As usual his daily conversation with Reg Crackett occurred
"Lovely day in't-it Sludgy!" Reg calls, lying splayed out on a sun lounger and cocktail in hand.
"Yes, it's certainly a day…" he retorted. He'd never been particularly good at the whole social interaction thing.
"You ought to die soon Sludgy" he raised his arms out to the side of him as if to emphasise his appearance "There's nothing better than this"
"Oh yes mister Crackett, I'll be there before you know it" he forced a putrid smile and continued flying down the street and around the ring. The thought of spending eternity with old Reg Crackett sent a shiver down his spine. Not the slightly anxious or scared type, but the vast existential terror type.
He concluded then that he must never die.
He flew down rows and rows of creation. People tended to push the limits on their real estate in the afterlife, after all, the amount of good you did in life transfers exactly to space and wealth in what comes after.
He often forgot about the beauty of the ring, the vast dome of black pocked space overhead, the soft cloud of the ring below and the conjured creations atop the ring, for families and friends to spend the rest of eternity in. Beauty seems to lose value in constant exposure. Or so Dave had said to Sludgepok to make him feel better about his looks. It rarely worked.
Smelly Bob Turnbucket's box marked the end of the houses and the entrance to the cavity. As real estate and wealth on the ring is equivalent to the good one does in life, Smelly Bob Turnbucket is the embodiment of doing one good thing before popping your clogs. Rumour has it that all he did was say a lady had nice hair. Usually this would then involve him delving his skinny rotten hands into her pockets while she was blushing and nicking her wallet, but since fate willed it that a cardiac arrest would save her from this fate, all that was left was a compliment hanging in the air - with no nicking to gobble it up.
Since Smelly Bob Turnbucket only had this good deed to his name, all that the god's could conjure up was a box. And as you can imagine …
No bath.
Wiping away tears from his retinas burning from the stench, the cavity finally reveals itself. Imperceptible to the naked eye, the ring had what was called the cavity in it. In other words just a big hole. Around which, every Slegna had a station, a big metal box with a cloudy top.
As Sludgepok flew into the opening towards his station he eyed his fellow Slegna waiting, leaned up sluggishly against their boxes, and then springing to life when the clouded top turned into a solid image- their target.
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Dave was screeching when he landed at his station next to him.
"I got one Sludge, I got one!" he wailed.
His grey wrinkled finger pointed to the target atop his station. A pale, blonde haired woman with a face so beautiful it could have been hand sculpted by the gods. She stood in some rather scruffy, but strangely attractive clothes and was currently pouring a cup of mead.
Sludgepok grimaced.
"Why" he said through gritted teeth " Why's it always you who gets the pretty one's then. Yesterday I got an ogre, a merman and miss Tappner from Feedle Village. Y'know what happened to her? She got her face smushed by a boulder when she came up on my station."
Dave started strutting around cockily and pursed his lips to rub it in even more.
"You're paying them aren't you" Sludgepok accused. "Never would've thought the gods could be bought, but you are aren't you, admit it. You're not rich I know that much for a fact. You cleaning their palaces, rubbing their god-feet?"
Dave finally came to rest, leant with one hand cupping his face on his station above the picture of beauty underneath.
"I'm doing nothing of the sort you buffoon" he said with a vile smile "I just think the gods know what a lady wants to see when she dies." He paused and thought for a second. "Which you think will work better on a tavern keeper `You come here often` or ` Forget the mead, I'd like a shot of you`?"
If looks could kill, Sludgepok would be a mass murderer.
This one in particular would be enough scare fear itself.
In the time it took Sludgepok to think of some witty yet hurtful retort, Dave was already off, the air returning to its usual boring self, devoid of his individual ambiance. He fluttered up over his colleagues towards the cavity in the centre.
In much the same way that coins spiral around in a rather amusing and entertaining fashion in those coin spinning charity machines, Dave joined his fellow Slegna and span, slowly edging downwards until he reached the hole itself into the void between planet and ring and passed through.
Finally, after some time and coming up with the perfect response of how he could've verbally destroyed his friend, Sludgepok's station changed from cloud to image.
Displayed in front of him was the image of a bearded man, stocky; in overalls and certainly not what Sludgepok wanted to see.
"Of course" he murmured. Not only was it a man, but it was at a regular spot.
Supposedly one of the best part of a Slegna's job is the travel aspect. Only the Heliobs- a species of two foot sentient ice sculptures travels more; and by travel I mean they spend every waking hour of every day sprinting away from the sunlight across the planet as it crests the horizon, sizzling at their frozen heels.
But on the Ringworld, death tended to occur in certain hotspots, which meant that the extent of travel for a Slegna is more likened to a milkman's. The Rusty Bucket was one of these hotspots. Nestled deep in a winding labyrinth of cobbled streets, sludge and faecal matter was the Rusty Bucket- Cormec's so called oldest pub, behind the Queen's leg, Flatulent Goat and Ogre and three Oglet's.
Sludgepok had visited the Rusty Bucket involuntarily about six times in the last two weeks for a range of stabbings, choking's and whatever-ings occurred within its grubby walls and today it was time for another.
He pitched up his robe, said a prayer for his lungs and started his decent onto the Ringworld.