowledge of coded languages. He used these skills to hack into the system of the Blue Splotch payroll distribution program. Through this program he arranged for a coded message to appear on the backs of the Blue Splotch pay-cheques for the Dish department.
Blok's message announced his plans and gave an address in which the dishwasher could reply if interested. The response was unanimous. Every dishwasher on Clug Raddo agreed it was a very good idea to banish the dishes. Blok sent out charts, time-lines and blueprints, instructing each of the dishwashers to begin digging a tunnel system beneath their respective Blue Splotch restaurants.
This was not an overnight rebellion. It took years for the dishwashers to work out a properly functioning tunnel system. Amidst maniacal delusions, Blok did not think about how the population of people living on the northern hemisphere would be affected when they were sent careening into a black hole.
He also did not realize that getting rid of the dishes was a ridiculously moot point, as new dishes could be immediately delivered from Glassvexx on any day of the solar revolution.
An epic-scale vortex was conjured just outside the orbit of the planet. As impressive a display of Blok's talent as the vortex was, many of the dishwashers were still sceptical he could succeed. Luckily Blok had another hobby that would prove useful.
Aside from Blok's skills in vortex conjuring, computer hacking, dishwashing and message coding, he also had knowledge of Zhoteps, the name for the type of frightening bombs used only during mass-planetary reconstructive surgery. Blok had in his apartment a highly illegal collection of such explosives.
The dishwashers then set in motion wiring the entire equator of the planet. This was followed by prompt detonation. The blinding flash of the blast-wave can still be seen travelling through space, only just now arriving at locations untold light years away.
The dish-filled hemisphere detached and drifted into the nearby vortex. As of this writing, it has never been seen again. Miraculously, against all logic, the southern hemisphere of Clug Raddo does not careen into oblivion but continues a functional orbit with life-sustainability.
There are many myths regarding the apparent locations of the missing half of Clug Raddo. Some say the two halves were made to be the parts of a universal, god-like skeleton key, and that if the planet was ever repaired it would bring about either great prosperity or terrible doom, depending on which camp of conspiratorial-crazies you belong to.
The Bonus Short Story, or:
How We Colonized Jupiter and Cleaned up Garbotron
As collected from the Cutting Room Floor,
(shortly before I decided to distance myself from Rip and Wilx.)
(with a title full of spoilers at no additional surcharge).
CHAPTER 1
Jupiter
“Did you ever watch the movie 2010?” Wilx asked me.
“Sure. Except the first one's better.”
“I know. I've seen it way more times,” said Wilx. “So when did humans actually first make contact?”
“It was 2020,” I replied. “His prediction had misinterpreted Plato's ten-year error.”
“What does Plato have to do with it?”
“Never mind. Humans didn't end up going to Jupiter until 2052,” I added. “And nothing momentous happened.”
“Hmm,” said Wilx. “What's Jupiter like?”
“It's like Rip's ego. Big and gassy. A never-ending storm that looks interesting from afar but can be fatal from up close.”
“How many planets rotate that star again?” asked Wilx.
“Five,” I said. “Used to be nine, then four of them collided with each other and became the Planetglomerate.”
“We will go to Jupiter,” declared Wilx suddenly. “I've seen those movies and read those books enough to have interest in the matters of that planet.”
“It really is just a bunch of gas,” I said.
“There must be something special about it, something that made the prophet Clarke write those stories.”
“He probably just picked a random planet in the galaxy. It could have just as easily been about Saturn or Neptune.”
“No,” said Wilx. “It is a sign. There's something about Jupiter.”
“So you think if we go to Jupiter the movies will come true?”
“Not exactly, but something will happen. You never ignore a sign.”
“What about the time you ignored that 'NO LEFT TURN AHEAD' sign and we ended up being diverted through a gauntlet of Dementia-Mirrors?” I asked.
“That sign didn't say 'NO LEFT TURN AHEAD.' It said 'NO STONE LEFT UNTURNED UNSTONED.' Had we gotten stoned and turned rocks over at the beach we probably would have missed out on the Dementia-Mirrors. Plus we might have seen some interestingly rare aquatic creatures. What did you expect would happen?” argued Wilx.
“I don't know. Anyway, humans already went to Jupiter and nothing much happened.”
“That was a long time ago. We're more prepared than humans were. I've seen 2001 more than anyone.”
As much as I wanted to avoid going near the Planetglomerate, I decided to save my breath. If he wanted to go to Jupiter, that was where we would end up going. Wilx always had final say on the chartering of the ship, being that he actually knew how to run the computers.
Rip had been in cryogenic sleep for the past year, having hidden himself there in order to avoid paying the toll-booth fees of certain finicky dimensional border-crossings. He was only meant to be out for a few hours, but we hadn't got around to waking him up yet. Wilx now saw no reason of it until we reached Jupiter. I think he enjoyed the fact that our situation already seemed to mirror the film, by having a frozen team-member who would (hopefully) be awoken upon arrival at the Gas Giant.
CHAPTER 2
Where is Jupiter?
Arrival at Jupiter was anti-climactic. As we arrived, we also did not arrive. Jupiter was gone. Missing. Someone had left a moon-sized post-it note saying: This Gas Giant has vanished for unknown reasons.
“Bastards!” cursed Wilx.
“What do you think happened?” I asked.
“Jupiter might have been stolen to be used in warfare. Sometimes planets are used as weapons, hurled at other planets and the like. Gas giants are frequent favorites. They release the most amount of toxicity. Only uninhabited planets are allowed to be used as weapons, but it's still a barbaric practice. Stealing a planet often throws off the gravitational orbit of surrounding populated worlds.”
“Jupiter isn't uninhabited,” I said.
“Surely it is,” said Wilx. “All gas giants are lifeless.”
“No they aren't. Humans found life on Jupiter in 2052,” I said.
“You said nothing happened.”
“I said nothing much happened. Something happened. I just didn't feel like getting into the whole story.”
“Tell me about these life-forms!” said Wilx excitedly.
“They exist body-less, like pure thought. You see, some of the gaseous vapors floating around actually contained a mildly intelligent consciousness. It was discovered when the vapors telepathically transmitted their collective voice into the computers. I once heard a recording. They talked like a
weird Radio DJ.”
“How did such a life-form come to exist?” asked Wilx. He was enthralled and thought nothing of the curious Radio DJ comment.
“Have you ever heard the rhetorical question 'If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?'” I asked.
“Rhetorical nonsense,” said Wilx.
“It suggests that something only exists because a consciousness is present to experience it. This is very true for the life of a planet.”
“Are you talking about the Life-to-Planet Totality Quotient?” asked Wilx.
“Indeed. Based on the human discoveries on Jupiter I began to believe in the theory that an uninhabited planet does not exist anywhere. Even a planet the size of Jupiter has at the very least a species of rudimentary Vapour-Thought.”
“And you believe the disappearance is because of this?”
“Yes,” I replied. “The Life-to-Planet Totality Quotient says that if any planet for some reason does become uninhabited, it will have a limited amount of time to acquire or create new life before it merely blinks out of existence due to its own uselessness. Like the rhetorical nonsense goes, something does not exist if it is not made real by consciousness.”
“You sound like Nickbas.”
“Sometimes he made a lot of sense,” I said.
“Say you're right,” said Wilx. “Why did Jupiter disappear if it had life?”
“The Vapors must have left the planet, whether by their own will or not.”
“So this planet is just destroyed forever?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “One theory says that a vanished, lifeless planet does not cease to exist, but out of survival instinct gains the ability to teleport itself to a distant part of space, one where it might have a more hopeful chance of picking up some tourist traffic.”
“You believe in this theory as well, don't you?” asked Wilx.
“Yes.”
“So Jupiter is still out there somewhere?”
“It's very possible,” I replied.
“Then it's time for another quest,” said Wilx.
“To find the lost planet of Jupiter?”
“Yes... A Quest to Find the Lost Planet of Jupiter!”
“Ok!” I agreed. This adventure seemed more about scientific exploration than life-threatening peril, so my enthusiasm was genuine. “How do you suggest we start looking? There's a lot of space out there. Infinite amounts, in fact.”
“If only we had a sample of Jupiter's atmosphere,” said Wilx. “Then all we'd have to do is set up a simple tracking beacon.”
“There used to be a whole museum filled with samples on Earth. It was built after the 2052 mission. But all of that was destroyed in the anti-Jupiter terrorist bombing of 2087.”
“I guess that doesn't help us out.”
“Maybe it does,” I said. “We both know where all the garbage from Earth ended up.”
“Garbotron?”
“Exactly. If the Jupiter Museum was destroyed, than the remnants of it must be lying somewhere on Garbotron. Maybe a canister of Jupiter's atmosphere has survived.”
“You really want to go back there after the horrible time you had looking for that beard?” asked Wilx.
“I know someone who can help us. But we'll need some incentive. You charter the ship to Garbotron while I go peruse the deep-storage.”
“Alright,” agreed Wilx, despite having no idea what I was talking about.
CHAPTER 3
The Resurrection of the Quigg
You never knew what you might find in the storage section of our impossible ship. During our travels we had collected many interesting things. I had a few secret items stashed away. Stuff that was much more interesting than frozen Goat's milk. One of my rarest objects had come from the Planetglomerate. It was an intact skeleton of the now extinct Quigg species. We were long overdo for a resurrection of these incredibly useful creatures.
I carried a small cryogenic tank back to the bridge and presented the skeleton to Wilx.
“I need you to clone this creature back to life,” I said.
“What creature?” asked Wilx. “Why?”
“It's a Quigg. It might be the only way to convince him to help us maneuver Garbotron.”
“Convince who?”
“Milt,” I replied. “You know, that nutty little fruit fly. We'll present the Quigg as a gift.”
“Right,” said Wilx. “I'll start up the cloning machine in a minute. First I need to work out some data on the chalkboard. The machine gets confused when presented with the genetic makeup of an unfamiliar species.”
Wilx walked over to the chalkboard. The word MEETS had already been written in the middle of the board. Wilx attempted to erase the word, having forgotten it was permanently etched there.
“Why is the word 'meets' stuck on this chalkboard?” he asked.
“I invented that chalkboard during my time on Earth. It's meant to be used in pitch-meetings between screen-writers and movie-producers. Often writers pitch ideas by saying is a combination of two other popular movies.”
“I understand the concept,” said Wilx. “Movie-producers wish to invest with minimal amount of risk by merely reproducing what has already been proven to be a money-maker.”
“Indeed,” I replied. “I figured if a lot of people are pitching their movie merely by writing blank MEETS blank onto a board, then I could at least save everyone the time from spelling out the word MEETS. The 'Something-Meets-Something Chalkboard' was one of my most popular inventions. It sold thousands of units in Hollywood alone. It was estimated I shaved hours off the yearly schedules of those who bought one.”
For someone of Wilx's technological brilliance, bringing the Quigg back to life ended up being a surprisingly easy task.
“Why don't we bring extinct species back all the time?” I asked.
“Because we don't mysteriously happen to have frozen samples of these hypothetical species on hand.”
“Good point,” I said.
“For the most,” continued Wilx. “If a species sucks enough at living to go extinct... it's probably for the best.”
“Another good point,” I said.
“But throughout the Universe, bringing back species from extinction is a supremely popular activity. There are entire planets devoted to Extinction Attraction Parks, mostly in the over-commercialized Zenib Quadrant.”
“Oh, you mean like Jurassic Park.”
“Dinosaurs never existed on Earth, silly. Rip put them there to test humanity's faith in Giant Lizards.”
The now-living Quigg confusedly examined our ship. After a few minutes it remembered its purpose and began to scrub the floors.
“Oh, don't worry about cleaning the ship,” I said to the Quigg. “Save your energy for Garbotron, you'll need it.”
The Quigg either didn't hear us, or didn't understand.
“Might as well let it keep cleaning,” said Wilx. “The ship could use it.”
“Should we wake up Rip for the Garbotron ground-mission?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
We defrosted Rip from his cryogenic sleep. He snapped awake with vigor, showing none of the groggy hangover effects common after a long sleep.
“So, what are we up to?” he asked. Wilx got him caught up.
“We're on a mission to find the recently vanished planet of Jupiter. Krimshaw believes the disappearance has been caused by the Life-to-Planet Totality Quotient, and that Jupiter is still intact somewhere in distant space. Our only hope to find it is to have a sample of its atmosphere for the tracking beacon. For a time there were samples stored in a museum on Earth, only the museum was bombed and the remnants were sent to Garbotron. We're now at Garbotron in hopes of finding a surviving piece of the atmosphere. We plan on once again asking the fruit fly Milt for directions, except we plan on actually getting directions this time by having a bribe in the form of a recently cloned specimen of a Quigg, the once extinct cleaning species.”
&n
bsp; During that rant, Rip had generally only noticed the word Garbotron.
“We're there again?!” he moaned. “Why did you wake me?”
“Because you might miss something amazing,” replied Wilx.
“On Garbotron?”
“No, probably not on Garbotron. But later. If we find Jupiter.”
CHAPTER 4
Garbotron Revisited
We put the Quigg into a cage. Within minutes the cage had been cleaned to the point where it was blindingly shiny. With nothing left to clean, the Quigg promptly sat silently and went into a catatonic meditation. We didn't realize it, but the Quigg was caught in a serious state between life and death. The Quigg anatomy requires the act of cleaning to keep itself alive. Its cellular structure began to break down as soon as every square inch of accessible surface had been polished and sterilized. But this new Quigg was fighting to break through to the next logical phase in evolution. Had the creature been given a longer life-span and a more rapid method of procreation, it would have eventually spawned a new species of Quigg capable of not only cleaning things but also of dirtying things, allowing themselves to always stay alive, even if only to be caught up in a ridiculous loop of cleaning, dirtying, cleaning, dirtying, and so on.
It was not difficult to find Milt, for his swath of clean land known as the Oviform had substantially expanded. He had been busy at work. I made sure Wilx parked the ship at least a mile away from the edge of the Oviform, so that we did not stir up any contaminants. From there we walked.
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