The Parodies Collection

by Adam Roberts

  They turned right at the edge, and walked alongside the balustrade for perhaps a kilometre, eventually arriving at a large blocky structure. An input ramp was set through the ceiling, running from the layer above onto the floor of this particular storey.

  ‘This,’ said Leper, ‘must be where the cars arrive. Inside that hut there must be parking officials.’ She hefted her laser pistol. ‘Parking officials wearing clothes. You understand? And we are going to get those clothes. Come on!’

  Hand left Masticatetobacco snoozing on the pavement outside, and the three of them burst through the door with their guns ready.

  Inside, sitting motionless behind a desk, was C3UπP-HOL-8RA.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. And then, ‘Shouldn’t you people be wearing some clothes?’

  ‘See-thru!’ cried Luke in delight. ‘What are you doing here?’

  The golden robot looked at Luke. Even though his face was incapable of expression, it was clear that he was looking with the robot equivalent of disdain. ‘I’m parking cars,’ he said. ‘What else would I be doing in a car park?’

  The words sounded strangely familiar to Luke, but he couldn’t place them right away. ‘I’m just really glad to see you,’ he gushed. ‘We’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

  ‘Have you?’ said the droid, sardonically. ‘Have you really?’

  Leper found a cupboard at the back of this parking control lodge in which spare overalls were stored, and in moments the whole party was dressed.

  ‘Is RC-DU2 with you?’ the Princess demanded.

  ‘He is,’ said C3U-πP-HOL-8RA. ‘No chance of getting rid of him. He’s out there now, parking a Fiat Pluto HLX Automatic. There’s been a lot of coming and going recently.’

  ‘Thank Thog!’ the Princess exclaimed. ‘I was so worried that he would fall into the hands of Dark Father.’

  ‘Oh, Dark Father had him in his office for a while,’ said See-thru, in an offhand manner. ‘Half an hour or so. Then he sent him back out again. He and I were assigned here on car-parking duties. Been here ever since.’

  ‘This is excellent news,’ said Luke. ‘See-thru, can you help us? We need to get off this world, and quickly.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said the golden robot. ‘Well, I suppose I could commandeer a car. It’s against regulations of course, but – well, the obeche tree native to Africa doesn’t insist upon me following orders in a matter such as this.’ His gold hand slipped inside a drawer and emerged with a fat, plastic key. ‘A Vectra Vector-Elector 7,’ he said, proudly. ‘With double-cam overshafting. A plastic contractor from Sirius drove in with it today. He’s at some squash match right now. I’ve always wanted to have a spin in one of those.’

  ‘It’s no good just driving around,’ complained Luke. ‘We need to get right off this Death Spa.’

  ‘You think these are, what, bicycles?’ said See-thru, with a return of his previous disdainful tone of voice. ‘They’re space cars. Wheels for the flat surfaces; thrusters and hyperdrive for the open open road.’ He got to his feet. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Wait,’ said Princess Leper. ‘You’re suggesting we save our own skins, whilst allowing the entire population of Gregbare to die? What about the Rebelend?’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Luke, punching his right fist into his open left palm. ‘All those naked SF authors. And the freedom fighters.’ He cast his eyes about the parking control hut. A series of broad windows gave the controller sitting in the hut a panoramic view of the immediate vicinity of the parking level, and also of the dizzying drop over the side of the edge into the inner depths of the Death Spa.

  ‘See-thru Peep-hol,’ he said. ‘This office is plumbed into the main Death Spa computer, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied the droid. ‘It’s how we log all the incoming cars, so the Imp-Emp-Imp can keep tabs on who’s on board.’

  ‘Exellent,’ said Luke. ‘See-thru, I’d like you to go outside, collect RC-DU2, and pull up in that executive space car you mentioned. Honk the horn when you’re ready. I take it you can drive the car out of here quickly?’

  ‘Certainly I can,’ said the robot.

  ‘Good,’ said Luke.

  The golden machine toddled out of the hut, and Princess Leper hurried over to Luke. ‘You’re up to something,’ she said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Oh – nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s just that my eye chanced upon this.’ He pointed. On a control panel was a fat red button marked: AUTO DESTRUCT.

  ‘Great Thog!’ gasped Hand Someman.

  ‘The paranoia of the Imp-Emp-Imp will be its downfall,’ exclaimed Luke. ‘They’re evidently so worried about this mighty weapon of theirs falling into Rebelend hands that they’ve fitted it with a comprehensive system of auto-destruct devices throughout. The fools!’

  ‘You’re brilliant!’ said Princess Leper, looking happy for the first time Luke could remember. ‘I could kiss you!’

  ‘Really?’ beamed Luke.

  The Princess leaned over and gave Luke a peck on the cheek. ‘There you go.’

  ‘Let’s just hope the destruct countdown gives us enough time to drive out of this place,’ said Hand.

  ‘I’m sure it will,’ said the Princess. ‘I have a good feeling about it.’

  Through the door of the hut came the sound of an expensive car-horn playing Purcell’s Trumpet Voluntary. ‘Go on, Hand,’ urged Luke. ‘Put Masticatetobacco in the car. We’ll be out as soon as we’ve initiated auto-destruct.’

  Hand hurried out. Luke looked into Leper’s beautiful blue eyes.

  ‘You realise,’ she told him, ‘that you’re about to become a hero of the revolution?’

  ‘Really? I like the sound of that. Hero of the revolution, eh? Do they get any perks, heroes of the revolution?’

  ‘Don’t press your luck,’ said the Princess, though not unkindly. ‘Just press the button.’

  ‘Here goes.’ Luke leaned on the fat red button.

  Through the window of the control office, they could both see what happened next. A huge metal claw, at the end of a fat and snaky metal tentacle, appeared from an enormous metal cube located a few metres beyond the office. The claw opened, darted down, grabbed one of the parked cars, and heaved it into the air. It swung back to its metal cube, and dropped the whole thing into a gleaming metal maw. Instantly the walls of this space pressed inwards, turning the car into a tiny cube of compressed metal in moments. The claw then lifted this miniature parcel, and tucked it away on a ramp at the side of the crusher. Then it disappeared back inside, and the lid closed over it.

  ‘Auto destruct,’ said Luke, ‘in that sense. I see.’

  ‘I retract my kiss,’ said Princess Leper, coldly. ‘You’re an idiot.’

  ‘How was I to know the Imp-Emp-Imp would be so committed to recycling?’ cried Luke. ‘Although, now I come to think of it, it’s not very likely that the Imp-Emp-Imp would fit a button capable of destroying the entire Death Spa inside a lowly parking official’s hut.’

  ‘Come on,’ said the Princess. ‘There’s no point in us hanging about in here.’ She moved to the door.

  Luke stared at the red button. There was a tingly feeling inside his gut. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said.

  As if from some plane of existence beyond his own, he heard a ghostly voice intone: use the Farce, Luke.

  ‘What?’ he said, startled.

  ‘What?’ asked Princess Leper.

  ‘What?’ he said, looking at her.

  ‘What did you say?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you say something? Did you say “use the Farce, Luke”?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Did you say anything that I might have mistaken for “use the Farce, Luke”?’

  ‘No – now, stop stalling. Come on. I know See-thru Peep-hol. He’s liable to drive off without us if we’re late.’

  ‘I’ve an idea,’ said Luke. ‘It’s all coming together in my head.’ Slowly, as if in a trance, he reached
out towards the AUTO DESTRUCT button a second time.

  ‘That again?’ said Leper. ‘We know that’s no good.’

  Luke grinned at the Princess, and pressed the button anyway. Through the window they could see the hood of the crusher slide back, and the giant metal claw emerge, snaking towards another of the parked cars.

  Luke snatched up his laser pistol, aimed at the control panel, and fired. The panel exploded in a flash of smoking plastic.

  Outside, the claw shuddered as if shocked, twitched, and then it started going mad. It grabbed the nearest car, and flung it wildly, like a spastic baseball pitcher. The auto flew over the balustrade and started tumbling towards the centre of the Death Spa.

  ‘Run!’ yelled Luke.

  They got outside in time to see the Claw toss a second car over the edge, and reach for a third, and then they clambered inside the Vectra Vector-Elector 7. ‘Thought you weren’t coming,’ grumbled See-thru in the driver’s seat. ‘I was about to leave.’

  ‘Go go go go!’ cried Luke.

  ‘Just “go” is enough,’ said See-thru. ‘And please would be nice.’ Then, looking through the front windshield, the robot added in a more terrified tone of voice ‘oo-er!’ The Claw, having disposed of the cars immediately proximate to the crusher, was now snaking towards the Vectra Vector-Elector. See-thru floored the pedal, and the finely engineered executive machine hurtled up the rank.

  They sped through what seemed like endless tunnels. Red lights in the walls flashed to their left and right. There was a monstrous rumbling. Audible inside the car, even over the various other noises, was a recorded voice booming ‘Warning! Warning! Evacuate! Evacuate!’

  ‘What did you do back there?’ asked Hand.

  ‘I used the Farce,’ said Luke. ‘I think I collapsed the Death Spa power source.’

  ‘You did? Fantastic, kiddo!’

  ‘What’ll that do?’

  ‘It’ll implode the whole damn thing!’ whooped Hand. ‘The black hole at its core will suck everything into a singularity. You’ve done it, boy!’

  ‘We’re not free yet,’ said Leper. ‘Look—’

  The car had emerged from the tunnel into a huge departure–arrival chamber. Deep space was visible through an ingress/exit forcefield; but their way was blocked with hundreds of milling Sterntroopers. The nearest of these were waving the car down, rifles at the ready.

  ‘GO,’ yelled Luke.

  The car went.

  When they realised that this car was not going to stop the soldiers opened fire. Laser bolts thudded into the bodywork, leaving smoking craters but not penetrating the bodywork completely. The rear jet kicked into life, and the Vectra launched into the air, heading straight for the opening.

  One lucky shot shattered the rear windshield with a terrifying noise; tiny particles of plastiglass fluttered around, and a warning siren sounded inside the car. Unruffled by the kerfuffle – indeed, constitutionally unrufflable – See-thru Peep-hol shut off the siren and pressed the button that activated the back-up wind-shield.

  Then they were in deep space, and speeding away.

  Through the rear window, Luke and Leper watched the vast shape of the Death Spa shudder across its enormous length. Fires burst from random portholes. Several of the larger towers buckled and collapsed. A ripple of shattering metal passed, like an earthquake, over the surface of the artificial world. Then, with a staggering, blinding detonation, the whole Death Spa exploded like a plastic globe stuffed with firecrackers. Or, on second thoughts, like a vast world consumed by a vast incendiary ball of light and fire, with a huge torus of white flame spinning out from its equator. A wall of white-hot flame wider than his eyes could comprehend hurtled directly at the escaping car.

  ‘We left it too late!’ cried Luke. ‘We’re going to be immolated.’

  The wall of fire rushed towards them, impossibly fast. It almost touched the rear of the car – but then, as if pulled back by a phenomenal forcefield, it slowed, slowed, and, miraculously, centimetres from the back of the car – it stopped. Then, like film being shown backwards, it started retreating, sucked back along its path towards a supermassive central point, collapsing down, imploding gas and fragments all pulled into a central spot.

  One moment the view from the back window was of a roiling sphere of superheated gas . . .

  . . . the next moment, nothing. The entire Death Spa had been sucked into the artificial black hole at its centre.

  The Vectra Vector-Elector 7 rolled on through empty space, in the general direction of Gregbare. From the back seat came a voice.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Hand Someman. ‘Not again.’ The one stray laser bolt that had penetrated the car during its last frantic escape had struck him in his good lung. A gaping, bleeding, and steaming wound was visible.

  ‘Hand!’ cried Luke.

  ‘Well, that’s a shame,’ said the Princess. ‘Because if it weren’t for that accident, I’d be celebrating right now.’

  Episode Five:

  THE EMPIRE STRIDES AROUND IN BLACK

  THE DEATH SPA HAD BEEN DESTROYED, BUT THIS SETBACK HAD ONLY REDOUBLED IMPERIAL EMPIRE OF THE IMPERIUM’S WILL UTTERLY TO CRUSH THE REBELEND. IN FACT TO BE PRECISE, IT HAD RETRIPLED THEIR WILL UTTERLY TO CRUSH THE REBELEND, PROVIDED ONLY THAT BY ‘RETRIPLING’ WE UNDERSTAND ‘MULTIPLY BY SIX-TIMES’ AND NOT ‘MULTIPLY BY NINE-TIMES’, WHICH WOULD BE ‘TRIPLE-SQUARING’, AND WHICH WOULD RATHER OVERSTATE THE AMOUNT BY WHICH THE IMP-EMP-IMP’S WILL TO DESTRUCTION HAD BEEN MAGNIFIED. DARK FATHER, WHO HAD ESCAPED THE DESTRUCTION OF THE DEATH SPA BY A SERIES OF EVENTUALITIES (INTO WHICH WE DON’T REALLY HAVE TIME, IN THESE INTRODUCTORY ROLLING CREDITS, TO GO) WAS PERSONALLY MASTERMINDING THE HUNTING DOWN AND EXTERMINATION OF ALL REBELEND RESISTANCE TO THE POWER OF THE IMP-EMP-IMP. MEANWHILE ON THE ICE-WORLD BRATHMONKI THE REBELEND HAD GATHERED THEIR BATTERED FORCES . . .

  Chapter One

  The New Rebelend Base

  The ice planet Brathmonki glittered in the eternal blackness of space, like a giant white pearl against a profoundly dark backdrop. Or, to be exact, of course, you need to imagine the dark backdrop as speckled with lots of little white dots. Imagine, for the sake of argument (bear with me here), imagine that you’re doing some decorating, painting your ceiling with white paint, and to preserve your carpets you’ve spread a black velvet sheet over the whole floor. I don’t know why you’d use black velvet – perhaps you’re eccentric. Perhaps you don’t have any cheap cotton sheets to hand. So there’s this black velvet sheet all across the carpet below you, and you go about your painting with a gay abandon, and inevitably some spatters and drops (although no dribbles or larger spills, since that would ruin the simile) of white paint fall onto the black velvet sheet. Now, let’s say you stop painting for a minute, possibly because you’ve got a crick in your neck, you know what it’s like painting a ceiling, most exhausting decorating job there is, that, just murder on the neck and shoulders; and you reach in your pocket for a handkerchief to mop your sweating brow. But as you pull the handkerchief out you inadvertently tug free the large white pearl you always carry about with you. How large? I don’t know exactly. Let’s say ping-pong-ball sized. As the handkerchief comes free you realise that you’ve dropped the valuable pearl (or if you prefer it, the ping-pong ball) and you look down with horror on your face – just in time to see, albeit momentarily, this giant pearl, or ping-pong ball, in the process of falling away from you, visible against the paint-spattered black velvet – a sight so traumatic that it seems to freeze in time, the image burning into your memory, so you’ll never forget it.

  That’s what the planet Brathmonki looked like from space.

  Down on the planet, Luke Seespotrun was out in the snow, riding on a ‘piggibakka’ (a giant-woolly-kangaroo-style life form indigenous to Brathmonki). He was well swaddled against the minus 80° cold; a fake-fur parka with the hood raised and the zip done right up to his Adam’s apple, and a pair of driving gloves. He rode his mount to the top of a snowy hill, and then he rode him down agai
n. From time to time he would fit binoculars into the fur-fringed oval space at the front of his parka hood.

  He was looking for signs of Imp-Emp-Imp activity, trying to decide whether the Imperial Emperor had discovered the Rebelend’s latest hiding place. But he couldn’t see anything. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Nothing to see here, move along. Blankness. Whiteness. Zero. Plenty of not-one-thing. Snow, snow, snow, snow.

  Luke pressed the button on his walkie-talkie. His ridie-talkie, I mean.

  ‘Base?’ he said. ‘This is Seespotrun reporting. Over.’

  The sound of static and cackling. ‘. . . zzp–pzz–zyzg–Hello Luke?–pzaz–zzzzz–’

  ‘Princess Leper? Is that you? Over.’

  ‘Good to hear your crxzc voice Luke,’ said Leper. ‘Over.’

  ‘Well,’ Luke said. ‘I’ve been out here for hours and I haven’t seen anything. Over.’

  ‘pz-pz-pz–our automatic tracking puts you less than a klik from Mount Snowless Black Granite. You ought to be able to see the Giant Black Granite Mountain Range directly in front of you. Over.’

  ‘Can’t see anything at all. Only snow. Over.’

  ‘Well it’s a clear day, Luke–pz!–you should be able to see the wide blue sky above you.’

  ‘Nope. Just snow. Over.’

  ‘Can you–pzz–see your piggibakka beneath you? Over.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you see your hand flapping in front of you?’

  Flap. Flap. ‘Nope. Over.’

  ‘Luke – you may have a case of cwzzzz–zazazz. Repeat: You may cwzzzz–zazazz snow blindness. Be careful out there.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Rooaaarrr!’

  ‘Luke?’ Princess Leper’s voice sounded distant and tinny over the ridie-talkie device, but her concern was still very evident. ‘Luke? Why did you say “rooaaarrr” at the end of that last sentence?’

  ‘I didn’t say “rooaaarrr”. Over.’

  ‘I definitely heard a “rooaaarrr”.’

  ‘Well it wasn’t me,’ said Luke.

  ‘Rooaaarrr!’