The Garbage Chronicles Read Online Free PDF Page B

peeking out of the top of the pocket, watching the comet. Wizzy’s cat’s eye was bright orange now, as was the rest of his lumpy body. Javik felt Wizzy’s warmth against his side.
    The same shade of orange as the comet, Javik thought. Wizzy could be a chunk of it. Electrodes flashed wildly in Javik’s brain. Sid? Was that you out there, Sid?

    Far across the galaxy, in a cavern beneath the surface of Guna One, a blue female meckie studied symbols and cartoon pictures that had been scratched on a recently discovered limestone wall. This was an unnamed Earth-catapulted meckie, like all others on the planet, with a brass “rebuilt” plaque on her torso. Being rather standard in appearance, she had no head and a flashing blue dome light on top. Numerous dents and abrasions marred her rivet-covered surface.
    Lord Abercrombie stood in the doorway of the cavern, looking in. “Anything more?” he asked, his bearded half face wrinkled inquisitively beneath a thistle half crown. “It’s been two weeks now since we found these drawings.” Lord Abercrombie’s half body, split from his forehead to the ground, was draped in a floor-length, rust-colored caftan. The caftan hung oddly at the split, in a straight dropoff due to his left side having disappeared entirely into the Realm of Magic. Abercrombie knew it had not really disappeared. It was there but not there at the same moment. It was chilly in the cavern, and he inserted his only hand in his pocket.
    “It’s history,” the meckie said in a voice that sounded like a gargle, evidence of an unsolvable mechanical defect. She half turned toward Abercrombie while pointing at a series of six cartoon squares on the wall. “There were three magicians here before you. One was a giant amoeba, and another a plant creature with wide philodendron leaves. The third was human-like, but with a duck-billed face.”
    “Really!” Lord Abercrombie said. His eye flashed intently as he glided to the wall. Rubbing his fingers over the carved pictures and symbols, he asked, “All became soil-immersed?”
    “Yes. That is what it means to be a magician here—becoming one with the soil, one with the planet.”
    “But they’re all gone. Where did they go?”
    “I haven’t been able to figure that out. Most of the symbols are strange.”
    “But you were a linguistics assistant,” Lord Abercrombie said. “You, of all meckies, should be able to interpret such things!” He scratched his nearly bald half pate, feeling a few strands of baby soft hair there.
    “Earth linguistics is a different thing,” the meckie gargled. “I did find one familiar symbol, however. Here.” She touched the wall.
    Lord Abercrombie leaned close to study the symbol. It was a circle with four tangential triangles spaced evenly outside the circumferential line. Jagged lines inside the circle touched each triangle, looking like bolts of lightning between the triangles. “What is it?” he asked.
    “Well, without the circle it’s the symbol of magnetics.” She moved her hand along the wall. “See here? It’s beneath each of the three magicians.”
    “Hmmm. Yeah. Magnetics, huh? Maybe they used magnetics somehow in their magic.”
    “Could be.”
    “What about the circle? What does it mean?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “And the cartoons?”
    “Maybe something funny was going on,” the meckie said.
    “Well, nothing seems very funny around here to me. Any incantations there, or magical potion recipes?”
    “None that I’ve been able to figure out yet.”
    Lord Abercrombie put his hand on his hip. “Some kinda history here, eh? Well, add my story to it.”
    “That’s a good idea, Lord. There are sharp pieces of obsidian on the floor here, evidently used by others to carve on the wall.”
    “Good.’ ?
    “I don’t draw very well, Lord. I will need artistic programming.”
    “Report to Servicing for that.”
    “Yes, Lord Abercrombie.” The meckie paused for a moment, then said, “If I’m to