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HEROICS INC.

Part Fifteen

Will was making good progress. Another few days and he might 
make it to ground level without breaking his neck.  There was an 
art in moving over the slippery slimy surface without tumbling 
into a tremendous prat-fall and landing on a selection of 
hard-edged plastic implements.  It was a skill that Will had 
taken quite a while, and several knocks, to master.  The key
to survival was concentration; it was because his mind was 
absorbed on the way ahead that he did not see the eyes or 
get a warning.
        The eyes would have been difficult to see even if he had been 
looking for them. They were held aloft on thin stalks just above the 
plastic, having risen from under the surface with greased silence and 
instantly adapted themselves to their surroundings. They looked more 
like weird plants with two large attentive berries than ocular 
sensory apparatus.  But they were eyes, the way they followed the 
halting human's every move revealed that. For a brief moment, Will 
was surrounded by an eager captive audience, then, like so many shark 
fins, they vanished for the attack.
        Will did not bother to glance down when something brushed his 
leg; he put the contact down to a piece of plastic blown by the non-
existent wind. A split second later, there was another contact; then 
another, then another and by the time he did look down, it was too 
late.  He hardly got a split second to register the rainbow-hued 
stalks that held him captive, as they grew and multiplied, casting 
through the air with whiplash swiftness, circling his arms, his 
chest, with a touch almost sensual in softness, yet vice-like in its 
grasp.  In the instant that it took to restrain him, Will barely had 
time to command his muscles to resist.  He felt the blind panic 
rising, and opened his mouth to scream.  Then the stalks pulled with 
shocking abruptness and Will vanished below the plastic surface. 
Oblivious to their visitor's plight, the garbage mountains went about 
the long business of decomposing as they always did, with stately 
patient indifference.






It was incredibly soothing, the gentle rocking motion, like 
being held or cradled in someone's arms, a lover's or close friends 
perhaps.  For a moment, Will almost forgot his feelings of panic and 
terror, as he was dragged into the bowels of the plastic mound.  Not 
for the first time recently, he regretted opening his eyes.
        He was in a huge tunnel, hollowed out of a rubbish mound.  
There was plenty of light, thanks to torches that struggled valiantly 
in the reeking air and the scene that they illuminated was like 
something out of a Hieronymus Bosch nightmare. On the left side of 
the tunnel, as far as the eye could see, a column of curious 
creatures were moving slowly, as if queuing with infinite patience 
for some major event.  Like supplicants, each of the odd lifeforms 
held a little offering, some item shaped in plastic, metal, or 
fibres.  To the right of the tunnel, a steady parade of the creatures 
bounced rapidly past, empty "handed", going in the other direction.  
The strangest, almost scary, thing about the whole inexplicable 
performance was its silence.  The only sound that could be heard was 
the smoky spluttering of the torches and the soft rubbing sound of 
the colourful alien bodies.
        Will mentally corrected himself; he was the alien, they were 
the locals.  He decided to study them in detail, partly because he 
had nothing better to do and partly because he felt that it was 
important to get to know his hosts. It was easy to get a close-up 
look.  There were four of them carrying his tightly bound body.  He 
could not escape feeling like an over-wrapped birthday present. They 
most closely resembled some sort of earth insect.  Large pod-like 
bodies supported by rows of spindly appendages, some of which held 
the human effortlessly aloft.  At the rear of the bodies, two huge 
great legs, useful possibly for bounding over the rubbish mounds and 
also for pushing a path through the debris.  This impression of their 
adaptation for burrowing was borne out by a pair of well developed, 
scoop-like claws on the front of the body. The head, or at least, the 
smooth round lump at the top of the body was almost featureless. Will 
felt that the lack of a nose was a sensible evolutionary design 
choice, and at the very top, long prehensile eyeball stalks sprouted 
with orbs that were large and rounded like crystal balls.  Inside 
these eyes, colours shimmered and shifted in a way that recalled 
memories of a childhood kaleidoscope. Their bodies, too, were ever-
changing in colour, moving and flowing with flashes of tint, and as 
they passed along the tunnel, sometimes the bodies would copy to 
perfection the pigmentation of some decaying object set in the wall,  
the excellence of this blending process seeming to render the 
creature bodies momentarily invisible.
        The queuing seemed to be endless and after a while, he became 
more used to his captors, noting that there seemed to be two tiny 
rectangles on each shoulder that did not change hue, but that varied 
in colour from creature to creature.  He was puzzled by their 
function for a while, until he thought of old uniforms and of 
epaulettes.  Whatever else these "palettes'", as he christened them, 
because of their ability to mix colours, were, they were obviously 
highly organised.  This organisation was not just restricted to what 
Will presumed were their outfits.  There were direction signs 
everywhere, on the walls on the ceiling on the floors. It took a 
while to sink in that he could actually read them.  Unaware of 
Merlyn's linguistic spell, Will egotistically put this down to some 
form of rapid and highly-developed customising of the environment for
his benefit.  Although the signs and directional arrows did not seem 
to make much sense, they all seemed to do with time, varying wildly 
in duration, from three hours, to three months to three hundred 
years, etc.
        This obsession with time was appropriate, as it did seem it 
might take three hundred years for the line to move.  Will found 
himself wishing that his spell of unconsciousness had lasted longer.  
At least then he would not have to deal with the tedium. His initial 
panic had subsided, at least he decided, they were not going to eat 
him.  They did not seem to have mouths. No mouths might mean no 
munching of his choicer extremities but it also seemed to mean no 
speech.  Will was unused to quiet, his culture had resonated to the 
ceaseless hummings and scoldings of advanced machinery.  His few 
attempts at conversation had got him nowhere.  The only response to 
his many variations on a theme of: "Where are we?", "Who are you?" 
and "Where are you taking me?" had earned him nothing more rewarding 
then a curt tap from a spindly insect-like stalk and a possible 
warning glance of technicolor brilliance from the rainbow centred 
eyes. After a while, Will even gave up asking about the fate of his 
colleagues.  He started to talk, or rather recite, to disseminate 
some of his culture to his hosts, trusting that they possessed some 
sort of hearing apparatus about their bodies, as he assumed an 
affected hammy accent.
        'My lords, ladies and gentlemen - I presume that you have 
different genders. As a small thank you for your charming 
hospitality I would like to present some items from my own culture 
for the education and entertainment of this distinguished company.  
I will now relate, from memory, the complete works of the noted Earth 
dramatist and all round literary icon, Mister Entertainment himself, 
the bard of Avon; William Shakespeare.  I must admit that I've heard 
of a captive audience, but never a captive actor.  Be that as it may, 
please rub your stalks together for my first piece, a delightful 
light-hearted little work entitled "Macbeth" or "Don't buy any long-
playing records if you're king.'
        Like a COMS generator, once started Will was hard to stop. He 
went on and on and on.  By the time he had finished Macbeth, Hamlet 
and A Midsummer Night's Dream, complete with whatever lame-brained 
extra material or observations that he had deemed appropriate, his 
voice had hushed into a croak.  This did not matter as none of the 
"palettes" seemed to have paid the slightest attention to a word he 
had said, however stylised.  Will yearned to hear a sound, a voice, 
even Sulphur at his most caustic would have been welcome.
        When he did hear a someone or something speaking distantly, his 
Bard-dulled brain at first rejected the voice as wish-fulfilment, but 
as they moved nearer to wherever they were going, the voice, or 
voices, as Will realised them to be, got louder.  Somebody seemed to 
be taking inventory, asking curt questions in a sharp monotone.  The 
same questions again and again, and receiving replies that were both 
humble and to the point. After finishing its interrogation it would 
issue an instruction.  Then shortly after, another empty handed 
"palette" would appear to be running away, perhaps on some vital 
errand.  Strapped and trapped as he was, Will could do nothing but 
wait as the voice drew nearer, trying to ignore his clamouring 
curiosity, curiosity that had acquired a loud-hailer by the time he 
saw the arch of a doorway up ahead, and that was screaming itself 
hoarse with expectation as he was lifted across the threshold.  Will 
had prepared himself for something strange but whatever wild vision 
he had expected, it had not been this.
        It was as if someone had decided to build the Coliseum 
underground, with all manner of slowly rotting debris as the building 
material of choice.  The circular cavern was huge, on all sides were 
doors, and stretching through each doorway was a line of the 
creatures, each carrying a burden, each patiently waiting their turn.  
All over the walls were small hatches, each labelled with a printed 
figure denoting a period of months, years or decades.  In strict 
rotation, a palette would step forward from one converging line at a 
time, one after the other they would complete their business and then 
leave empty-clawed and what a curious business it was.  In the centre 
of the converging lines was a much battered, huge old lectern, next 
to the lectern, a high stool, on which was balanced one of the 
creatures; a creature with enough individual features to separate it 
from its fellows. .
        This "palette" was twice as large as any other Will had seen, 
The rounded "head" was not smooth but covered in a tangled mass of 
erect wispy white tendrils.  The epaulettes on the shoulder were 
connected to some long flowing black fabric which gave the creature 
the slight appearance of a Victorian undertaker.  This connection 
with the distance past of Earth was enhanced by the vastness of the 
ledger which lay open on the lectern, the super-sized pot of what 
appeared to be ink by his side, and the number of unwieldy-looking 
quill pens which it held adroitly in its spindly stalks, writing 
furiously, pausing only to dip one of at least half-a-dozen 
hardworking nibs into the ink bottle with a balletic flowing 
movement.
        The whole cavern seemed to mirror this ceaseless activity.  All 
around the dome above them, "palettes" laboured, perched precariously 
on ladders, constantly changing the ingredients that made up the 
ceiling far above.  Removing items of rubbish, replacing them or 
adding new pieces. Occasionally some scrap of debris would float or 
plummet from the ceiling to the floor and be swiftly rescued by one 
of the many creatures not in line, that seemed to be scuttling about 
on other errands, and immediately returned to the ceiling.
        All was done at great speed.  A creature in one of the queues 
would move forward to the lectern, holding up the object that was 
being carried.  The "palette" at the lectern asked quick, no nonsense 
questions: "Object?  Age?  Etc." Its voice amplified resoundingly by 
the acoustics of the hall, whilst, all the time writing furiously in 
the ledger.  When this transaction was over, this head "palette" 
would signal, waving a quill and one of the many creatures rushing 
about the hall would take charge of the burden, disposing of it by 
placing it in one of many labelled hatchways.

        Will realised that perhaps he was destined for a place in one 
of these hatches; it was dispiriting, and somewhat insulting, to face 
the fact that these creatures considered him to be no more than an 
item of junk.  He tried not to think about it, concentrating on what 
he would say when he was held before the lectern and the black-
cloaked creature.  After a while he realised with vague nausea, just 
where the creature's voice was coming from. A wide, narrow row of 
needle like fangs opened and closed in the creature's pod-shaped 
belly and sound came out.  Will finally got a chance to observe this 
spiteful mew as he was carried to the lectern.
        'Object?'
        One of Will's captors opened its stomach to reply.  
        'Alien.'
        'A being.  Age?'
        'I'm twenty-five,' Will offered politely.
        'Impossible!  Age of deterioration?'
        'I'm not as far gone as that.' The indignant Will, much to his 
disgust, found further protests impossible.  One of the creatures 
placed a leathery stalk in his mouth.
        'Age of deterioration?' The head creature repeated with what 
sounded like anger in its voice.
        'Depends on soil.  No more than twenty years.'
        'Twenty years.  Next!'
        Will knew that unless he wanted to find out what was on the other
side of the hatch for the next couple of decades, he had to do 
something, however unpleasant.  With this pressing thought in mind, 
he took the only course open to him.  Turning his bound body with as 
wild a motion as he could manage, Will bit down hard on the offending 
stalk in his gullet.  He felt a horror that exceeded anything he had 
experienced, as the stalk broke sending a choking flood of cold 
bitter liquid into his protesting throat. As he struggled to spit out 
the remains of the "palette" appendage, to overcome the retching and 
loathing that now took control of his body, the maimed creature let 
go of him, its stomach wide now, screaming in agony, spraying its 
fellows with its dark yellow blood.  For a second, all discipline in 
the immediate vicinity evaporated.  Will was dropped to the floor as, 
with the exception of the "clerk" behind the lectern, all the 
creatures nearest the maimed "palette" fell upon their wounded 
colleague, their stomach/mouths, those rows of terrifying teeth, 
fully visible now as they sank in a frenzy into the flesh of the 
injured one.  In a moment, nothing was left.  Not the stalk that Will 
had spat out, not even the epaulettes.
        'I suppose it saves on the funeral expenses.'  Will managed to 
croak with a glib morbid humour that he did not feel.  Inside, he 
felt desolation and horror.  He had been responsible for a death.
The creatures resumed their places in an orderly fashion as if 
nothing had happened.  Will could hear the 'clerk' resume its 
questions.  Four of the hatch fillers now advanced on him. Will 
reacted almost without thinking.
        'Sod off, Bug-brains!' he shouted in a voice charged with 
unaccustomed anger and vigour.
        Echoes bounded around the cavern dislodging debris all over the 
place.  For a moment it was snowing paper and small objects, a 
ticker-tape parade in the underworld, in hell.  Then something 
happened that had not happened in the history of the "palettes".  
With its tangled head vibrating with impatience, the 'clerk' laid 
down its quills for a moment.
        'What is the problem?'
        'The alien being.' The four helpers answered in unison.
        'Yes?'
        'It's alive.'
        'ALIVE!' The "clerk" boomed, bringing down another shower of 
litter upon their heads. For a moment there was an uncomfortable 
pause.  Will allowed himself a split-second of hope.  Then the 
creature spoke.
        'Well, kill it then.'
        Will thought fast as the four approached.  He needed to.  This 
time their mouths were wide open.  Will had never seen a stomach with 
a tongue before, now he saw four up close, and they were drooling.  
With almost sobbing gratitude, he felt words tumble into his brain 
and his mouth.
        'If anyone comes near me.  I'll bite 'em.'
        It seemed to have the desired affect.  Four ravening bellies 
shut tightly with a snap.
        This was going to go down as a momentous, inconceivable day in 
the history of this culture.  For the second time, the clerk stopped 
its listing.
        'What now?'
        'I demand my right to a trial, to a lawyer?'
        'What's a lawyer?'
        'I demand my right to information then.'
        'If I give you this information, will you stop interrupting 
things and die without fuss?  We do work closely to a schedule you 
know.'
        'Never mind your bogging schedule.  Why do you want to kill 
me?'
        The creature was a pragmatist.  It had not won promotion after 
promotion in its long and illustrious career, without learning how to 
adapt. In the interests of getting this troublesome irritation out of 
the way, it dropped the rasping curt quality of its stomach's vocal 
tone for a sound that was almost paternal,
        'Look around you.  What do you see?'
        'Garbage.'
        We are the Estapoppi.  We exist to study the deterioration of 
matter.' He indicated a small white shape in a nearby creature's 
stalks. 'That soiled disposable nappy for instance.  We estimate that 
it will take 500 years for it to fully biodegrade.  We think it's a 
beautiful thing to watch decay.  We will study this nappy closely, 
observe it and its contents processes of disintegration, make notes, 
draw up our findings and suggestions, all based on our testing 
procedure.'
        'Why?'
        'Somebody has to.  Long, long ago we were without purpose, 
absorbed in self-interest and war.  It was decided then that the only 
way to save ourselves was to create a reason for our existence.'
        'So watching rubbish rot is your goal in life is it?' Will felt 
twice as incredulous as he sarcastically sounded.
        'Yes. Call it idiosyncrasy, or perversion, but we like decaying 
matter.'
        'What use is it?'
        'Use!  It's of crucial use.  We have heard from beings such as 
yourself of other worlds scattered beyond our own and we estimate 
that there are only a finite number of planets.  However, the scope 
for the growth of population is infinite.  Each being that lives 
leaves waste material, material that becomes harder to dispose of 
each year, causing increasing damage to the Universal ecology.  
Eventually, cultures will have to work more and more, on getting rid 
of the litter left by their ancestors.  More and more of the 
interplanetary economy will depend on efficient waste disposal.  The 
entire Cosmos will be in danger of being buried by waste.  When that 
happens, we will offer to come to the rescue.  Based on millions of 
years of study and research, we will have the most efficient garbage 
disposal system in creation.  We will, for a reasonable price, offer 
to get rid of the waste problem.'
        'What price?'
        'We are a highly specialised service.  Complete domination of 
the Universe seems reasonable.'
        'For picking up litter!'
        'Think of the research.  Think of the hours we have spent on 
this. We had to develop a machine that transports items of interest 
from all over the Galaxy.  Everything from scrap-metal to socks from 
laundry baskets come here.  It was a colossal engineering feat.  It 
was also very expensive.  We need some form of payment for our 
efforts.'
        'So you bring rubbish from everywhere.  You're telling me that 
after all I've been through to get here, to pursue some adventure and 
excitement, after all that's happened, I've ended up in the universe's 
main garbage dump?'
        'Yes!'
There was only one word to sum up the way that Will felt and he 
used it with bitter emphasis:
        'BUGGERATION!'
        'Are you upset?'
        'No, of course not.  Why should I be upset?  EVERYONE'S life is 
like this.'
        'We could kill you now if you're depressed.
        'Depressed!  I'm suicid...' Aware of an untensioning of stomach 
muscles around him, Will just managed to catch himself in time.
        'Why go to all the trouble?  Why not just build ships and 
invade other planets.'
        'We don't want to hurt anybody.'
        'You want to kill me.'
        'That's just business.  Surely you want to help with a litter-
free future for the universe.'
        'Of course I do.  Let me live and I'll promise to always use a 
bottle bank in future.  Isn't your plan for domination the long way 
of going about things?'
        'It's good for a culture to have a long-term ambition.  We all 
do our jobs, help locate research material, help the future of 
society.  There is no war, no crime, we are all fulfilled and happy.'
        Will shook his head in disbelief.  'I can see it now.  Come to 
Spoggle, land of the laughing litterbugs.'
        'We are only a small part of "Spoggle" as you call it, but we 
flatter ourselves, the most useful part.  Think of the alternative, 
we could take over the universe your way, with ships.  Lots of us 
would get hurt and in the end there would be no point.'
        'You'd rule the universe.'
        'But we wouldn't be happy, content. The universe's waste 
problem would grow and grow and we wouldn't be there to stop it.  
Everybody in existence would die just because we concentrated on 
selfish short-term gains.'
        'It'll take forever.'
        'We need as much time as we can get. The decay of some of these 
new plastics takes forever.  Talking of time, yours is up. Take him 
away.'
        Will was still confused, ''Why must I die?'
        'You don't think you're biodegradable whilst you're alive, do 

you?  If you're going to decay properly, I'm afraid we have to kill 
you.  Why else do you think the transporter brought you here?'
        Interview session over.  The "clerk" picked up its quills, 
motioning to the Estapoppi with the nappy to come forward.  There was 
nothing Will could do.  There were just too many stalks all at once, 
none of which came near his mouth.  Whimpering gently to himself, he 
was lifted up.  Nearby, a stomach opened widely, expectantly. So 
after all, this was going to be the end.  Bit off in his prime.  As 
they moved his head into the foully gurgling stomach, toward those 
rows of expectant razor-sharp teeth, Will could not think of any 
profound last words.  He was too upset.  He was inches away from the 
Estapoppi's tongue and it was not pleasant.  In the split second as the 
creature's stomach muscles started to clench, the evil mouth to 
close, he found himself betting, irrelevantly, that the creatures 
never flossed their gums, or were they intestines?  Was it possible 
to floss intestines?
        'He talks about transporters. I don't know about transporters.  
I wish I'd never heard of the bloody MADID.' 
        'STOP!!!' The "clerks" voice suddenly screamed. 
        Twenty thousand Estapoppi in the room jumped at once.  The one 
about to eat Will's head, snapped its jaws shut in surprise.  
Fortunately for the human, the instinctive reactions of his carriers 
were just that little bit faster.  He was dazed but he was alive.  
Suddenly, the mood of the room had changed.  The unthinkable had 
happened.  The "clerk" with a bounce of those powerful rear legs, had 
overleaped the lectern.
        'How many times,' he said, in a voice that caused several 
ladders on the far side of the cavern to fall over and at least one 
of the far doorways to collapse. 'How many times must I tell you?  In 
memos, in person?  It is the most important thing to remember, is it 
not?  Always ask a new arrival before you process them - WHAT?'
        You could almost see the twenty thousand Estapoppi mentally 
think WHOOPS!, before they answered in a deafening chorus.  
        'HAVE THEY HEARD OF THE MADID?'
        Two more of the fragile rubbish doorways collapsed.
        'Because, if they have heard of the MADID? the clerk prompted.
        'WE HAVE TO DIRECT THEN TO THE SIGNS AND LEAVE THEM ALONE.'
        By this time, even the creatures struggling to repair the 
damage caused by the noise had given up in momentary disgust, those 
that is, who had survived their fall from the ladders.
        'I'm terrible sorry about this.' The clerk said to Will in a 
sweetly charming voice.  'You can't get the staff.' The tone he used 
on his assistants was far less polite. 'RELEASE HIM AND TAKE HIM WITH 
ALL SPEED TO THE SIGNS.'
        Extremely bemused, the newly unfettered Will was 
carried away at a breakneck pace toward the exit, he distantly    
heard the last of the clerk's fulsome apologetic farewell.
        '.... And, it's been a pleasure to meet you.'
        Strangely, Will did not feel able to reciprocate. "CRETINS!" 
was the last work he heard as the "clerk" turned on his followers.  
Will nodded.  Now that was an opinion that he could agree with.  He 
had heard of being in the dumps, but this was ridiculous.  Still it 
was comforting to note, that as a seeker after the MADID, he was 
something of a celebrity.

© Gary Cahalane

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