The Garbage Chronicles Page 7

  “I’m waiting, Wizzy,” Javik said.

  “As I hinted, odd creatures live down here, Captain.” Wizzy chuckled softly.

  “Specifically?”

  “Let me have a little fun with this. I am only three days, fifteen hours old, after all. Children need their fun.”

  Javik seethed. “Are they dangerous?”

  “Would it matter if they were? You’d land anyway, looking for unusual activities. Could you return to Earth and tell them you were afraid to land?”

  “More humanoids?” Javik asked, his breathing labored from anger. He scratched his forehead.

  “Some are like that. A minority, however.”

  “I’m not going to play Twenty Questions with you. If you want to keep your position . . . ”

  “Be rational, Captain Tom,” Wizzy said calmly. “I have bad points, admittedly. But on the whole, you need me.”

  “Aaargh!” Javik said. Furious, he spun Wizzy’s chair.

  Resting on the spinning chair back, Wizzy glowed bright yellow. Suddenly the chair stopped rotating.

  Javik tried to spin the chair again. It wouldn’t move.

  Wizzy chuckled. Then he became dark blue again.

  “I wonder if Abercrombie is down there,” Evans said. “What a dirty guy. He could have ruined the AmFed economy with his recycling. Think of it! Millions of manufacturing and distribution people in souplines.”

  “Who cares?” Javik said.

  “But isn’t that why you’re here?” Evans asked. “To promote the AmFed Way? The greatest good for the greatest number?”

  “Naw,” Javik said. He popped a red tintette out of a dispenser on the science officer’s console. He lit the tintette and blew a puff of red smoke at Wizzy.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” Evans said.

  “He’s nervous,” Wizzy said.

  Javik laughed uneasily. He thought about flushing Wizzy into deep space, but knew Wizzy was reading this thought. It was a frustrating situation.

  “Our Captain Tom is here for personal reasons,” Wizzy said. “Promote Number One and to hell with everybody else. Right, sir?”

  “Can it!” Javik said. He tossed the tintette in a wall-mounted disposa-tube. Machinery inside the wall whirred. “Punch down to Guna One, Evans,” he said.

  Evans acknowledged the command and mentoed the blue, T-shaped dive lever. The lever flipped down without being touched.

  The Amanda Marie dropped its nose abruptly toward Guna One and accelerated. As Javik hurried back to his seat, he saw an orange glow in front of the ship. Remembering his mento transmitter headaches, he secured his safety harness manually.

  “Entering the atmosphere,” the mother computer reported.

  Javik monitored the interior and exterior heat gauges. He punched a button to freeze the cooling tiles. A gauge told him that the ship’s outside temperature had dropped.

  Wizzy fluttered in the air during the descent, then landed on Javik’s chair back. Javik heard a buzz in his ears. The buzzing was erratic: first loud, then low, first long, then short.

  Wizzy grew very quiet. Then, suddenly, he shrieked in Javik’s ear: “Wait, Captain Tom!”

  Javik slammed against his shoulder harness trying to get away from the noise. Angrily, he snatched Wizzy off the chair back and held the little fellow in front of his face. The comet was cool but bright red. “Don’t ever yell in my ear again, damn it!” Javik barked, setting his jaw. His ears rang.

  “Sorry, Captain,” Wizzy said. “Stop your descent. I am picking up disturbing/mysterious signals from the planet.”

  “You didn’t care about danger before.”

  “I understood the other danger. Or thought I did. This is an unknown.”

  Mother reported the altitude at twenty-nine thousand, five hundred meters.

  “Look at all those pockmarks on the surface,” Evans said.

  Javik placed Wizzy on the dashboard, saying, “I can’t make heads or tails out of you, Wizzy.”

  “A life force,” Wizzy said. “Very large, I think. I picked up similar, weaker signals from deep space. But they didn’t repeat, so I forgot about them.” Wizzy flew in a confused pattern around the cabin, then landed on the deck.

  “We have to disregard everything he’s saying,” Javik said, to Evans. “He’s out of his meckie mind.”

  Evans nodded.

  “My metamorphosis is proceeding,” Wizzy said, shaking. “I don’t understand the changes.” He scooted for cover under the science officer’s console and remained there, whimpering.

  “You’re feeling fear, Wizzy,” Javik yelled. “That’s another emotion!”

  “I want my papa!” Wizzy squealed. He sobbed.

  The Amanda Marie continued its descent.

  Below, in a gray-rock control room cave beneath the surface of the planet, a crew of dented and chipped meckies stood at computer terminals, punching entries into keyboards. The computer hardware looked long in the tooth, having been catapulted from Earth as garbage and salvaged by Lord Abercrombie.

  “We’ve got it going!” a dented red meckie said. She, like the others, carried a brass “rebuilt” plaque on her torso. “Tell Lord Abercrombie we’re making a big wind!” she exclaimed. “Hurricane strength!”

  “But Lord Abercrombie is soil-immersed now,” a silver meckie said.

  “Oh, that’s right,” the red meckie said. “We’ll tell him later, then. He’ll be very pleased!”

  Lord Abercrombie lay buried in the soil, deep in an underground chamber. This was how he spent half of each day, totally immersed in the Realm of Magic. The half of his body that remained human went into dormancy at these times, with no breathing and no fleshcarrier sensations whatsoever.

  Abercrombie’s head was the planet now. He looked out upon the universe with a billion porous visual sensors, reflecting the stars across the panorama of his magical soul.

  The universe is calling to me, he thought, telling me to join it.

  A torrent of rain poured up out of the ground, filling the atmosphere with water. Clouds formed quickly from this upside-down rain, followed by thunder and lightning. Within seconds a full-blown electrical storm was in progress, with clouds dumping rain back on the planet. When this subsided, more rain rose from the surface, restarting the cycle.

  That odd reverse rain again, Lord Abercrombie thought helplessly. What causes it?

  Thunder boomed across the sky.

  At the same time, in the control room. . . .

  “Reverse rain in Sector Seventy-four,” the red meckie said. “And one hell of a dust storm just ten kilometers south of that!” “Now our equipment is shorting out,” another meckie said. “Not again!” the meckies wailed in unison. “Not again!”

  “I see buildings down there,” Javik said. He was looking through the midships magna-scope, manually adjusting it to focus. “One looks like a large stone castle . . . and a number of smaller structures. Long gray strips, too.”

  “I’m picking up signals again,” Wizzy said, glowing bright red. “Different this time.” He sat on top of the science officer’s console. “Messages from the planet’s history. An expedition six hundred years ago led by someone named Yammarian. These were not humans. The expedition found evidence of Yanni tribesmen and Bolo herdsmen who once populated the planet. Found cliff habitats, too, and the skeletons of long goats. There was an upheaval here. Can’t tell what sort. An earthquake, maybe—or a war.”

  “Anything else?” Evans asked.

  “Don’t listen to that stuff,” Javik said.

  “Not much,” Wizzy said. “The Yannis are gone. They left or died during the upheaval.”

  “Well, they’re back,” Evans said. “Or someone is.”

  Wizzy’s bright red color faded, then flickered. “I’m losing the signal,” he said.

  “Look, Captain!” Evans said, pointing across the dashboard to port. “Looks like a big storm heading right toward us! It’s coming outta nowhere,”

  Javik saw swirling,
rust-colored particles only a few meters off the side of the ship, along with rain that seemed to be going up. It seemed impossible. The cabin darkened. “See if we can outrun it,” Javik barked, trying to get back to his chair. The cabin lights brightened, compensating for the storm’s darkness.

  The storm hit before evasive action was possible. The Amanda Marie rocked violently, forcing Javik to hold a half-bulkhead with both hands. The cabin lights flickered off, leaving them in semidarkness. Then the lights danced back on.

  “How odd,” Wizzy squealed. “I saw rain going up—coming from the planet’s surface.”

  “I saw it, too,” Javik said. He crawled to his command chair as the ship rocked. Pulling himself up to the seat, Javik snapped on his safety harness. “Hit the thrusters!” he yelled.

  “Nothing, Captain,” Evans said. She was holding tight to her chair with both hands, trying to mento the thruster rockets. “No response at all.”

  “I’ll bet there’s dust in the thruster tubes,” Wizzy said. “Now the main engines are sputtering too.”

  The ship vibrated badly. It rocked to port, dipped its nose, and plunged.

  “Going down fast, Captain Tom,” Wizzy said.

  “I can see that, for Atheist’s sake,” Javik snapped.

  “Altitude fourteen thousand, two hundred meters,” Mother reported. “Thruster tubes blocked. Manual correction required.”

  “Can’t tell up from down,” Javik said. “Too much damned dust.”

  “It’s a magnetic storm,” Wizzy said, glowing red from the red star crystal in his nucleus. “A remarkable battle between the planet and its atmosphere.”

  “Wonderful,” Javik said. He grimaced. “Now we know what it is.”

  “Eleven thousand, six-fifty,” Mother said.

  Seeing that the rusty dust particles were thinning out, Evans said, “I think we’re dropping below the storm.”

  “It’s moving overhead,” Wizzy said, looking through a porthole.

  “Checking ship’s functions,” Mother said. “Still no thruster power. One main engine out.”

  The Amanda Marie rumbled roughly, then fell silent.

  “Damn!” Javik cursed. “There went the remaining engine.”

  Mother confirmed this, then gave the altitude: “Seventy-two hundred meters.”

  Evans pounded on the instrument panel. “No CRT, accelerometer, or artificial horizon.”

  “And the para-flaps didn’t go out,” Javik said. “Aren’t they automatic on this ship?”

  “I think so,” Evans said. She mentoed the flaps.

  “Manual operation required,” Mother said.

  “I’ll try ‘em,” Javik said, releasing his safety harness. He crawled aft along the corrugated metal deck to midships. There he grabbed a large black plastic wheel which was supported by an oblong pedestal. The surface of the wheel was abrasive to provide a gripping surface. Javik horsed with it, but it didn’t budge. He cursed.

  “Can you get it?” Evans asked.

  “No.”

  “Thirty-nine fifty,” Mother said.

  “Get over here, Wizzy,” Javik yelled. “Can you help me with this goddamned thing?”

  “I’ll try,” Wizzy said. He alighted on one side of the wheel and clamped on with magic suction. With the two of them straining at it, the wheel finally broke free and moved. Then it stuck again.

  “Where are all your wonderful powers now?” Javik asked, wiping his brow.

  “Three thousand,” Mother said.

  “Unfortunately, they are inconsistent,” Wizzy said. “One moment I feel super, and the next.. .well, quite weak.”

  “What about now?” Javik asked. They resumed pushing and pulling.

  “Not good,” Wizzy said. He fell to the deck, short of breath.

  “Get up,” Javik said. He gave the wheel an angry, mighty push. It moved. He pushed it again, and it moved freely. Now Javik spun the wheel.

  “Starboard flap’s out, Captain,” Evans said, sighting along the prismatic porthole at her side. Glancing at the porthole on Javik’s side, she added, “Port flap’s out too.”

  Javik felt the Amanda Marie’s nose rise as the para-flaps took hold. The ship continued its descent, but much less steeply.

  “Eighteen hundred,” Mother said.

  Javik looked out a midships porthole and saw a para-flap undulating gracefully outside, like the wing of a great bird. He checked the other flap. It was functioning perfectly too. Para-flaps were massive and white, with scalloped arches on the trailing edges and flotation cups on the undersides. They were awe-inspiring when viewed from the ground, and Javik recalled seeing a sky full of them once, with the sun setting beyond the Rosenbloom Mountains.

  Those were good days, he thought, recalling the camaraderie of the corps.

  “Fourteen hundred,” Mother said.

  Javik snapped to awareness. He returned to the command chair, asking, “What do you see, Evans?”

  “Long gray strips,” she said. “Maybe an airfield. We don’t have a heck of a lot of choice.” She pressed a yellow lever on her console to drop the landing gear.

  Javik breathed a sigh of relief as he heard the gear pop down and lock into place. A green landing light flashed on at the center of the instrument panel. Thank God, he thought.

  “Looks peculiar down there,” Wizzy said. “Don’t see any planes or rockets.”

  “Below a thousand,” Mother said. “Final descent.”

  “I see ground vehicles,” Javik said, watching streams of blue and pink flame streak along the gray ground strips.

  “Primitive jets, sir,” Wizzy said. “Jet-powered cars, to be precise.”

  “They’re staying on the gray strips,” Javik said. “So we’ll land off to one side.”

  The Amanda Marie vibrated.

  “Encountering turbulence,” Evans said. “Rough glide.”

  “I know, I know,” Javik said. He guided the steering toggle with one finger, hesitant to mento it.

  The Amanda Marie hit an updraft, carrying it hundreds of meters from the gray ground strips. They crossed a heavily cratered area and approached a lightly wooded section where Javik saw pale green trees that resembled Sumerian pines.

  “Up, baby,” Evans coaxed, mento-adjusting the para-flaps.

  The para-flaps fluttered desperately, carrying the ship just over the treetops. Now Javik could see a group of colorfully dressed people in a clearing. When the Amanda Marie was less than a hundred meters above the clearing, Javik noticed that the people below appeared to be wearing odd costumes—some were dressed like apples, others like oranges, bananas, watermelons.

  “They’re all dressed like fruit,” Javik said.

  “Not the bananas,” Wizzy said. “Technically, the banana is neither fruit nor vegetable. More accurately, it can be categorized as cereal.”

  “Useless information,” Javik said.

  “Not to a nutritionist,” Wizzy said.

  Javik scowled.

  The ship caught an updraft and rose momentarily. Then it dropped again.

  “Hold on!” Javik yelled.

  Javik and Evans braced themselves as the Amanda Marie bumped to the ground rather ungracefully. Javik felt a compression pain in his lower back. He rubbed it.

  The ship rocked to one side on the ground, falling against one of the para-flaps. Then it righted itself. Javik heard the drone of electric motors as the para-flaps returned to their compartments.

  Evans breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re down,” she said. “In one piece.”

  “I sense that our troubles have just begun,” Wizzy said.

  Javik mentoed the circular exit hatch without feeling any pain. The hatch unfolded from the center out like a camera orifice, revealing distant pine trees seen through dusty air. He smelled grit.

  “Hmmm,” Wizzy said as dust enveloped him. “Fine dry particles from a complex topsoil sediment, variable in texture . . . part crystalline, part disintegrated planetary mantle.”

  Javik
shook his head as Wizzy went on to analyze the dust in its most minute detail.

  A cacophany of cheers arose from outside, followed by the excited, unintelligible voices of many people. Rolling to the open hatchway, Javik commented, “They’re dressed like trick-or-treaters.” He felt the ship rock.

  “What was that?” Evans asked.

  Wizzy could be heard in the background, analyzing the entire climatological history of the planet, based upon the particles of dust adhering to the clear agate dome over his eye.

  The Amanda Marie rocked again, then went back the other way. Leaning out of the circular hatch and looking to one side, Javik saw the edge of a mound of the colorfully dressed natives. Now, why would they climb on top of one another like that? he wondered.

  The ship rocked once more, and this time it continued going over, in the direction away from the mound of natives. Javik had the answer to his unspoken question: They were toppling the ship!

  “Going over!” Javik yelled. “Hold on!”

  Wizzy buzzed by Javik and flew out the open hatchway.

  The Amanda Marie fell on its side in a thunderous crash, slamming Javik and Evans against the interior walls. Then the ship began to roll over and over, gradually picking up speed. This created pandemonium inside, as Javik and Evans tried to get handholds on wall brackets, console bases, chairs, and anything else that was bolted down.

  “Why are they doing this?” Evans wailed. She clung to the magna-scope base.

  With considerable difficulty, Javik crawled to his command chair and tried to pull himself into it. If I could just strap myself in, he thought. But he was not able to get off the deck. Hanging on to the chair, he heard laughter outside and strange words which almost sounded Latin. He decided the language mixer pendant around his neck was not working properly.

  Outside, in the afternoon light of three synchronized suns, Wizzy flew unsteadily over the Amanda Marie. He was much like a tiny bird who had not yet perfected the art of flying. Below, people dressed in tattered fruit costumes pushed the ship, causing it to roll along a dusty, bumpy surface. Chanting phrases which Wizzy identified from his data banks as Corkian legalese, they guided the ship to a wide path, lined along each side with red, yellow, and blue cylinders which had been partially buried and propped upright.