The Garbage Chronicles Read online

  “Forget ‘em!” Javik yelled. “And help me get the friggin’ engines started! Blanquie! Where the hell are you, Blanquie?” Javik flipped the starter toggle on and off, with no result. “Go back and check Blanquie. Get him out here. Now!”

  Evans rolled aft rapidly. She opened the hatch to Blanquie’s sleeping compartment and looked in. She screamed. Then she coughed as a rush of icy, rarefied air hit her face.

  Whirling around on his chair, Javik saw Evans recoil from the hatch in shock.

  Evans slammed the hatch shut and mento-locked it. ‘The compartment is full of monsters!” she said. “I saw Blanquie lying on the bed with blood all over him.” She looked at Javik with terror-stricken eyes. “I think he’s dead.”

  “Jeheezus!” Javik said.

  “Could this be the Happy Shopping Ground?” Evans asked, rolling forward. “Are they Product Failure victims?”

  “Do you wanna die, Evans?” Javik said. His voice became loud and high-pitched: “You wanna die?”

  “No sir. I don’t.” She slid into her chair

  “Then get a hold on yourself. I might as well be alone out here, for all the help you’re giving.” He mentoed Mother again.

  “Three hundred sixty-two possible causes remain,” Mother said. “Maximum search duration one minute, twenty-eight seconds.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Evans said. “What should we do, Captain Javik?”

  “What’s all the commotion?” Wizzy asked in a little voice. He scooted out from under Evans’s chair and hopped on the dashboard.

  “So you’re awake,” Javik said. “Finally.”

  “I was tired,” Wizzy said, studying the humanoids with his yellow cat’s eye. Wizzy glowed red, calling upon his data banks. “Davis Droids,” he said. “I warned you about this place. Nurinium here.”

  “What the hell is nurinium?” Javik asked.

  “An element sprinkled around the universe by magicians,” Wizzy said. “It gives inanimate objects life.”

  Javik shook his head. “Don’t believe a word of it,” he said, to Evans.

  Thud! Barump! The creatures pummeled the ship with extra intensity. The windshield flexed again.

  “Show me some of your wondrous powers, Wizzy,” Javik said sarcastically. “Or would you rather sleep?”

  “Well!” Wizzy huffed. “I’m not perfect? I told you that. And I am only nineteen hours, fifty-six minutes old!”

  “All right, all right,” Javik said. “Any idea why the engines won’t start?”

  Wizzy’s cat’s eye slanted toward Javik. “Creatures in the exhaust tubes,” he replied, glowing red again. “Tubes are plugged.”

  “How the hell could they do that, with the ship going in excess of three hundred thousand kilometers per hour?”

  Wizzy laughed, rocking for a moment on the dashboard. He glowed red-orange this time, although his eye remained yellow. “From your energy waves, and those of the ship, I see precisely what happened: One of the ship’s E-cells was consumed sixteen minutes ago. There was a delay in switching to a new fuel cell—”

  “Shit,” Javik said. “And that shut off the engines. I could have solved it easily. Hell, Mother should have—”

  “But you were preoccupied,” Wizzy said, “and didn’t realize the ship had stopped. It shut down in a very bad place.”

  “Never heard of a Mother failing before,” Evans said gloom-ily.

  Javik glared at her. “Thanks for the analysis,” he said. “Both of you. Now what?”

  “Something plugging the exhaust tubes,” Mother reported. “Manual correction required.”

  Thump! Kathud! The pummeling continued.

  “You’re the captain,” Wizzy said.

  “Don’t be rude,” Evans said to Wizzy.

  ‘The word is insubordinate,” Javik said. He waved his gun at the humanoids. They paid him no heed.

  Disconsolate, Javik stared down at the deck. Wearily, he set his pistol on his lap. The headache was subsiding. He sighed at the small relief of that.

  An aft hatch clanked open.

  “They’re getting in!” Evans shouted.

  Javik looked aft. A creature floated in, then fell to the cabin floor in the pseudo-gravity of the ship.

  Evans rolled aft. She skirted the creature, which lay on the deck in apparent disorientation. Gasping in rarefied air over the hatch, she slammed it shut. Then she mento-spun the locking device while creatures in Blanquie’s sleeping compartment thumped against the underside of the deck.

  “I’m mento-holding it locked,” Evans said. “They’re trying to force it open again.” She heard the ship’s oxygen system hum loudly, replenishing the air supply.

  Smelling the odor of decaying flesh, Javik studied the creature that had entered the cabin. It was male, wearing a torn Earth T-shirt and blue jeans. An electroplated purple badge was attached to the shirt, dangling next to a rip that exposed a black “P.F.” stamp on the chest. Seeing a deep gash on the face, Javik decided this must have been the cause of death. The creature staggered to its feet, waving its arms wildly as it took a step toward Javik. Then it took another step, hesitating and unsteady, like someone who was either afraid or not practiced in walking.

  It’s not dead now, Javik thought. He aimed and fired the gun.

  There was a pistol crack and a flash of orange. The laser bullet missed, ricocheting around the cabin and whistling by Evans’s ear. She dropped to the deck, continuing to mento-hold the hatch-locking mechanism.

  A volley of subsequent shots from the automatic weapon were on target, tearing gaping, bloody holes in the creature’s flesh. It continued to stumble ahead, its bloodshot eyes vacuous and long dead. Curiously, the open wounds did not drip blood.

  Javik emptied his gun into the creature. But it continued to advance, slowly and inexorably. He looked for another clip. “Shoot it, Evans!” he shouted. “Hurry!”

  Before Evans could take aim, the creature was lunging for Javik. Javik repelled it with a swift karate kick to the torso, causing the assailant to fall back on the deck. Slowly, however, the creature sat up and rose to its feet.

  Without warning, Wizzy glowed bright orange and flashed across the cabin, slamming into the tattered humanoid. This had more effect than all of Javik’s firepower, for the creature slipped and tried to go the other way. Its purple badge clattered to the deck. Cringing at the sight of Wizzy, the creature tried to get away.

  Wizzy attacked again.

  The creature fell over itself trying to escape. It crawled aft, in full and terrified retreat.

  “Over here!” Evans said. “I’ll open the hatch!”

  Wizzy forced the intruder into Blanquie’s sleeping compartment. “I’m going in too!” Wizzy announced. “Close the hatch after me!”

  “Right!” Evans said.

  “He’s afraid of me!” Wizzy said, pausing at the open hatch and displaying obvious pride. “Probably a primordial fear of comets.”

  “Who cares why!” Javik said, shaking his head. “Just do it!”

  “You don’t care to understand these things?” Wizzy asked, surprised. “With so much to learn, you would bury your head in the sand?”

  “This is no time for philosophy!” Javik snapped.

  “Fleshcarriers!” Wizzy huffed. Haughtily, he flew into the compartment.

  Evans slammed the hatch shut.

  Now there was a ferocious commotion below decks. Javik felt the ship shake and heard shattering glassplex, probably from the compartment’s mirrors. Wizzy squealed down there, with all the zeal of an attacking samu-rani warrior.

  “He’s doing it!” Evans reported, looking along the side of the ship with a prismatic porthole. Creatures poured from the broken porthole of Blanquie’s compartment, tumbling in the vacuum of space. Gradually they regained their equilibriums and made their way back to the ship, half swimming, half walking on air.

  “Good work, Wizzy!” Javik said.

  Evans screamed.

  Javik hurried to the porthole with he
r and saw the reason:. Outside, the bloody and battered corpse of Vince Blanquie tumbled in freefall. Then it began to move, swimmingly and dreamlike with its humanoid brethren.

  “Blanquie’s one of them,” Javik said. A chill cut through his shoulder blades.

  “Open up!” Wizzy squealed from below decks.

  Evans lifted the hatch, allowing Wizzy back in. Then she reseated it.

  Wizzy hovered breathlessly in midair. “A. ..burst . . . of strength,” he said proudly.

  “Not a minute too early,” Javik said. “Say, you sound done in.” He opened his palm, and Wizzy landed there.

  Wizzy breathed rapidly. “I fused a cover . . . over the porthole,” he said. “Using titanium . . . from the compartment deck.”

  Javik felt him breathing, expanding and contracting like any human. “Good,” Javik said. “Now I have one more assignment for you.”

  “Name it,” Wizzy said, full of himself.

  “The exhaust tubes. Can you clear them?”

  “Just command it.”

  “I command it,” Javik said. He tossed Wizzy in the air.

  Wizzy clunked ungracefully to the floor. “Hey!” he yelled, surprised. “Give me a moment to get my stuff together!”

  “Sorry,” Javik said.

  Presently, Wizzy entered an airlock on the starboard side of the Amanda Marie, Within seconds, he darted into space.

  The creatures continued to pummel the ship.

  Javik took his command chair and mento-held on the ship’s starter button. With the mento transmission, a sharp pain returned to the back of his skull. Releasing the mento hold, Javik swore and slammed down the black start toggle.

  Moments later, he felt the ship rumble as twin ion engines roared to life. He breathed deeply.

  “Thank God!” Evans said.

  Outside the ship, Wizzy was just exiting the last exhaust tube when the engines turned over. Had the engines started just a fraction of a second earlier, Wizzy might have been blown away into deep space and lost forever. As it was, he had to cling to a deflector fin with magic suction while the ship accelerated.

  Some of the humanoid creatures clung to the ship too. But they soon lost their grips and fell back as the Amanda Marie picked up speed. Wizzy saw them float aimlessly in the asteroid belt behind the ship.

  Inside, Javik was beginning to think of Wizzy. He flipped a dashboard toggle to reverse-thrust the engines. When the ship stopped, he threw the Hi-Tech gearbox into neutral.

  Wizzy reentered the airlock, then was admitted to the cabin. He flew in, angry as a Jahuvian hornet. “Hey!” he squealed. “Remember me? I coulda been lost out there!”

  Javik apologized, then pushed the toggle to resume acceleration. The Amanda Marie surged ahead.

  “I’m just the guy who saved your butt,” Wizzy said, glowing an angry shade of bright orange. He dropped to the corrugated metal deck, breathing hard.

  “I would have gone back for you if you’d fallen off,” Javik said. “I just wanted to be sure the engines were running okay.”

  “Hrrumph!” Wizzy said.

  Javik laughed. “In case you’re wondering, Wizzy—wanting to learn things as you do—you just displayed the emotion of anger.”

  “Anger? That is good?”

  “Sometimes,” Javik mused, glancing back at Wizzy and noting he was still bright orange. “It’s gotten me into a lot of trouble, though.”

  “Is that what I am now?” Wizzy screamed. “Angry? Well, it feels good! Damned good!” , Javik tossed a disdainful look over his shoulder.

  “Hrrumph!” Wizzy said again. He scooted aft along the cabin floor. “Must learn more about this anger,” he said. Evans watched him disappear into Blanquie’s sleeping compartment without another word.

  “Some meckie you’ve got there,” Evans said. She tossed the humanoid’s purple badge in a disposa-tube. Then she moto-shoed forward, grabbing a half-bulkhead for support as Javik turned the ship.

  “Mother, why did you delay in switching to a new fuel cell?” Javik asked, speaking into his dash microphone.

  “Unknown,” Mother said. “Better have me checked over in the next astro-port.”

  “That’s a long way off,” Javik said. “We alternate rest times from now on, Evans. Can’t leave Mother alone.” He watched Evans slide into the co-pilot’s seat.

  I’ll never go near her again, he told himself, arching his eyebrows thoughtfully. Never again,

  CHAPTER 4

  When God created life on Cork, he must have been in a whimsical mood.

  Report of the sayerman team sent in pursuit of Winston Abercrombie

  Sixty-six hours later, the Amanda Marie entered orbit just outside the atmosphere of Guna One. Javik scanned a clip chart on the wall to his left. “Should be Garbage Central down there,” he said.

  The ship’s engines rumbled for a moment, bouncing Javik’s long legs together under the instrument panel.

  “You’ve hardly spoken to me since the Davis Droids,” Evans said, squinting in the light of three synchronized Guna suns, She studied a planet file on the CRT screen, noting that the combined energy produced by this solar triumvirate was little more than the output of Earth’s single sun.

  “That hydraulic line fixed?” Javik asked tersely.

  “Mother took care of it,” Evans said.

  “Took care of it, ‘sir,’ to you, Evans!” Javik snapped. “Don’t forget it!”

  She paused for a moment, then: “Yes, sir.” Javik heard anger in her tone.

  Evans clamped an Ego Booster headset over her ears and mentoed it on. Javik overheard portions of the recorded message as it played in her ears: “You are important and incredibly talented. You have many unique qualities.”

  “Turn that thing down!” Javik said.

  She did as he instructed without looking at him.

  Javik mento-banked the ship, giving him a clear view of Guna One. This time there was no pain around the mento transmitter, and he hoped it wouldn’t bother him again. As he looked through the glassplex side window, he saw that the planet had flowing greens of varying shades, along with browns and blues, much like the colors of Earth. Quite a number of moonlike craters dotted the landscape, apparent evidence of meteor activity. Swirling, misty gray clouds moved rapidly across the surface, providing different views through cloud clearings every few seconds. Feeling the engines vibrate again, Javik glared at his instruments.

  Evans removed her headset and stared at Javik. His features were drawn and tired, with hair matted on one side of his head from sleeping against that spot and not combing it out afterward. She took a deep breath, then said, “You might at least be civil.”

  “Shut up,” Javik blurted. He paused. Evans saw his deeply set blue eyes half turn in her direction, seeming to stick their gaze in the vicinity of the windshield’s center. His lips moved angrily as he muttered something under his breath.

  “You’re being rude.”

  “Just follow orders. Why is this damned thing running rough?”

  “I’ll ask Mother,” Evans said.

  “Adjust the engine polarity,” Wizzy said.

  Looking aft, Javik saw Wizzy resting on the back of Blanquie’s chair. “What?” Javik asked.

  “Increase engine polarity seven point three two percent,” Wizzy said. “Shall I make the adjustment, Captain?”

  “No. Where do you get that?”

  “Unusual planetary magnetics here,” Wizzy said, “caused by rare subatomic monopoles. See those craters down there? This place attracts junk from all over the universe.”

  “Your meckie is playing science officer,” Evans said. Then she spoke into her dash mike: “Mother, what’s wrong with the engines?”

  “Unable to determine,” Mother said, using a mellow computer voice.

  “Should program a survival instinct into Mother,” Javik said. “She sounds too calm, no matter what’s going on in the cabin.” He glanced back at Wizzy.

  “The magnetics problem is not reveale
d by your instruments,” Wizzy said. “But I know it to be true.”

  The ship rumbled again. This time the vibration was worse and continuous.

  Javik cursed.

  “My teeth are knocking together,” Evans said.

  “Just try the engine adjustment,” Wizzy said. “If I’m wrong, you’ll know soon enough.”

  “Make it!” Javik said.

  Wizzy tapped a computer keyboard on the science officer’s console. Then he returned to the chair back.

  Javik felt the engines smooth out. He nodded with resignation and turned forward. Is everything Wizzy says right? Javik wondered. Even that story of magical nurinium being sprinkled around the universe?

  “This ship needs a science officer,” Wizzy. said.

  “We can get along,” Javik said.

  “I know the inadequacies of the Theory of Relativity,” Wizzy said, “and what happens when G-gas mixes with—”

  “Okay!” Javik said. “You’ve got the job!”

  “Science officer, first class?” Wizzy asked.

  “All right, damn it!”

  Wizzy squealed with excitement.

  Javik ordered an atmospheric readout from the ship’s mother computer.

  “Like Earth in many ways,” Mother reported, “with nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide . . . ” The computer read off other elements, then said, “There are four unknown elements.”

  Wizzy glowed red to utilize his data banks. “The key unknown is nurinium,” he said. “The same stuff I told you about in the droids.”

  Javik rolled aft and mentoed the science officer’s CRT screen. It confirmed Mother’s report, listing four unknown elements. Javik tugged at an eyelash and pursed his lips thoughtfully.

  “I know what I’m talking about, Captain,” Wizzy said. “Trust me.”

  “Magic?” Evans said. “You’re talking about magic?”

  “That’s right,” Wizzy said.

  “Assuming you’re correct about the atmosphere,” Javik said, “and it sounds pretty improbable to me, is it breathable?”

  “For some beings.”

  “Be specific,” Javik said. “For humans?”

  “Yes. But be prepared for surprises.” Wizzy glowed faintly orange, and Javik thought he detected a teasing tone in Wizzy’s voice.