1


Step Fender groaned and opened his eyes; this was not, he decided, one of his better days.
   Two hours previously he had been given the sack from Melchett’s Megabirger, one of the most popular restaurants on Proglamon 5. Seconds after he was deposited in the gutter by the restaurant’s two bouncer-droids, he’d been sucked up by a Road Sweeper. This wasn’t a very nice experience. Road Sweepers are not harmless street cleansers as the name might suggest, they are actually rather ferocious machines designed years ago to maintain peace and harmony in the more well-to-do areas of the increasingly multi-speciel Proglamon 5.
  Their main purpose was to remove a rather unpleasant race hailing from the Dungworld of Chav, known locally as Chavscum. Even the slimy and repulsive Giant Snotblotters from Kung couldn’t stand them. It had been put to the vote and 99 percent of the Proglamon population had decided that all Chavscum should be outlawed.
   It had turned out that the 1 percent which had voted against the outlawing were in fact illegal immigrants of Chav descent themselves. They were subsequently shot from the planet using the Garbage cannon normally reserved for unloading the planet’s rubbish onto Moon 9.

How the machines had mistaken him for a Chav was beyond Step who eventually came to the conclusion that it must have, must have, been the cap he wore as part of his MegaBirger uniform which had confused them. He shook his head and groaned again as he tried to get his bearings.
   He’d escaped the Road Sweeper by jamming the heel of a long abandoned stiletto into a box of wires he’d found on the Sweeper’s grimy wall. It had bucked and bounced sickeningly before a few moments of calm. Then part of it had suddenly exploded, expelling him with force into the night air. When he landed he’d been knocked unconscious on a rare piece of hard ground where he now found himself aching and moaning.

   ‘Wakey wakey sunshine!’ The sudden voice made Step leap to his feet in alarm which in turn made him grab his head in pain.
   ‘Ow!’ He squinted in the direction of the voice and made out the shape of a tall, long-haired man.
   ‘Hey, how’d you get here?’ said the man.
   ‘Uh, erm, the Sweeper…’ Step motioned to the machine’s fizzing remains ‘…must have mistaken me for a Chav’ he shuddered.
The man laughed.
   ‘Well yeah that sure was a pretty impressive display. Always hated those things myself.’
   ‘What, Sweepers? Or do you mean Chavs?’
   ‘Both. But I didn’t mean here.’ He motioned with his hands, ‘I meant here.’ He swept his arms out in a larger gesture.
   ‘Uh… what?’ Said Step muzzily, he was still feeling the effects of his recent spell in unconscia,
   ‘What I mean is you don’t look much like a native Proglamon to me. Not a drop of natural ooze on you.’
   ‘Oh. No I’m not. I’m…’
   ‘Yeah me neither. I hate this place, just stopped here to refuel,’ he jerked a thumb toward his ship.
   Step looked. It was beautiful and seemed to glimmer angelically. It was clean and bright and promising. Everything Proglamon 5 wasn’t.
   ‘Wow.’
   ‘Yeah, she’s a beaut' isn’t she? Y’know I could do with someone like you on board.’
   ‘A Birger chef?’
   ‘Uh… yeah something like that. So whaddaya say we blow this joint?’

It occurred to Step that he had known this man for less than ten minutes, he already knew three of the things he hated but little else. Strange though this guy seemed he had to admit that the prospect of leaving P5 was very attractive. The ankle-high slime was starting to get to him. However, he didn’t know whether this stranger was to be trusted.
   ‘I don’t even know your name’ he articulated the thought.
   ‘Humbucker, Hadlow Humbucker.’ The man held out his hand and shot Step a huge and friendly grin.
He took it uncertainly.
   ‘Uh, well hi. And I am...’
   ‘Step’ interrupted Humbucker ‘Step Fender of course.’
There was a shocked silence.
   Step stared at the man but it was hard to read his expression through his Ultra-Stylon sunglasses.
   ‘Woah…How did you know my name?’ he asked in awe ‘Are you… are you one of the mind-readers from Yrflagon 7?’
   Humbucker chuckled and leaned forward.
   ‘It says it on your badge kid’ he winked and shut Step’s jaw for him.
   ‘Oh.’
There followed a slightly more embarrassed type of silence. Hadlow decided to break it.
   ‘So…Birger-boy huh?’ he said eyeing up Step’s uniform.
   ‘Yes. Well no. That is… I used to be but I was given the sack.’
   ‘Ooh, Outch. Stealing from the boss?’
   ‘I’d rather not talk about it if it’s all the same.’
   ‘Okie dokie. So, no job and a planet covered in pustulous Proglamons. What have you got here to stay for?’
   ‘Well there was this girl…’

Step had been on several dates with a flaxen haired beauty from Palamono. He hadn’t realised however that she was actually a high class prostitute and only after him to get close to his boss, the esteemed Mr Melchett. He was heartbroken not only to discover this but when he realised she’d been sleeping with his landlord who was a native Proglamon - a large green slimy blob.
  
Humbucker screwed up his nose in disgust at the story.
   ‘Forget her man. Women are trouble. Believe me, I know. I’ve had thirty wives.’
Step goggled.
Humbucker continued.
   ‘Well, I say thirty. Six of them used the same leg.’
   ‘Leg? Singular?’
   ‘That’s right.’
Step blinked and decided not to pursue that line of questioning any further for the current time. Humbucker had a point too, there wasn’t much to stay for. He didn’t even have his own place any more, he’d lost that because of the whole landlord/prostitute-girlfriend incident. The landlord had been disgusted that the girl had been dating Step - which Step found rather insulting coming from a gelatinous mound of mucus.
   The landlord and his friends had come to visit him giving him only half an hour’s warning that he was evicted. He’d tried to keep possession of his room by Super-Gluing himself to the floor. Unfortunately this didn’t work. They’d just removed the carpet. So he’d spent the last two weeks staying with a work-mate who was ok, for a Proglamon, but he hogged the bathroom and insisted on using all the warm sludge.

Step looked at Hadlow who was polishing his teeth in a small mirror.
   ‘Ok. I’ll come with you.’
He looked up.
   ‘You will? Well that’s just great kid. So c’mon, what are we waiting for?’
   ‘What, now? What about my stuff?’
Humbucker suddenly noticed a large amount of Proglamons approaching in white helmets and grabbed a remote control from his pocket.
   ‘Uh forget about that. You won’t need it…’ he pressed a button on the remote which lowered the steps to his spaceship.
   ‘But… my clothes, my toothbrush…’ Said Step looking back towards the town ‘Hey what are all those police doing here?’
   ‘I’m sure I don’t know’ said Humbucker and grabbed him by the wrist.
   ‘Now come on!’ and he dragged him across the small clearing which lay between them and the ship and up the clean white steps.

Step looked around him as the door closed behind them with a Fwooohhhd.
   ‘Wow!’ he said for the second time that evening.
   ‘Welcome’ said Humbucker, his teeth agleam, ‘aboard the Limba Dextro!’

-