Toxicity (57 page)

Horace was an android. Created.
Engineered.

He had learned the true meaning
of understanding. Of empathy. Of learning. Of caring. Of love.

Are you ready?
said Amaranth.

I am ready.

You are willing to die?

To set you free? Of course. I
would do anything.

Thank you.

~ * ~

HORACE
SWELLED TO the point of explosion. And ignited. And as he burned, he screamed,
but it was not a scream of pain or angst, but a scream of joy. He launched into
the laboratory and the shockwave of his toxic explosion pressured the HighJ
into detonation... the laboratory was vaporised in the blink of an eye. But
more. The entire level of the Greenstar Factory was vaporised. Then... more.
The ground floors, their supporting struts and the lower fifteen subterranean
levels were vaporised, then ripped upwards, taking out the rest of the factory.
Fire screamed and moaned, spat and roared, and the detonation shook the entire
planet and ignited the lirridium streams down, down, down through and under the
River Tox. Under the land. Under the oceans. Under the mountains.

~ * ~

THE
GREENSTAR FACTORY Hub, core of the Greenstar Recycling Company’s operations in
the entire Manna Galaxy Bubble, burned. Green fire roared five kilometres into
the sky. A cloud of black smoke poured into a mushroom the size of the
continent. More explosions were triggered along the lirridium streams as, one
by one by one, the lakes and rivers detonated, ignited, screamed with bright
green fire, and from a vantage point in the dark deep reaches of space, the planet
of Amaranth seemed to glow - at least for a moment - as brightly as the star
which gave it life.

No part of Amaranth went
untouched.

From the holiday resorts of
Meltflesh City, from the jungles by the Sea of Heavy Metal, from the Mercury
Peaks, the Cholera Mountains and the Yellow Virus Peaks, all the way to the
Lake of Corrosion, the Faeces Teeth, Strychnine Nine, the Cobalt Funmines, the
city of Bilirubin, the Asbestos Forest and the Nuke Peaks... all were ravaged
by fire; all consumed in a lirridium furnace; all cleansed by the purity of the
intense, raging flames.

The Greenstar Factory Hub
toppled, exploded, and burned, and slowly sank - sank into the pit of its own
devising, sank down, down, down into the soil and mud and rock of Amaranth,
which reclaimed the deviation, reclaimed the aberration as a lost child of its
own; welcomed, back into a bosom of slaughter and murder and desolation, the
Greenstar Factory Hub, which sank for an eternity beneath the Land.

Down.

To where Amaranth waited
patiently.

The inferno raged for a thousand
days.

And when it was done, it was
done.

~ * ~

EPILOGUE

“WE’RE
GOING TO die!” screamed Svoolzard Koolimax XXIV, Third Earl of Apobos, Genius,
Sexual Athlete, Bon Viveur, and now
bona fide Action Hero.
The chopper
whined, powering high above the raging inferno that spread across the vast
tectonic plates of Amaranth.

Explosions roared. The air was
filled with gas and toxins
more dangerous
than the gas and toxins that
plagued the surface. Thick black mushroom clouds filled the skies. Explosions
rioted across the globe. Below, the landscape was a tormented, writhing
inferno. Below, Amaranth had descended into Chaos and
Hell...

Lumar leaned close, and with
gritted teeth, said, “Look at it this way. Better up here than on the ground,
mate.”

Svool nodded dumbly. Down there
were the camera crew. Or what remained of them. They hadn’t seen the wall of
fire coming. Svool and Lumar had, and screamed and ran for it, leaping aboard
the spinning, whining, accelerating chopper which had leapt into the air,
avoiding the hundred-foot wall of charging green fire by scant inches.
Everything down there had been vaporised.

“Still. We can look on the bright
side now,” said Lumar, wearily.

“Which was?”

“The broadcast went out. To the
whole of Manna. They saw what Greenstar had done. They heard your poem on the
eco-horrors of this abused, tortured and massacred world.”

There was a long pause, against a
backdrop of hammering rotors and further, distant explosions. Outside, night
had turned into day.

The pilot leaned back. “We have a
base over the mountains to the east, just outside Pukebelly City. Underground
bunkers, that sort of thing. Lots of military hardware. It’s the safest place I
can think of. They’ll probably send a Shuttle for you. Probably.” He didn’t
sound very convinced, or convincing.

Svool shuffled close to Lumar, on
the bench in the back of the chopper. She looked at him. He looked at her.
Slowly, he put his arm around her shoulder. She carried on looking at him.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“My poem.”

“Which one?”

“This one. The new one. The eco
one. The eco one that’s just gone out to the whole of Manna; indeed, no doubt,
the whole of the Quad-Galaxy, by the time the news and the filmys get hold of
the footage.”

“You want the honest truth?”

“Yes.”

“It was crap.”

“Oh.”

“In a nice way.”

“Oh.”

“You got the message across.
Suitably aided and abetted by the Greenstar Factory blowing up in the background
during the final stanza. That was quite an amazing feat of timing. Incredible.”

“Well.” Svool puffed out his
chest. “I... thank you for your honesty.”

“My pleasure.”

“And I want to ask you something.”

“Go on, Svoolzard.” She tilted
her head. He loved it when she did that.

“Will you marry me?”

Lumar turned and stared out at
the raging fires below. More military choppers had joined them, perhaps twenty
in all, and their squadron, carrying dirt- and smoke-smeared refugees, thumped
through the poisonous, toxic skies of a burning Amaranth.

“Yes,” she said, turning back. “On
one condition.”

“Anything!”

“We get married... here.”

“Here?”
choked Svool.

“Yes. They’re going to need a lot
of help. Rebuilding. Purifying. Detoxifying.”

“And you...” he shuddered as he
considered the implications, “you want us to become aid workers?”

“Yes. For the Greater Good. And
all that.”

“For the Greater Good,” echoed
Svool, through gritted teeth.

“You could write a poem about it.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m done with poetry.”

“Really?” Her voice was just a
little
too
bright.

“Yes. I think I’ll... yes. I’ll
write a
novel
about our experiences here, instead!”

Lumar fixed him with a steady
stare. Then she smiled, and took his hand, squeezing it gently. “Do you think anybody
would believe you?”

Svool shrugged. “It no longer
matters. We did our part in bringing down the Greenstar Corporation. And
looking at that inferno, I’ll be amazed if anybody survived. Amazed beyond
comprehension!”

“Yeah. Well.” Lumar turned away
again, gazing out into the smoke and the chaos. “Sometimes, you’d be surprised
what a cockroach can survive.”

“I have some good news!” shouted
the pilot, turning back to them again. “You have some friends. Some survivors!
They made it back to Base Camp. They’re waiting for you there.”

“Friends?” said Svool, frowning.

“Yes. A... a Mr Zoot, a Miss
Angelina, and a... a Mr Herbert. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Aww, shit,” groaned Svool.

And Lumar’s pretty laughter
pealed out across the raging, toxic fire.

~ * ~

NEWS
ITEM KX33657824# 65678ggg

It was a moving and eloquent
speech and poetry recital by the missing, and now presumed dead, Master Poet
Svoolzard Koolimax XXIV, Third Earl of Apobos. Against a backdrop of chaos and
fire and mayhem, Svoolzard told us of the world of Amaranth - commonly known as
Toxicity
throughout Manna - a world used, abused and polluted by the
Greenstar Recycling Company in their quest for accelerated wealth. It is indeed
a beautiful planet, destroyed by greed and lust and power. Svoolzard, who was
recently married to Lumar L’anarr of the alien
kroona
species, despite
death threats, had vowed to stop Greenstar continuing trade after what the
still
operating
recycling giant has called “an industrial accident on a planetary
scale.” Lumar L’anarr’s Bride of Honour was her sister, Dajenga L’anarr, who
wore a quite fetching outfit of green silk and lace, and carried a bouquet of
tanga tanga greena flowers...

~ * ~

MR
CANDLE TURNED to Renazzi Lode. His face was carved from granite, and his eyes
were dark and unreadable. His face was a terrible mask, still bearing the
irreparable burn scars from the genetic milk tank in which he’d spent the best
part of the last three months.

Outside, fusion motors hummed,
and the orbital shifted slightly, keeping in line with the remains of the
Greenstar Factory Hub far, far below on the planet of Amaranth. The aircon
hissed. After the fire, Mr Candle liked it cool. They
all
liked it cool.

“Report?”

“80% of all surplus lirridium stock
destroyed. All factories destroyed. The share prices plummeted, obviously, but
we had various canny brokers who almost seemed to sense the crash coming and
sold billions of shares. When we cash in the surviving lirridium supplies, we
will still have massive cash reserves. And the Manna Core Bank has guaranteed
us a practically unlimited line of credit. After all” - she smiled - “we were
their best ever customer.”

“Good. Sowerby? Give me some good
news. Tell me you’ve found a suitable destination where we can put in a
successful bid. I am sick of wasting time. I am ready for the launch.
Greenstar
II Recycling Company! Recycling Your Crap into the Starship Fuel of the Future!
LirridiumII: A New Fuel for a New Space Age!”
He gave a long, low chuckle.

Sowerby Trent nodded, barbed wire
hair bobbing. “My team have located a suitably disused and already 50% toxic
world. It has a breathable atmosphere - just - but I am sure we can get it at a
fair price.”

“Good. Are there inhabitants?”

“Just a few hundred billion, but
we’ll offer them the usual relocation packages. And if they don’t vacate?”

Her eyes went hard. “Well. Fuck ‘em.
We’ll do what we always do. You know we always win.”

“Any other foreseeable problems?”

“Just one. This planet has great
historical context. Apparently, it is, and I quote from the History Guild:
‘The
Cradle of Humanity.’”