The Garbage Chronicles (13 page)

CHAPTER 8

Some thoughts are never spoken. These are among the most important

Quotations From Uncle Rosy,
page 18

Javik and Evans were separated when they left the king’s court. Four pear men pushed and dragged Javik down a long, dimly lit corridor. The walls, ceiling, and floor were polished agate stone in varying shades of amber and brown. Javik slipped twice on the smooth floor, then took shorter, more careful steps. A hunger pang shot through his midsection.

Reaching a wide spot in the corridor, they stopped. One of the pear men slid open a rectangular metal lid on the floor, revealing a dark compartment below. Javik heard the dull whir and thud of machinery. He smelled rubber.

“In here,” the pear man said.

Javik struggled, but the bottom-heavy Fruits were stronger than they looked. They forced him through the opening.

Javik fell a short distance after they let go, slamming his head and shoulder against a hard rubber surface. Realizing that the surface was moving slowly, he guessed he was on a conveyor. Machinery whirred loudly, and now the rubber smell was very strong. Faint illumination from the hatch opening faded. Looking up, Javik saw the lid slide back over the opening, leaving only a thin halo of light there. Soon he lost sight of the halo as the conveyor carried him away.

Another odor touched his nostrils next, a repulsive odor. “It stinks in here!” he mumbled. He shuddered at the realization of what it was.
Decaying flesh,
he thought, recalling a number of burial details on which he had served. And he recalled the odor of the creature in the Davis Droids.

Crouching in the darkness, Javik tried to think of his next move. The holster on his hip was light, evidence that it was empty. The rubber floor stopped now, falling silent. He heard a thunderous crowd roar above, and felt the floor shake.

Something rustled nearby, behind and to the left.

Javik whirled to face that direction, clenching his fists and extending them.

Then he heard other rustlings, from other directions. “Manno,” he thought someone said, from his left.

Then he heard it again, a clear monotone: “Manno.”

Javik recalled the King’s words:
“One Manno, one Wommo.
”

The sounds drew closer, and the disgusting odors became intolerably strong.

Javik crawled to his right, then sensed breathing on that side. They were all around him. Terrified, Javik curled into a defensive, fetal ball.

“Manno!” they yelled in monotones.

“Manno!”

“Kill the Wommos!”

Javik twitched at each utterance, expecting to feel humanoid hands on him at any moment. His body was rigid, and he felt the tautness of his arm, leg, and chest muscles. His heart was like a sledge inside: Boom-da-dee-boom! Boom-da-dee-boom!

“Get back!” Javik yelled. “Stay away from me!”

“Manno?” a raspy voice asked. “You are Manno?”

Slimy hands pawed at Javik in the darkness. He pushed them away, but they returned: wet fingers caressing his face and body. The fingers of many creatures, pressing all around.

Javik lashed out with his feet and felt his boots strike home against flesh and bones. The creatures fell back but returned, like an encroaching sea which could be stalled but never defeated.

A narrow band of light hit the side of Javik’s face from above. Then the band of light widened. Looking up, Javik squinted as a lid slid open, clanging metallically. He heard thunderous crowd noises outside.

“One more pilot,” a tenor voice said from above. Faces covered the opening. “Get the new Earthian. The one with no wounds.”

Before Javik could react, a lariat snapped down and slipped expertly under his armpits. The lariat tightened around his body and pulled him to the surface. Javik thrashed at the rope as he was pulled up and out of the hole. He felt a sharp shoulder pain as he was dumped roughly on the ground.

A Corker removed the lariat, smiling at Javik with moist, purple lips.

Rising to one knee, Javik found himself on one end of a great stadium filled with cheering Fruit people. It was night, and the stadium was ringed with bright floodlights. The other end of the stadium was open, with two parallel strips of floodlighted gray concrete extending into the distance. Far down the track, Javik noticed that the lanes narrowed to one. The Fruit spectators were colorful and demonstrative, waving their arms excitedly and hurling empty grain alcohol packs in all directions. Vendors hawking new packs worked the aisles.

Javik took a deep breath. He was hungry and tired, with the burning eyes and drifting consciousness of a person in need of sleep. A fine, stinging dust blew across his face. He felt a sneeze coming on. “Ah . . . ah . . . ”It did not come. Having no tissue handy, Javik depressed one nostril to blow phlegm on the ground. He repeated the procedure with the other nostril.

“I think it’s an Earthian,” a Corker on his left said. Javik did not look in that direction.

“Different from the others,” observed another.

“Cleaner looking.”

Javik focused on two large auto carriers parked in pools of light at the near end of each concrete strip. One carrier was pink and black, the other blue and black. Cars painted in the same manner as their respective carriers roared down ramps from each carrier simultaneously, one from each carrier, then streaked side by side along the track—a pink and black car on one strip, a blue and black car on the other. He saw the cars vie for position as the lanes merged to one. The blue car shot in front at the junction, then went into a weaving pattern. Lances of flame shot from the front of the trailing pink car. Gunfire peppered the air.

“Damn,” someone said.

The blue car exploded in a high ball of blue flame. Javik stood up to see the car crash off the track against a low rock wall. A glowing orange capsule shot straight up from the crash scene. Then a white parachute opened over the capsule, guiding it back to Cork. Still glowing orange, the capsule drifted closer to Javik. He saw that it was a cage, with shimmering, orange-hot bars. Inside, the dead Manno pilot was stretched straight out and spinning slowly, like a pig on a spit.

What the hell?
Javik thought.

“You saw it folks!” the public address man announced. “Another Manno loss!”

Pink balloons fluttered over the Wommo auto carrier to celebrate the victory. The Wommo fighter car pilot slowed her car at the other end of the track, then took an exit ramp to the left into a pink and black pit area.

“Never get in front,” a Corker guard said to Javik. “You’ve gotta lay back.”

“Listen to him good, Manno,” an avocado man said, looking at Javik with seedy, dark green eyes. He nudged Javik’s sore shoulder, causing Javik to grimace.

“He’ll learn fast,” the Corker said. “If he doesn’t want to be a toastie.”

Jeheezus!
Javik thought.

“Who cares?” someone behind Javik said. “Let him roast.”

I care,
Javik thought.
But should I? Maybe this is as good a way to go as any.

He watched the giant auto carriers exchange places, rolling by one another efficiently and rapidly. Javik was surprised at how mobile the big units were. Within moments each carrier was set up at the opposite track. Two cars rocketed down the ramps now, hitting the tracks side by side.

“You see that, Earthian?” the avocado man asked. “You can’t go too fast or too slow. Too fast and the parallel car nails you from behind. Even if you get away, there’s no glory in it. Too slow and another enemy car is on your track, coming right up your ass.”

“Over here,” a Corker said. “We need another pilot. He’d better . . . ” The ensuing words were drowned out in crowd noises and an explosion on the track.

“Darn!” someone said. “There went another one.”

“They’re beating the hell out of us today.”

“Glad I don’t have to go out there.”

Two beefy Corkers pulled and pushed Javik to a table attended by a very round orange man. Without a word, the orange man pushed a blue and black jumpsuit and a helmet across the table toward Javik.

Javik slipped the suit on over his Space Patrol outfit. The suit was a couple of sizes too big. The helmet fit poorly too, being designed for bulbous-headed humanoids. He heard radio chatter across built-in earphones.

He was about to ask for better-fitting headgear when a Corker shoved him roughly, saying, “This way.” Javik was escorted to the Manno auto carrier, a massive warship standing in a bright pool of light. The blue and black carrier was long and three-tiered, with a hodgepodge of fighter cars on all levels. Each car had a large-caliber gun mounted on the roof, with machine guns on the front and rear fenders.

Javik was taken up a side walkway and assigned to a dented and bullet-riddled squareback on the lower level. A large black Corkian numeral “5” was on the door. Since the door was welded shut, Javik had to remove his helmet and pull himself in through the open driver’s window. He slid into a torn black vinyl bucket seat. The seat squeaked as his weight settled into it. This placed him in a black-barred cage. Javik knew he would roast there if he lost. Nervously, he fingered the strap of the helmet on his lap.

Outside, a cheerful public address announcer called out action for the spectators. His voice was throaty.

It smelled of oil in the car. The instrumentation looked primitive to Javik, with rudimentary gauges for speed, tach, and other mechanical functions. A black pole suspended from the roof to his right had three white buttons on it, marked clearly: “top,” “rear” and “front.”
The guns,
he thought.

Locating the fuel gauge, he saw it waver.
What does this thing run on?
he wondered.
Probably alcohol of some sort.
He did not detect a telltale odor. After figuring out the braking and acceleration system, he rested his foot on the accelerator pedal.

A Corker leaned in the window and told Javik to press the “start” button. Javik moved away to keep dark fluid on the fellow’s mouth and chin from dripping on him. “Watch for the green light on the track,” the Corker said. “Then hit ‘takeoff.’”

Javik touched the starter button and heard the engine roar to life like a rudely awakened beast. The headlights flashed on automatically. The car rumbled roughly and hesitatingly at first, then began to smooth out. As Javik looked down the black stripe on the car’s hood, he felt the change in the engine’s rhythm. Another car was in front of him, and beyond that a traffic signal flashed red.

“You’re coming up, Manno,” a weak voice reported from Javik’s left. Glancing in that direction, Javik saw an old and wrinkled lettuce man slave. The man’s, body was light green and white, with white eyebrows and a crown of white fuzz. There was no neck: the body was the head and vice versa.

Javik nodded. He gunned the engine. Noticing a shoulder harness for the first time, he pulled it across his chest and snapped it into place.

“They race and fight on Earth highways like this?” the old slave asked. “Just like the promoters say?”

“I guess so. This sure as hell is exaggerated, though. We don’t mount guns on cars back home. They’re carried in glove compartments.” He thought of the autocar signboards by which Earth drivers could exchange epithets. Feeling tense, Javik decided not to mention this. He used a sleeve to wipe perspiration from his forehead.

The slave grunted.

A Corker guard on the ground below yelled at them: “Cut the chatter! Pay attention to the games!” The guard purchased a new alcohol backpack from a passing vendor, paying for it with discarded Earth candy bar wrappers.

“It’s Manno against Wommo!” the public address man announced. Javik heard sucking sounds over the speaker system and surmised the announcer was a Corker.

Waves of ovation, roars, and catcalls rolled through the stands.

Javik touched an unmarked console button to see what it was. Nothing happened. He checked several other buttons with the same result.

“Disconnected,” the old slave said.

“What a heap,” Javik said. He smelled exhaust from the car just ahead. Then the other car roared down the ramp and into combat, leaving a puff of black smoke across Javik’s vision. When the smoke began to clear, Javik saw the car explode in a distant ball of blue flame. An orange capsule shot up, then sprouted a parachute.

“Haven’t seen a Manno victory all day,” the slave said.

Inhuman games,
Javik thought, seeing the traffic signal flash red.
Men against women, playing on the conditioned rivalries between Earth sexes,

He snapped on his loose-fitting plastic crash helmet. Over the built-in earphones he heard nervous chatter as the Manno fighter car pilots communicated with the carrier’ s control tower.

“Okay, Ladykiller Five,” the control tower said. “You’re up next.”

Javik was daydreaming, recalling some of his more memorable pleasure dome visits.

“Ladykiller Five, you there?”

Five,
Javik thought, drifting back to awareness.
” That’s me.
“Here,” he said into a microphone in front of his mouth.

“Blow that Wommo fighter car away, buddy.”

“Right,” Javik shook his head in disgust.
This is an. important mission?
he thought.
I’d rather be ridin’ a garbage shuttle.

“Watch your blind spots, Ladykiller Five,” the tower said. “Keep the other car in front of you all the time. Or rocket ahead to a Manno safe zone. That’s a blue and black wall at the side. You can hide behind it, then pop out and blast the Wommo car when it passes.”

“Don’t we get any practice?” Javik asked.

Sardonic laughter filled the earphones. Then: “You’ve discovered the gun buttons?”

“Yeah.” Seeing the traffic signal flash yellow, Javik held a finger close to the “takeoff” button.
Not too fast,
he thought. His heart began to beat faster.

“You aim the gun bar by rotating, pushing, and pulling it.”

The traffic signal flashed green.

Javik hit the “takeoff” button and felt the accelerator under his foot depress. The car roared ahead, thumping as it bounced off the ramp to the pavement. G-forces threw him against the bucket seat. The helmet strap pulled at his chin. He grimaced from the stress.