Greegs & Ladders (10 page)

“No time to
admire the rapid killing technique of the Pecking Grappler-Bird.
Everybody get on this ladder now.”

All over again
they passed the many Subterranean Layers of Lincra. Despite the
urgent rush a break was taken on the Layer of Transcendental
Levitation. Everyone agreed some mellowing out was in order. After
an hour no one had managed to successfully levitate, but the
ambient music was still soothing.

Finally they
reached Terminal Layer Zero.

“Should we go
straight to the parking lot?” asked Rip. “Or check out some of the
Floating Layers?”

“Let’s leave.
I’ve had enough of this planet,” gasped Wilx.

They arrived
at the parking lot.

“I didn't
notice before how there isn't a single ladder in here,” said
Krimshaw.

“That's
because the parking lot of Lincra is the one shred of property in
all of Kroonum that the KULMOOG do not attempt to claim forceful
ownership upon,” explained Wilx as they walked down the main strip,
attempting to hail one of the many crowded shuttle-sliders.

“Why is
that?”

“Hundreds of
years before the KULMOOG came into fruition, a small group of
rebellious Lincran townsfolk (apparently sick and tired of having
to walk into the next county in order to legally tie up their
horse/horse-like-antiquated-mammal-transportation-thing while they
indulged themselves at the
tavern/socialization-through-intoxication-establishment) set in
motion plans to acquire an eternally binding clause in which they
would control ownership of the parking area of downtown Lincra and
thus be free to get as intoxicated as possible without having to
worry about the long stumble to the
horse/horse-like-antiquated-mammal-transportation-thing. Ownership
would be passed down through the bloodline of the original rebels,
the Parking Lot Lords, until the end of existence. Over time the
Lords maximized their ability to get home during warped states of
mind by inventing and developing the shuttle-slider. Everyone liked
the shuttle-sliders, so the Lords invested all their time and
energy into opening up a taxi service. Not really caring about the
goings-on of the parking lot other than the revenue-stream of the
taxi service, the Lords have given complete freedom to the
thousands of resident merchants, squatters, party-monsters, ravers,
rockers, bashers and smashers to do whatever they please within the
wild confines of the domed-lot, so long as they spend a little cash
on a taxi every once in a while. A general pervasive atmosphere of
intoxication and immobility rendered the shuttle-slider an
unimaginably lucrative business.”

“Why do the
KULMOOG care about some old clause?” asked Krimshaw. “Why don't
they storm the lot?”

“I couldn't
say,” said Wilx. “But the story goes the townsfolk had at their
disposal the means to place a very real curse on the parking lot.
Anyone not a part of the bloodline who attempts to exert control
over the goings-on of the parking lot will supposedly have their
brain explode after the passing of a fortnight. The KULMOOG seem to
believe in the curse enough to stay away from here. It is the only
known loophole in the ladder-monopolization of things in
Kroonum.”

Finally they
hopped on a shuttle-slider.

Obotron 1 was
right where they left it.

“We can’t get
in the ship,” said Wilx.

“Why not?”
asked Krimshaw.

“I just
remembered I forgot the remote control for the floating
elevator.”

“I wondered
when that problem would become relevant.”

“Don’t worry
about it,” said Rip. “Someone has already foreseen the problem and
helped us out by smashing a bunch of windows. We’ll just enter the
ship that way.”

The ship
lifted off the surface and flew away from the crowded madness of
planet Lincra. The rest of the fleet was waiting motionless in
orbit.

Only now did
Wilx notice all the fuel gauges of Obotron 1 were reading
empty.

“Seems we were
the victims of fuel-bandits,” he said calmly. “Everybody prepare
themselves. The ship is about to crash into the nearest object of
dangerous proportions.”

“Why don’t we
just drain the fuel from one of the other fleet ships?” suggested
Rip. “Let them crash and burn.”

“What a great
idea! Bless your heartless heart!”

The fuel from
another Obotron was ordered to be switched over to their own
ship.

The process
didn’t take long. Afterwards the ship that had been randomly chosen
to have all of its fuel drained was destroyed by the nearest object
of dangerous proportions, which in this case was the planet
Lincra.

Obotron 1 and
the now remaining 15 other fleet ships zoomed off into the vast
Kroonum system. The ship was chilly, on account of all the broken
windows exposing them to the open vacuum of space. Krimshaw put on
his Pelexor Snow-Demon jacket. The one that would have been admired
by the angry and hotly and pursuant mob if he had been wearing it
at the time.

Bureaucracy

When you go
about pompously and recklessly unleashing viciously contained zoo
animals on the most populated and famous tourist destination in
five trillion universes, you tend to raise alarm bells. This is
especially the case when you arrive in a shiny fleet of Obotron 7
space ships and leave 16 of them hovering nonsensically around the
planet packed with pointless, idle employees. This is even more the
case when you carry with you an inter-universal celebrity like Dr.
Rip T. Brash the Third and an upright walking, clothes wearing,
intelligent conversation having Greeg.

However, this
being the Kroonum system, and this being the planet Lincra… these
events were barely the six thousandth, five hundredth and forty
seventh most interesting/bizarre/outlandish/casualty inducing
incidents of the hour.

Nevertheless,
hoards of Kroonumite Special Task Force Ranger Pods were
immediately sent forth from the Central Kroonum Enforcement &
Coercion Department on Persheron 8. They were sent in waves and
from different task forces to deal with each assault our trio of
travellers had inflicted on the precious foundations of Kroonum
Society: Civility, Order and Peace, or COP. Persheron 8 is one of 9
planets and 47 moons in the Kroonum system whose sole purpose is
law enforcement, jailing, detainment, execution, rehabilitation,
law writing, law re-writing, finding of outdated laws and updating
them, finding of updated laws and outdating them, covert undercover
operations, and the seemingly never-ending creation, integration
and upkeep of more branches of The Upgrading, Expansion, Keeping Up
of and Maintenance of Kroonum Civility, Order & Peace Agency.
Confused? I hope not. This is, as you say, barely the tip of the
Iceberg.

This fumbling,
inefficient schmorgosborg is merely the Solar Enforcement Branch of
Kroonum Law Enforcement. There is also of course The Universal
Legal Oversight Committee, The Galactic Territorial and Regional
Integrated Intelligence Agencies (there are over 976 of these in
this particular galaxy, no one is sure which ones are legitimate
and which are fronts at this point. None of them are remotely
integrated, several are engaged in full out warfare.) These are a
mere nuisance, and a cohesive juggernaut of rationality and
efficiency compared to the mind bogglingly complicated,
freewheeling and unregulated enforcement agencies on individual
planets... and let us not even begin to discuss regional law on
various sections of those planets. It is far more often that
different splinters of legally sanctioned and government
orchestrated law enforcement fights among themselves, rightfully
believing the other is involved in criminal activity, which they
all most certainly are, to a staggering degree.

All of
these corrupt, unchecked, interlocked and mangled factions of law
enforcement and bureaucracy has led the hyper oppressed and
victimized civilians and visitors of Kroonum to retaliate in
violent backlashes in the form of Civilian Organized Militia’s For
The Restoration of
P
eace,
O
rder and
C
ivility to the
K
roonum
S
ystem. They
have developed the mildly confrontational slogan “A POCKS on the
COPs.” These militia's are inevitably started by once innocent,
indifferent travellers or residents who have been chewed up and
spat out by various sanctioned policing groups and courts. There is
an entire volume of
Hypocrisy Inaction: The Plight of the Pointless
Protester
devoted
strictly to the militia's
.
The
true irony here is that there never was, certainly isn’t now, and
certainly never will be, anything remotely approaching Peace, Order
and/or Civility in the Kroonum System. This is exactly why it is
such an amazingly popular and exciting place.

This is
not to suggest that there isn’t any real crime in the Kroonum
system. The overbearing, oppressive and clumsily gummed up together
'legal' conglomerate is entirely justified and necessary,
considering the astounding number of swindlers, murderers,
psychopaths, rapists, gangs, STD’s, daredevils, protostar hoppers,
insanely violent religious organizations, and sinister plots to
destroy and annihilate every single living thing in the system. Not
to mention the rather common occurrence of one species happening
upon another that they find delicious, and whose vital organs
contain nutrients imperative to their survival. This situation is
not helped by the four planets solely devoted to the production and
cross-universal distribution of the lucrative Kroonum Zoo genre of
hard core entertainment, further perpetuating the image of Kroonum
as a non-stop sea of wild and groovy crime and punishment, which it
most certainly was. This naturally attracted every wackjob, nutcase
and borderline Greeg-like being there was to the place; along with
every heroic, bravado seeking adrenaline junkie who wished to seek
out and destroy every wackjob, nutcase and borderline Greeg-like
being in existence. Of course, neither of these polar
opposites
could exist
without each other, and both thrived in the Kroonum
system.

It is curious
to note that the 9 planets and 47 moons in the Kroonum system owned
and operated by The Upgrading, Expansion, Keeping Up of and
Maintenance of Kroonum Civility, Order & Peace Agency were by
far the most plagued and violently crime filled planets and moons
that had ever existed anywhere… ever. Despite this blatant evidence
that more policing merely creates more criminals, there is never a
demand for less law enforcement, only more. And so nothing changes
here in the Kroonum System, it only gets more confusing, crazier
and exponentially more dangerous.

There
was only one being who could truly understand all of the
intricacies of this ordeal, but he was currently writing
‘
You are
anywhere you want to be’
on blank white pieces of paper and ingesting boiled juices
of psychotropic Lincran-leaves in a parking lot. Such is the way of
things.

“Pull your
space ship and the rest of your fleet over to the slightly darker
space to your left, immediately, or I’ll shoot out all of your
windows,” threatened the booming P.A. system from the suddenly
menacingly hovering ship belonging to The Big Five Planets Parking
Board. “You’ve illegally parked 16 ships with no permit in
restricted space… space.”

“Well I think
you’ll find we don’t have any windows left to shoot out, so your
threat is idle,” retorted Rip.

“That’s gonna
cost you,” said the representative from the Interstellar Luxury
Space Fleet Safety and Insurance Department: Broken Window
Division.

“This is out
of your jurisdiction,” blared the overbearing and aggressive
Sub-Observatory of Galactic Wranglers & Wobblers… a blatantly
made up organization notorious for seizing space ships just to
release them in confusing mazes they’ve designed in order to place
bets on who, if any, will find their way out. The Trilateral
Commission on Hearings of Importance ruled it an activity that must
be permitted, due to Abducted Ship Mazing being the official sport
of the entire sector of the galaxy, which means banning or
restricting it would be a gross affront to The Treaty of Manderbatt
hammered out at the infamous Haurunbistle Tribunal. As any seasoned
traveller of space and time will tell you, to undermine The Treaty
of Manderbatt is to bring on the wrath of the Council of Eleven and
a Half Thousand Different Coloured Robes… and nobody wants
that.

“I’ll handle
this one fellas. You lot are under immediate and severe, extra
super double arrest for the release of a dangerous and mutilating
Zoo Animal,” sternly warned the President of the Lincran Vicious
& Dangerous Animal Restraint League through a series of no less
than 8 interpreters.

“Let him go,
we’re dropping the charges,” screeched a gang of horribly maimed
spider like pickpockets, who were much bigger fans of vigilante
justice.

“
Can’t
do that I’m afraid,” said the Chancellor of Ensuring Charges Aren’t
Dropped So Spidery Pickpocket Things That Dwell On the
53
^rd
Subterranean Layer of Lincra
Can Take The Law Into Their Own Hands.

“I strongly
disagree,” belted out a group of powerless protesters from the
Collaboration of Those Who Angrily Disagree With Any Form of
Legitimately Sanctioned Policing and/or Law Enforcement in the
Kroonum System.

“Do you have a
permit for that Greeg?” questioned a genuinely concerned member of
the strictly volunteer Rounding Up of Greegs and Quarantining them
in Zoos Where They Belong Society.