Bill 2 - on the Planet of Robot Slaves (3 page)

Bill dug his barracks bag out from under his bunk and packed carefully by dumping everything from his footlocker into it. There was still plenty of time before he had to board. He touched his sonowatch and it whispered dimly, “Senator McGurk, the trooper's friend, is pleased to tell you that the time is now twenty-three hundred hours.” It was a cheap watch, a gift from his mother.

A few hours to drown his sorrows before they left. But he was completely broke. Bill looked around at the empty barracks and wondered who had any booze. Not the recruits, certainly. The sergeant's cell was in the corner and he went and rapped on the door.

“You in there, Sarge?”

The answer was only silence, which was fine. He wrenched the metal end off the nearest bed and broke the door in. The place was a pigsty — but this pig was a real boozer. Bill selected two of the most lethal looking bottles. Hid one in his barracks bag and cracked the seal on the other. As soon as the steam had stopped rising he drank deep and sighed happily. Before he got too zonked he set the alarm on the sonowatch.

When McGurk, the trooper's friend, told him it was time to wakey-wakey Bill was just finishing the bottle. He staggered to his feet and shouldered his barracks bag. That is he made a feeble attempt to shoulder it, but instead of him pulling it up it pulled him down.

“Wosha,” he said, watching the lights go round and round as he leaned on the bag for support.

“You like it down there, sir?” a voice said. After much blinking Bill made out the form of one of the recruits standing over him. Bulging of eye and strong of shoulder. After a few failed attempts to speak Bill managed a coherent and fairly articulate sentence.

“I do not like it down here.”

Muttering sympathetically, the recruit helped Bill to his swaying feet, steadied him until he stayed vertical.

“Name...” Bill said with slow precision.

“Name's Wurber, your honor. Ahh just arrived...”

“Shut up. Pick up that bag. Hold me up. Walk.”

In this manner they weaved their way to the landing pad. Bill shuddered at the sight of the battered tug, then permitted Wurber to support him as they climbed painfully aboard.

The recruit's generosity was well rewarded by his being drafted to load supplies, drafted a second time to fill out the depleted crew. Thus does the military render swift justice to those who break the first commandment:

Keep the mouth shut and don't volunteer.

Give her that, the grand old lady of the garbage fleet, the Imelda Marcos, was a workhorse, yes she was. Maybe she was wider than she was long, pitted and rusty, stained black by coffee grounds, gaily festooned with toilet paper, speckled with potato peels, maybe she was all those things. But she could puff and toot and really do her job. The garbage container had never been made that she could not lift into space. No sewage tanker existed that she could not swing into orbit. She was a worker.

Her commander wasn't. Captain Bly had once been first in his class in the Space Academy, had had all of the promise of the best and the brightest. But he had thrown it all away with one small mistake, one moment's dallying where he should not have dallied, one moment's surrender to lust. Unhappily, his commanding officer had, tragically, returned to his quarters early that same day. He had found young Bly in bed with his wife. And his nephew. Not to mention a sheep, and his favorite hunting dog. The commander had really loved that dog.

Needless to say things did not go well for Bly after that. There are some things that are just not done. Even in the navy. Which says a lot. For a moment's indiscretion a career had been ruined. He lived to regret it. If only he hadn't taken on the dog too! But it was far, far too late for recriminations. A gentleman would have done the Right Thing. But he was no longer a gentleman. The officers of the fleet had seen to that. He had been shuttled from ship to ship, ever sinking lower, ever moving on. Until he had ended up here in command of the Imelda Marcos.

She was a good old tug and did her job with gruff efficiency. Even though her captain was high or stoned, or both, most of the time. But now, for the first time that any of the crew, even the oldest compacter's mate, could remember, he was sober. Unshaven stubble smeared the pasty gray of his jowls, as shaky of hand, bright red of eye, he stood at his post on the bridge and glared at Admiral Praktis.

“You just can't tramp into my ship without a word, weld that great ugly machine to my control console, take command where you are not wanted...”

“Shut up,” Praktis implied. “You will do as you are ordered.”

Admiral Lubyanka snarled agreement as he pulled his head out of the depths of the machine in question. “And don't you ever forget that, Bly. You take orders from him. You can fly this junker — but Praktis is in command. The electronic tracker is tracking electronically, which is what this entire damn operation is about. My technician here, Megahertz Mate 2nd Class Cy BerPunk, will follow the escaping ship. He'll give you your course. Your assignment, should you decide to take it, and you have no choice, is to track those damned dragons back to their nest — then report the location to me here. Ready, BerPunk?”

The technician soldered one last connection and nodded, his coarse black hair swinging freely over the white pocked skin of his forehead, brushing the black glasses that concealed his eyes. “On line. Systems go,” he said coarsely. “RAM is ramming, electrons zinging. All systems go — or already gone.”

“And about time too,” Lubyanka snarled, then stabbed Praktis in the chest with a sharp finger. “Do this job, Praktis, and do it well — or it's your ass.”

“It's already my ass so I have nothing to lose. Heave anchor, Lubyanka, or you will blast off with us to the big garbage dump in the sky. Is the ship secured for takeoff, Captain Bly?”

Bly treated him to a look of withering contempt and cracked his knuckles.

“Good,” Praktis said. “I see that we are going to get along real nice.”

Bill had to step aside, or rather stagger aside since he wasn't that sober yet, when Admiral Lubyanka made his exit. Captain Bly watched until the spacelock indicator changed from red to green, then thumbed the takeoff warning. The alarm sounded through the ship like a gargantuan eructation and the crew hurried to buckle in. Bill dropped into a vacant seat and pulled the straps tight just as Captain Bly switched on full power. Gravity sat on their chests with the 11G takeoff. Except for Bill who had a rat sitting on his chest as well as gravity, for it had been hurled from the pipes in the ceiling by the blast. It glared at Bill with gleaming red eyes, its lips pulled back by the drag of takeoff blast to expose its long, yellow incisors. Bill glared back, eyes equally red, his yellow fangs equally exposed. Neither could move and they glared in futile hatred until the engines cut out. Bill grabbed for the rat but it leaped to safety and ran out the door.

“We're in orbit,” Captain Bly said “What's our course?”

“It's coming, man, coming...” Cy muttered, stabbing buttons and adjusting switches. He sneered at the VDU which was filled with sparkling confetti, then tapped it with a long and dirty fingernail. The image cleared and the trace was clear.

“Time needed. Working it out now. This little old 80286 CPU has got a math coprocessor so it should rustle through the computations like crazy...”

“Shut up,” Praktis snarled as he looked around the cabin. Wurber was just starting down the ladder. “You, stop!” he commanded.

“Ahh gotta go to the toilet,” he whimpered.

“Your business after my business — and my business is a cold beer. Fetch.”

“Got it!” Cy crowed. “Course is right ascension seventy-one degrees, six minutes and seventeen seconds, declination twelve degrees exactly. Hack.”

The gyros whined as the garbage tug turned to her new course. Lights flickered and changed on the console under the skilled, if trembling, fingers of her commander.

“Don't unbelt yet,” he warned. “The FTL drive, so recently installed, is an experimental model. And this flight is the first experiment.”

“Return to base!” Praktis screamed. “I want out!”

“Too late!” Captain Bly chortled in reply, stabbing a button. “Too late by far. We're all in this together — and I have nothing to lose — since I've already lost everything, everything...”

Quick tears of self-indulgence blinded him. But not so much that he didn't see Praktis creep forward to grab him. A blaster sprang into his hand, its gaping muzzle pitted and scarred. “Sit,” he commanded. “And enjoy. Up until now Faster Than Light travel has been by Bloater drive. Now, for the first time ever — that I know about — we will be trying out the Spritzer drive. It was installed by that creepo Admiral Lubyanka. Told me that if I would try it out he would clear my name of all shame. Too late! I told him. I live with shame and will die with shame if I must. Now — here we go!”

One grimy thumb stabbed the large red button and a gasp ran through the ship as they felt themselves squeezed in an implacable grip. “That's the...first part. A black hole has been opened in space in front of the ship. Now we are...being squeezed down...so we can be squirted through the hole at...FTL speed. That's why it is named the Spritzer drive. We are being pumped under light pressure and spritzed through spa-a-a-ce...”

It was a thoroughly disgusting and uncomfortable way to travel, Bill decided, and yearned for the old Bloater drive. But at least they lived through it, and that was something. When they had become unsqueezed and space outside had returned to normal, Cy turned to his tracker and fiddled with the controls.

“Bang on, baby. The track is still there, stronger and clearer even. And it heads towards that planet you see over there. The one with the concentric rings, an oblate moon and a black spot at the north pole. Do you see it?”

“Hard to miss,” Praktis sniffed, “since it is the only planet around. So chart its position and let's get the hell out of here before we are noticed.”

“That comes under the heading of famous last words,” Captain Bly blubbered, gaping at the viewscreen which was filled with flying dragons.

“Hit the Spritzer drive and let's get spritzing!” Praktis screamed. But even as the words left his lips it was too late. Well before the soundwaves reached Captain Bly's ears it was too late. Lightning bolts of ravening energy poured from the dragons' mouths and engulfed the ship.

All the fuses blew, all the lights went out. And they were falling.

“Getting mighty close to that planet,” Bill observed, then drew back before the barrage of curses. “Temper, temper,” he said. “Does anyone know how we can get out of this one?”

“Pray,” Cy said, rolling his eyes heavenward, or in any direction, which was the same thing. “Pray for salvation and succor.”

Captain Bly sneered at that. “You are the only sucker here if you think that is going to help us. We've got one chance and one chance only. Our fuel is gone, our batteries drained...”

“Then we are dead!” Praktis wailed and tore out handfuls of hair.

“Not quite yet. I said we had a chance. The forward hold is filled with garbage and is ready for ejection. This is done by a giant spring that has been coiled up by the compression of the garbage when it was packed aboard. At the very last instant before we crash I will eject the garbage. By the Newtonian Principle that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction our speed will be neutralized and we will come to rest.”

“A garbage drive,” Bill moaned. “Is this the end? What a way to die...”

But his complaint went unheard for they were already in the planet's atmosphere and the molecules of air pummeled the spacer cruelly. They smashed into the outer skin, heated it into incandescence while the garbage spacer still hurtled downwards. Through thicker and thicker air, through wispy high clouds, towards the ground below that rushed towards them at a terrible pace.

“Fire the garbage!” Praktis pleaded, but to no avail. Captain Bly stood firm. The others added their cries to his, begged and sobbed, but the thick, grubby finger did not descend.

Closer and ever closer they fell, until they could see individual grains of sand on the ground below —

In the final nanosecond of the last microsecond the finger stabbed down.

Ka-chunk! went the coiled spring, releasing its nascent energy in a single mighty spasm.

Ka-flopf! went the garbage, hurtling outward to crash into the planet just below.

Ker-splat! went the space tug as it settled gently into the mound of old newspapers, fish cans, grapefruit rinds, broken light bulbs, beheaded rats, dead tea bags and shredded files.

“Not bad if I say so myself,” Captain Bly chortled. “Not bad at all. This is really one for the record books.”

The cabin echoed with the click of safety belts being unlocked, the thud of hesitant boots upon the rusty deck.

“Gravity feels good,” Bill opined. “A little light, but good...”

“Shut up!” Praktis snapped. “I have one question and one question only for you, Cy. Did you...” his voice broke and he restored it with a quick cough. “Did you get off the planet's position?”

“I tried to, Admiral. But the power cut off before I could get out a signal.”

“Then do it now! There must be some juice left in the batteries. Try it!”

Cy punched in the commands, then thumbed the activator button. The screen glowed — then went black and all the lights went out. Wurber shrieked with fear at the sudden darkness, sobbed with relief when the feeble glow of the emergency bulb oozed out.

“It worked!” Praktis chortled. “Worked! The signal went out!”

“Sure did, Admiral. At that strength it must have gone up about five feet at least.”

“Then we are marooned...” Bill intoned feebly. “Lost in space. On an enemy planet. Surrounded by flying dragons. Millions of parsecs from home. In a dead spaceship sitting on a mound of garbage.”

“You got it buddy-boy,” Cy nodded. “That's just about the size of it.”

“Here is your beer, sir. Can I go potty now?” Wurber gurgled, holding out the once-warm bottle, now blood-hot from his heated grip.

Praktis snarled an inarticulate reply as he grabbed the bottle and half-drained it in a single glug. Captain Bly groped through the pockets of his crumpled uniform until he found the butt of an H-joint which he lit. Bill sniffed his exhaust fumes appreciatively but decided against asking for a drag. Instead he went to look out of the viewport at this newfound planet, but all he could see was garbage.