Diggers: The Sharp Edge of the Universe (5 page)

Reggie saw it differently. “Belch is crazy.”

Reggie bore the nickname Bull from that day on, and he hated it. Since Finn was glad Reggie didn’t like his nickname either, the two had made a pact to never use the other boy’s nickname, which could possibly be a prison-able offense among the Diggers.

The only other Digger Finn knew of who didn’t have a nickname was his mom. Finn’s dad said she’d been known as Skipper when they were kids because she always took charge of everything. They’d voted her the leader of whatever project they were working on.

But Maggie hated the nickname, mostly because Gus had made fun of it all the time. Gus had regularly called her Bossy instead of Skipper, which had made her furious at him during most of their childhood. Maggie had put a quick and decisive end to the nickname the day she punched Gus in the gut, ignoring the jolt of electricity from the bully chip in her neck. She stood over Gus and declared to everyone listening that she was Maggie, and the next person to call her Skipper would get some of the same.

Belch revved up the DUMP and followed the FaRT as it flew off the Space Dock.

Finn began to wonder if Reggie might be a little paranoid. He was sitting next to Finn, holding onto his head with both hands and mumbling to himself.

Suddenly,
Belch
yelled, “Wadda yuh say we make it to the landing area first?”

Before anyone could object, Belch slammed his finger onto the acceleration button and yelled, “Maximum!”

The DUMP shot forward like a dart, barely missing the FaRT. Belch swerved and weaved the DUMP through the inky black space and bulleted toward the surface of Takkaur. The kids who weren’t shrieking in terror barfed on the floor. The entire transport echoed as they neared a huge landing pad shaped like the middle of a target at twice the speed of a normal landing.

“We’re gonna die!” Chunk, a massive kid sitting across from Finn and Reggie, shoved his head between his thick knees.

“Never!”
Belch bellowed over the shrieks and cries. “All stop!”

The DUMP slammed to a full stop, inches from the landing pad, and every kid’s head lurched forward. Belch sat the DUMP down with a barely noticeable thump and whistled at his landing.

“Perfect landing, if I do say so myself,” Belch remarked as he scratched at an itch on his belly.

Finn fumbled with his seatbelt harness. The adrenaline surging through him made the job of getting out of the seat nearly impossible.

“Come on, Reg, let’s get off this thing.” He jumped out of his seat and headed for the door.
“Reg?”

“Well, I’ll be.” Belch started scratching an itch on his chest. “I didn’t know Bull was a fainter too.”

Chapter 7: Death Drop

Reggie stumbled, and caught himself by gripping the DUMP’s door jamb, his face ghostly grey with shades of green shadowing his cheeks.

“Reg, don’t throw up in your face mask,” Finn warned. “Bear says once you do, you’ll never get the smell out of it.”    Outside the DUMP, Reggie leaned against a pillar and sucked in oxygen from the mask. It took a few minutes, but he finally stood upright and gave a relieved sigh. The boys made their way through the maze of metal stairs and railings to join their class.

The group assembled around a monster of a machine called a Bio Extraction Leveling and Cultivating Hauler. Belch smiled and slapped Reggie on the back as he passed through the crowd and heaved his mass into the BELCH. Reggie jumped, made a mouse squeal sound, and started shaking again. His face turned grey-green again, and he looked in danger of vomiting.

The people who didn’t have the fortune of knowing Belch personally assumed his nickname came from one of the many bodily noises he made without warning. Actually, he was the best BELCH operator in the universe. Finn’s dad said Belch could do things with a BELCH that most Diggers would consider impossible.

“Come on, Reg.” Finn pushed Reggie through the crowd of red and brown uniforms to the front. “Get us a better view.”

Finn’s excited smile slid off his face when they made it to the front of the group. He’d expected to see Lee Fishborne and his group of the best and brightest Scientists running the entire Digging operation. Instead, Lee and the Scientists stood on a platform high above the action, nervously watching Belch—and Quinn of all people—barking commands in every direction. Lee stood shuffling papers in a corner balcony of the metal frame surrounding a
hole
almost the size of the Space Station. Every time Quinn yelled, Lee jumped a little and some assistant had to go chasing after a piece of paper. The other Scientists stood around and watched Quinn, Belch, and the rest of the operation.

None of this looked right. All of the holopictures showed Lee Fishborne in the command position while the Diggers were always left out of the picture. Finn thought back to the revolving 3-D image he’d seen just a few days ago—Lee had stood with Captain Windblown, like the god Finn knew every Scientist was.
But the scene actually kind of made sense.
Scientists didn’t need to be involved with the digging, just the discovering.

A hot flash of jealousy pierced Finn as he watched Lee completely ignore the Diggers. He wished he could see what nuggets of information those sheets of paper held. Maybe they were secret codes only a select few people were allowed to see, people like diplomats, the President of Earth, or the Grand Minister of the Milky Way.

“Keep those kids on the observation deck, Bones,” Quinn yelled up to their teacher.

Someone yanked Finn back by the uniform and dragged him up the stairs he’d been creeping down.

“What the—” he protested, ready to throw a punch and take the electric shock that came with it.

“That means you too.” Mikayla let go of his collar and wiped her hand on her knee like she’d just contracted some alien flesh-eating bacteria by touching him.

He tried to think of something brilliant and mean to say to Mikayla, but nothing came to mind until it was too late, as usual.

The Science and Digger classes observed as Belch raised the VirtualBot Arm and swung it deep into the massive hole. Finn thought it qualified as the stupidest, easiest job ever, controlling
the massive arm that had a dirt-collecting bucket attached to the end of it. Belch pressed the electrodes he’d just attached to different muscles in his own arm. The electrodes, attached to a sensor, allowed the VirtualBot arm to mimic every movement Belch made. Belch gave a great yawn and moved his arm like he was digging a moat around a sand castle. Then he lifted his arm high up in the air, opened his hand, and the VirtualBot Arm let go of its load on top of a pile of dirt next to the hole.

Finn quickly grew tired of watching the digging and turned his attention to the Scientists. Lee Fishborne gave a small wave to his daughter,
then
resumed his discussion with his team. At barely six feet tall, Lee Fishborne was one of the thinnest men Finn had ever seen. A few Diggers were kind of skinny—Mr. James, their instructor, was one of them—but most of the people Finn knew were thick and muscled.

Mr. Fishborne's light brown hair and tanned skin gave him the look of a healthy person who hadn’t spent his entire life on a Space Station. He traveled to different worlds for all sorts of meetings and conferences, so he didn’t have the strained, pea-brownish-green color most space station dwellers received from the luminaries. In person, his skin tone made the other people on his Science team look like they had leather for skin. He had the same startling blue eyes as his daughter—the only thing Finn hated about him, though right now his pencil-line mouth wasn’t very appealing either, because it made it difficult for Finn to read his lips from this far away.

The Scientists were all focused on a single piece of paper, whispering. Finn peeked around to see if anyone was looking at him, then crept away from the group. Edging his way along the high rails, he advanced up the rows of metal stairs until he stood next to the Scientists.

“Yes, but is it new?” Lee gave an angry hiss. “I don’t want another close call. If we aren’t sure, I refuse to say anything about it.”

“I believe it’s new, sir,” a young Scientist said. “It is similar to the Mikanleum we found on T3. Under a microscope you can see that living organisms inside it help to keep the metal hard by continuously building thick walls at the cellular level.”

Lee stared at the Scientist. “And you expect
me
to look into a microscope? Do I
look
like I’m in the Journeymen Program?”

The group fell into a babble of “no sirs” and “of course nots,” while Lee stomped his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets. Finn envied how much everyone practically fell on their knees around him.

Lee forced
a calmness
into his voice. “Tatum, I want you to take a second look tonight and review all of your tests. If you still conclude this is a new discovery, I will tell the Captain in the morning.”

Finn couldn’t believe his luck. He’d just found out about a possible new discovery before the Captain had! He needed to find out where they were going to hide this new discovery while they processed it, so he could see it before the Captain got to congratulate Lee.

The young Scientist nodded and began recording notes into his Verbal Memory Unit.
“Yes, sir, Lee…I mean, Mr. Fishborne!
I’ll work on it all night…starting the moment we return home.”

Finn listened to the Scientists mumble about different tests they were working on, and what parts of tests they’d finished.

“Oy, Science folks,” Belch yelled at them, interrupting their conversations.

Finn glanced over at the students and received a nasty look from Mikayla. She waved her hand toward her face, and it looked to Finn like she might be hot and was trying to fan herself. But when she pointed at him and then to the spot next to her, Finn knew she wanted him to get back with the field trip group. Luckily, she was easy to ignore.

One of the Scientists kept whispering to Tatum. She wondered when anyone else would get a chance to finally discover something, but Tatum hushed her, throwing glances at the other Scientists.

Finn knew how the woman felt.

He could just barely see the bottom of the hole from this high up. He imagined himself down there discovering awesome new metals, fossils, and maybe even a new kind of limitless fuel.

“Heya, Lee!” Belch scratched his armpit,
then
flipped his massive biceps behind his head, the Virtualbot Arm mimicking his every move, “I think I found something new.”

Lee stopped in mid-sentence and turned to
Belch
with the usual disgust people showed toward a Digger. It didn’t help that Belch had lost his hand inside his other armpit.

“I’m sorry…uh, Belch. I don’t know what you’re seeing.” Lee tried to smile, but the effort transformed into a sneer. “I’m sure the Scientists will make the discovery if there is one.”

“Well, I’m not surprised. It’s not a metal, or any of the other stuff you folks are always looking for. It’s an animal. Look at the top of the hole. Looks like one of them mountain sheep-type things.” Belch pulled his hand out of the depths of his armpit long enough to point at the animal,
then
went back to scratching again.

The size of an Earth elephant, the animal had stick-thin legs, and shouldn't have been able to hold up its own mass. The horns circled round and round the sides of its head into tight spirals, which made the animal look like it had two gigantic cinnamon buns attached to its head. It stood on a rocky cliff halfway in the hole, chewing on a mouthful of the dark green dirt.

“See, the Diggers find stuff,” Reggie said.

“AAAAAAAHHHH….” Finn jumped up and let out a high scream, like the girls always did at the roller skating arena on the old earth virtual deck.

Stumbling into the groups of Scientists, he tripped over a foot and fell backward, screaming, into the depths of the hole. He slid and bumped down the side, until he bashed his head against a boulder.

Finn woke up to the smell of rotten hamburgers piled high with too many onions. He blinked hard. Something pressed against his throbbing head, and he tried to figure out where the disgusting smell came from.

Then he knew. His face was pressed into Belch’s armpit, a mass of sweaty pit hair tickling his nose. He tried to move, but was only able to cradle his aching head.

Belch marched up a long stairwell back toward the group with Finn hanging over his shoulders like a towel. Even though Finn refused to look, he knew every single person—all of the kids from the Science Journeymen and the Digger Journeymen, every Scientist, Quinn, and every Digger—were staring at the spectacle he made slumped over Belch’s shoulder.

Belch climbed up the stairs, laughing his deep guttural laugh. “I told yuh I could catch him before he hit the bottom.”

Chapter 8: Busted

Finn held his head in his hands and leaned hard against the kitchen table. A picture of Belch carrying him out of the hole burst from the front page of the
NewsPad
and rotated in a slow circle. A second picture of his limp body hanging by the metal arm Belch controlled on the BELCH, his face inches from the bottom of the hole, followed the first picture.