Bill was still baffled. “But-where do they go? Where is the output end of the transmitter?”
“An intelligent question, that was our big problem. At first we just lifted them into space but Astronomy said too many were coming back as meteorites and ruining their stellar observation. We upped the power and put them further out into orbit, but Navigation said we were committing a nuisance in space, creating a navigation hazard, and we had to look further. Basurero finally got the co-ordinates of the nearest star from Astronomy, and since then we have just been dumping them into the star and no problems and everyone is satisfied.
“You fool,” one of the astronomers said through puffed lips as he staggered to his feet, “your damned flying garbage has started a nova in that starl We couldn’t figure out what had triggered it until we found your request for information in the files and tracked down your harebrained operation here-”
“Watch your language or it’s back to sleep for you, bowb …” Bill growled. The astronomer recoiled and paled, then continued in a milder tone.
“Look, you must understand what has happened. You just can’t feed all those carbon and hydrogen atoms into a sun and get away with it. The thing has gone nova, and I hear that they didn’t manage to evacuate some bases on the inner planets completely …”
“Refuse removal is not without its occupational hazards. At least they died in the service of mankind.”
“Well, yes, that’s easy for you to say. What’s done is done. But you have to stop your Flying Saucer operation—at once!”
“Why?” Inspector Jeyes asked. “I’ll admit this little matter of a nova was unexpected, but it’s over now and there is not much we can do about it. And you heard Basurero say that he has doubled the output rate here; we’ll be into our backlog soon …”
“Why do you think your rate doubled?” the astronomer snarled. “You’ve got that star so unstable that it is consuming everything and is ready to turn into a supernova that will not only wipe out all the planets there but may reach as far as Helior and-this sun. Stop your infernal machine at once!”
The inspector sighed, then waved his hand in a tired yet final fashion. “Turn it off, Basurero … I should have known it was too good to last … “
“But, sir,” the big engineer was wringing his hands in despair. “We’ll be back where we started, it’ll begin to pile up again-”
“Do as you are ordered!”
With a resigned sigh Basurero dragged over to the control board and threw a master switch. The clanging and rattling of the conveyors died away, and whining generators moaned down into silence. All about the room the sanitation men stood in huddled, depressed groups while the astronomers crawled back to consciousness and helped one another from the room. As the last one left he turned and, baring his teeth, spat out the words “Garbage men!” A hurled wrench clanged against the closed door and defeat was complete.
“Well, you can’t win them all,” Inspector Jeyes said energetically, though his words had a-hollow ring. “Anyway, I’ve brought you some fresh blood, Basurero. This is Bill, a young fellow with bright ideas for your research staff.”
“A pleasure,” Basurero said, and swamped Bill’s hands in one of his large paws. He was a big man, wide and fat and tall with olive skin and jet black hair that he wore almost -to his shoulders. “C’mon, we’re going to knock off for chow now; you come with me, and I’ll sorta put you in the picture here and you tell me about yourself.”
They walked the pristine halls of the D of S while Bill filled his new boss in on his background. Basurero was so interested that he took a wrong turning and opened a door without looking. A torrent of plastic trays and beakers rushed out and reached up to his knees before he and Bill could force it shut again.
“Do you see?” he asked with barely restrained rage. “We’re swamped. All the available storage space used and still the stuff piles up. I swear to Krishna I don’t know what’s going to happen, we just don’t have any more place to put it.”