CHAPTER 40
Hanging on the Edge of a Cliff, Again
“Help!” I yelled as I clung to the edge of a cliff. Fralgoth stood above, patiently savouring the moment in which he would stomp on my fingers. Below me was the usual 4000-foot drop into a canyon full of jagged metal things. I had not seen Rip or Wilx in at least a day. Not since our mad excursion into the swamp. Amongst other things, the long chase across the planet had nearly left me stuck in Liquid Lake. As a result of that and everything else in part of the story I just skipped, I was now hanging over the edge of a 4000-foot drop into a canyon full of jagged metal things. No escape. I expected to spend the rest of eternity crippled at the bottom of a canyon on probably the worst planet of all time. But there was hope, as you know, for I would not be writing about this incident if I did not survive through it.
“Give me the beard!” yelled Fralgoth. The beard was pretty much the only advantage I had going for me. At least if I fell into the canyon I would take it with me.
“Reach out your hand-like appendage,” I said.
“Right, and let you pull me over the edge? Throw the beard up here!”
“It was worth a try.”
“If you pass me the beard I'll help you up. If not, I'll stomp on your fingers.”
“You won't stomp on my fingers until you've got the beard. We both know that.”
“True.”
“Help me up first. Then you can have the beard.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I can't hold on much longer. You need to get the beard soon before it's lost forever. The land here eats up everything, then spews it out as unrecognizable waste. The only reason the beard is in good shape is because it was protected by someone, probably a psycho-fan of mine who came all the way here to get one of my books autographed and then decided he might as well live here; no governments or anything pushing him around after all, so he tried to fashion a society of sorts, started making roads and signs and transportation and Beard-protection facilities guarded by the looped recordings of faraway shrieking demons and--”
“Enough!” yelled Fralgoth. “Pass up the beard or die.”
“You won't kill me. We mentioned that.”
“Wrong. I can have another replica made if I need to. It's just really expensive.”
“No you can't.”
“Why not?”
“Because Broog is dead. No one else but him could recreate the perfection of the replica. And without perfection nobody will believe you are Commander Flook.”
“You lie! Broog is alive!”
I had no idea. I had only just recently heard of Broog, but it seemed like the right thing to say.
“It's true. Flying Grimbat Messengers delivered the news this morning. Have you heard of Grimbats? They're one of the rare beings who can honestly claim to know everything about everyone. It takes a special class of busybody. The messengers announced that Broog, the legendary disguise-artist best remembered for his baffling yet insanely entertaining publicity stunts, was found lifeless in his summer cabin on Grelk, the planet made of tar pits. Amazingly his death was not related to the fact that he lived on a volatile planet made of tar pits. Everyone told him he was crazy to build a summer cabin there, or to go there at all under any circumstance for even the briefest of moments, but he persisted in his steadfast manner of illogical rebellion. It had long since been assumed that Broog would perish from drunkenly walking into a tar pit in the middle of the night, yet I heard he was killed by the government or overdosed or something. Or both. That's how a lot of them go. Artists, I mean. Governmental assassinations or overdoses. Or both. Didn't you know?”
“I don't believe you.”
“Why not?”
“You added way too much detail. Broog's never even been to Grelk. I've read all his books.”
“Worth a try.”
“I'll give him a call, to make sure. Got his business card right here. Carrying Broog's business card is what defines a person as a great thief, and only the greatest thieves escape imprisonment.”
“So you don't need skill in stealing? Is that what you're saying? Whoever is in contact with or can afford the best disguise kit is the greatest thief?”
“Yeah. Wait a second... it's ringing.”
Thanks to Broog's habit of letting the phone ring for an excessive amount of time, Fralgoth did not even get to say one last word to his old friend. There was enough time for Broog to say most of the word hello, then Fralgoth was killed by the direct blast of a laser cannon. It was one of the types of laser cannons that first refracts through a Jardian mega-prism, splitting the beam into a million tiny beams which specifically target the most vulnerable parts of whatever life form is being vanquished. I saw Fralgoth topple over the edge, spinning the whole way down into the canyon. Charting the unknown.
Rip and Wilx were not my saviours. At first I thought maybe they were, but it seemed far too brave and uncharacteristic of them, which it was. My rescuers were a strange lot. It would seem the enemy of my enemy was indeed my friend, not my enemy.
“Who hangs there?” loomed an unknown voice from among the recently arrived spaceship in ownership of the laser-cannon.
“I, uh, it is I, Krimshaw--”
“What are you? Where are you from? Grelkian? Northern Trufalmdoon?”
“I'm a reformed Greeg.”
“A Greeg?” questioned the voice from the ship. A muffled conversation commenced, apparently in front of a microphone that someone forgot to turn off.
“Do we like Greegs?” questioned the Alien Voice #1.
“We don't really know any,” said the Alien Voice #2. “Especially not any reformed ones.”
“What are Greegs?”
“We've seen them in carnival shows before. They're entertaining.”
“That's true,” agreed Alien #1. “They are entertaining.”
“Yes, but would you want to socialize with a Greeg?”
“More specifically, would you want to socialize with a Greeg hanging desperately on the edge of a cliff? Or would you merely want to shoot the Greeg with the newly installed laser-cannon?”
“Don't!” I yelled. “I'm not with Fralgoth!”
“Fralgoth,” sneered Alien #1. “We hate Fralgoth.”
“Yeah, me too.” I was happy to have the conversation off me.
“We are glad to have Fralgoth dead,” said Alien #2.
“Yeah, me too,” I said again.
“Now we can inherit his plentiful supply of Luminesco-Cannabid-Sativa.”
“What's that?”
“A rare psychotropic herb that defies the rules of nature by only growing in the frozen conditions of the slopes of Mount Grucian on the Glassvexx planet. ”
“Fralgoth was into drugs?” I asked. “I thought he just dealt in trinkets.”
“Stealing voodoo antiquities is only one of the many side-habits of Fralgoth. It just happens to be one of the ones that made it into mainstream headlines. Fralgoth's true business passion is the thievery and distribution of the Sativa.”
“Can you guys help me up and then we'll discuss this? Or shoot me into the canyon. Just do something. It's starting to get to me, the feeling of nearly plummeting into a canyon. I've been experiencing that feeling for hours on end. Have you ever experienced the feeling of nearly plummeting into a canyon continuously for hours on end?”
“No. We have not had that honour.”
There was more conversation heard from the ship, except this time too muffled to hear. Alien #2 had remembered to cover the microphone, but had not yet learned about the on/off switch.
“We have decided,” said Alien #1, “to help you. Because if you hate Fralgoth as much as we do then you deserve to live.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Good logic.”
The ship continued to hover over the canyon while a robotic arm helped me back onto level ground. I collapsed from exhaustion.
“W
ho are you?” I said.
“We are the Confederation of Angry Drug Dealers, or CADD. What we are generally angry about, and pretty much the only reason we started up the confederacy in the first place, is to cause the downfall of sativa-thief Fralgoth. The crops of Mount Grucian on Glassvexx have been tended and harvested by my line of people for as many generations as the plant has existed. Fralgoth discovered and usurped our land, and has been harvesting the plant at much too greedily a pace. The rare potency of the Sativa high comes from the continuance of the original strain, which was supposedly blessed by ancient gods. The original strain was in danger of going extinct, but now without Fralgoth it may be safe a while longer.”
“Do you think my friends and I could take Fralgoth's ship?” I asked. “We're stuck here. And here is not a very liveable place.”
“It's not so bad,” said Alien #1. “Have you met Milt, the fruit fly? He's made a life here. There's also the one who reads stupid books and makes signs.”
“He's gone now,” I said.
“There's still Milt.”
“Not all of those books are stupid,” I added.
“Yes they are.”
“Look, can we have the ship or not?”
More muffled discussion. “We guess you and your imaginary friends can use Fralgoth's ship to escape. But not before we clear the cargo holds of the 296 million standard-measure galactic tonnes of Luminesco-Cannibid-Sativa. We can leave you with a pound or two in the glove box. That should be enough to last a lifetime.”
“I might have more than one lifetime ahead of me,” I said.
“Fine. We'll leave three pounds,” said Alien #2. “But you're getting greedy.”
I climbed down to where Fralgoth's ship had parked. By the time I traversed the steep canyon path the CADD had already cleared out the cargo holds and taken off. None of Fralgoth's crew were to be seen.
I entered the ship. Rip and Wilx emerged from hiding within one of the empty cargo holds. It was perfect timing to suddenly appear, if your intent was to arrive on the scene at exactly the moment in which your help was no longer needed.
“Where have you been?” I yelled angrily at the two bleary-eyed maniacs. “I've been nearly falling into a canyon all day!”
“We tried to find you,” said Wilx.
“Yeah,” joined in Rip. “Did you know the ground on this planet moves? Not easy to find someone here. We kept inadvertently going in circles.”
I was still angry, but decided to let it go. It was a legitimate excuse.
“So Fralgoth's dead?” asked Wilx.
“Yeah.”
“That's good.”
“What happened to Fralgoth's crew?” I asked. “Did the drug dealers take care of them too?”
“Actually, we took care of them,” said Rip. “We weren't entirely useless.”
“How did you do that?”
“He's lying,” said Wilx. “The crew were frightened off by that looped recording of the shrieking demons.”
“I broke that sound-system,” I said. “Does that mean there are real demons?”
“No, there were more sound-systems. Quite a few scattered all over the planet actually. We suspect each of them guards a different item, stuff as equally valuable as the beard. Enticing, yes. But we don't want to stay here any longer. Maybe one day we'll return to look for other self-profiting items. For now let's go take over planet Lincra.”
We flied Garbotron and charted for Lincra. Along the way we stopped to trade in the ship for one that could do impossible things.