by Adam Roberts
‘Right,’ said Luke. ‘I’m ready for you now, Dark Father. I shall avenge my own father! – who was killed by Dark Father, or so I am told.’ He took a step towards the doorway beyond which waited his nemesis, the greatest test of his nascent Farcical powers. At that precise moment, the floor tilted more rapidly and more severely than usual, and Luke stumbled, hopped for six steps on his left foot, and banged into the wall, thwacking his lightsword against the side. Its light died.
Examining it, Luke could see that he had cracked the glass of the device, thereby compromising its inner fluorescent gases. ‘Oh, bother,’ he said.
He havered. What was it that Old Bony had done, back on the Death Spa, just before he had faced Dark Father? He had pulled a regular light-tube from its fitting in the wall. Luke looked at the strip lighting in the ceiling of this corridor. On the other hand, he thought to himself, that hadn’t done Bony much good. Perhaps it would be better to stick with the weapon he already had. Did it matter that its light was nonfunctional? Luke was guessing no.
He stepped through the doorway, entering a dimly lit cavernous space.
Inside Dark Father was waiting for him. ‘AT LAST WE MEET,’ he boomed.
‘Evil Dark Father,’ said Luke, raising his dim weapon before him. ‘I have come to avenge my father, who, apparently, you murdered.’
‘YOU HAVE MUCH TO LEARN, YOUNG SEESPOTRUN. YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE OF THE FARCE.’
‘You shall never turn me to the Dark Side!
‘BUT YOU HAVEN’T HEARD ANY DETAILS YET. YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE DARK SIDE. THE REMUNERATION, THE BENEFITS PACKAGE, THE UNIFORM, ANYTHING.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘THAT’S A PRETTY CLOSE-MINDED ATTITUDE.’
‘Maybe it is. But you’ll never persuade me to join you!’
‘NOT WITH WORDS, PERHAPS,’ said Dark Father. ‘BUT MAYBE WITH MY LIGHT-SWORD! HAVE AT YOU AH WAIT A MINUTE. WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR WEAPON?’
‘Oh,’ said Luke, a little embarrassed. ‘It got a crack. It’s still structurally pretty much sound. It’s just that the light won’t come on any more.’
‘FOOLISH TO COME TO FIGHT ME WITH A DAMAGED WEAPON, DON’T YOU THINK?’
‘Nonsense! The light part clearly has nothing to do with the effectiveness of this tube as a weapon. I saw how you killed Old Bony K’nobbli – that wasn’t light, that was just the jagged edges of broken glass.’
‘POOR K’NOBBLI,’ mused Dark Father. ‘HE TRAINED ME, YOU KNOW. BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. AH – HAPPY DAYS. PEOPLE SHOWED RESPECT IN THOSE DAYS. NOT ALL RUSHING AROUND LIKE TODAY. AND THE CURRENCY MADE A LOT MORE SENSE. I’VE TALKED TO THE IMPERIAL EMPEROR ABOUT THESE RIDICULOUS IMPERIAL CENTS AND IMPERIAL CREDITS, BUT HE JUST WON’T LISTEN. ANYWAY, MUSTN’T GET SIDETRACKED – HAVE AT YOU!’
The Dark Lord of the Psmyth lurched towards Luke, his own red-glowing lightsword sweeping through a series of precise arcs. Luke moved to parry, stepped back and tripped over a low-set table that happened to be in his way. He fell heavily. In a trice – indeed faster than that, in about two-thirds of a trice, or a ‘twice’ (not to be confused with the word ‘twice’ meaning ‘once and then again once’ which has no relevance here) – Dark Father was on him. He grabbed the end of Luke’s unlit lightsword and yanked it from his hands. Then, armed with two lightswords, he bore down on Luke.
Luke got, rapidly scrabbling, to his feet and backed away from Dark Father. Or, to be accurate, hurried away from Dark Father. In fact, since absolute accuracy is required, he turned his back and ran away from Dark Father as fast as his long legs could carry him. But Dark Father was a master of the Farce. With a sweep of his hand he made it so that Luke was running directly into the path of a garden rake, lying innocuously on the floor. Luke’s right foot struck the prongs of the rake, and the downward pressure of his stride caused it to rotate very rapidly against its hingepoint, swinging the long wooden pole into a vertical position. This pole smacked Luke in the face, the sort of impact for which the word ‘thwacko’ was coined back in the 1930s. Luke reeled back, clutching his nose, lost his footing and fell again.
‘YOU CAN’T WIN, BOY,’ boomed Dark Father, advancing on him.
But Luke, in agony though he was, had not lost all his Farcical skill. As he grovelled on the floor he noticed that Dark Father’s path towards him lay over a number of trap-doors. With one lurch he scrabbled over to a lever set in the wall. Dark Father saw what he was doing, but it was too late: the flaps of the trapdoors fell away, and the gigantic black-clad figure dropped like a six-foot black-clad twelve-stone stone.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Luke got to his feet and went over to the edge of the trap door through which Dark Father had fallen, to see what his fate might be. But, carelessly, he trod a second time on the rake which was lying a few centimetres from the hole in the floor. A second time the wooden pole flashed upwards to collide painfully with Luke’s sinuses. ‘Ow!’ he cried, staggering blindly forward and tumbling down the hole that had so recently claimed Dark Father.
He tumbled down a service shaft and landed on the metal floor of a vast underground kitchenette complex. Away to his right, behind the stainless steel cupboards and work-surfaces, he saw Dark Father standing with his lightsword and the lightsword he had grabbed from Luke, both of them at the ready.
Luke leapt to his feet. He was unarmed! He must arm himself! Frantically his eyes searched the ceiling for a likely-looking neon-lightbulb to unscrew from its mountings. But then he lowered his gaze and saw what he would have seen sooner if he had not been so panicked. Between himself and Dark Father was a broad flat worksurface, perhaps three metres wide and thirty or forty metres long. And on this surface lay, neatly ordered, hundreds and hundreds of custard pies . . .
Meanwhile, several levels higher up, Princess Leper and See-thru Peep-hol were being held in a medium-security holding cell, immediately below the street level of the city. Leper kept shaking her head and sighing. ‘I can’t believe that Hand’s friend betrayed us.’
‘Well don’t look at me,’ said See-thru. ‘I’ve never had any confidence in Homo sapiens.’
At that moment the cell door opened. Two Stern-troopers were standing outside, holding Landrove Afreelanda in an unremitting grip. They hurled him into the cell, and slammed the door behind him. The hurl they used was forceful enough to rotate Landrove through nearly a hundred and eighty degrees, such that when he landed the part of his body first to touch the floor was the crown of his head. He bounced on this, spoke the single word ‘aarrrgh’ and collapsed on his back. Then for long minutes he lay there groaning.
‘Our betrayer,’ said Princess Leper, coming to stand over him. ‘I can’t say I’m pleased to see you. You swineling.’
‘Ouch,’ said Landrove, getting to his feet gingerly. ‘That hurt.’
‘If you think that’s the worst insult at my disposal . . .’
‘I was talking about being bounced on my head. But your comments were also fairly hurtful.’
‘I don’t care,’ said the Princess, recklessly. ‘You betraying swine. What are you doing in here, anyway? Why were those Sterntroopers handling you so roughly?’
‘Well,’ said Landrove, rubbing those sore parts of his body, ‘I thought I had a neat enough little deal worked out with Dark Father. I betrayed you all, and helped him embed Luke Seespotrun in a gigantic lump of crystal for passage to the Imperial Emperor. And in return Dark Father agreed not to destroy the City, and leave me in power. But it seems he’s changed his mind. He’s placed the city under direct Imp-Emp-Imp control, and thrown me in with you lot to be tortured and killed.’
‘I see,’ said the Princess. ‘Well, I suppose I must give you credit for honesty. Were you a more mendacious man, you might have claimed that your apparent betrayal of us was actually a complex double bluff, and that in trying to assassinate Dark Father and free us all you have been captured and imprisoned.’
‘Yes!’ said Landrove, brightly. ‘That’s exactly w
hat happened. Hero, me.’
The duel between Dark Father and Luke was continuing on the lower levels of the city. True, much of the duel involved Dark Father running at Luke, wielding two lightswords, and Luke running away as fast as he could. But I’d still describe it as a duel.
Luke had, in the end, come out of the custard-pie duel rather the worse than his adversary. Dark Father’s cape seemed to be woven from some futuristic fabric that sloughed off dirt. Luke, on the other hand, was absolutely covered in custard, from the top of his yellow hairdo to the bottom of his cream-coloured boots. Its presence did not make running across constantly swaying stainless-steel floors any easier.
‘SURRENDER, BOY,’ bellowed Dark Father. ‘COME WITH ME TO THE EMPEROR. IT IS YOUR DESTINY.’
‘Not likely,’ retorted Luke. He ducked to the right through a low door and emerged in the Floating City’s Waste Disposal Area – a huge hangar filled with massy steel waste-skips and heaps of variegated rubbish. In the centre of this space was the core of the City’s waste-disposal technology: a large hole opening onto the sky beneath, through which garbage was chucked when the City’s municipal workers could be bothered.
Luke barely had time to take in his new surroundings before Dark Father burst through after him, swinging both lightswords dangerously. Luke shrieked and leapt forward, slipping on an oil-spill and propelling himself, face first, into an enormous pile of fish-heads. He pulled himself out of this, although many of the rotting piscine crania adhered to the sticky custard on his body. He scrambled on.
He turned briefly to see where Dark Father was. Two lightswords swept through the air, missing Luke’s face by millimetres. He staggered backwards, stumbling against a stepped wall of what he took to be bricks, but which, on turning, he saw were actually unsold science fiction novels, stacked together in a towering heap, ready for disposal. He scrambled up this stepped and mountainous pile so rapidly and so flailingly it looked rather like footage of somebody falling down some stairs being played in reverse.
But the Farce was powerfully with Dark Father. He took a step backwards, tripped against a discarded bicycle frame, staggered, fell mightily, landed on a heap of old mattresses, and was bounced improbably high into the air (the wind, clearly audible through the great open space, briefly whistled with a reverse-swannee-whistle noise) – turning head over heels he landed, on both feet, a few metres from Luke.
‘THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE, LUKE. JOIN ME OR DIE!’
‘Neither!’ cried Luke. Exhausted and covered in filth as he was, he staggered backwards until he reached the very edge of the pile of unsold books. Immediately below him was the gap: the wind whistled ominously; Luke, looking down, could see clouds, and a dizzying perspective through many miles to a hazily visible ground. He hooked his arm around a great vacuum-packed pillar of unsold Darkling-Kinderslay’s Episode One Picture Book Tie-In hardbacks, and leaned out over the void.
‘LUKE—’ boomed Dark Father. ‘K’NOBBLI NEVER TOLD YOU WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FATHER.’
‘I know plenty about my father,’ gasped Luke. ‘I know that he was gifted with the Farce. I know that he turned to the Dark Side. I also know that you, Dark Father, gifted with the Dark side of the Farce as you are, you killed him!’
‘DO WHAT? NO, NO, NO. I THINK YOU MAY HAVE GOTTEN HOLD OF THE WRONG END OF THE STICK. WHO TOLD YOU THAT? WAS IT K’NOBBLI?’
‘Erm,’ said Luke. ‘Yes.’
‘HOW STRANGE. I WONDER WHY HE’D SAY THAT? MAYBE HE WAS PULLING YOUR LEG.’
‘Pulling my leg?’
‘YES LUKE. YOU SEE – I, DARK FATHER, HAVE AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR FATHER.’
‘Yes?’
‘SHALL I TELL YOU?’
‘Yes, go on.’
‘THE TRUE IDENTITY OF YOUR FATHER?’
‘Yes, yes, get on with it.’
‘LUKE. I AM YOUR FATHER.’ The wind, by a strange acoustic freak, seemed to resound through the hall immediately after these words like three crashing musical chords, deh deh derrr!
Luke’s flabber was gasted. ‘I’m sorry?’ he replied. ‘I’m not sure I heard you correctly what with the noise of the wind and everything. You are my father?’
‘YES.’
‘You, Dark Father, are my father? The father who went over to the Dark side?’
‘YES.’
‘Well, stone the crows. That’s a turn-up for the books. Are you really my father?’
‘REALLY.’
‘Well,’ said Luke, scratching his chin. ‘I have to say, I didn’t see that coming at all.’
‘THERE’S MORE. YOU KNOW THAT GOLDEN ROBOT, SEE-THRU PEEP-HOLBRA?’
‘Yes.’
‘I MADE HIM. BUILT HIM FROM A KIT. IN A SENSE I AM HIS FATHER TOO, AND YOU AND HE ARE THEREFORE BROTHERS.’
‘He’s my brother? But he’s a git.’
‘NONSENSE. HE’S FAMILY. YOU CAN’T TALK THAT WAY ABOUT FAMILY.’
‘You are my father?’ said Luke, as if it were only just sinking in. ‘Well, strike a light. Well, blow me down. Knock me down with a feather – you my father? What a grade-one blinding surprise. What a turn-up for the books.’
‘YOU SAID THAT ALREADY.’
‘What?’
‘YOU SAID “WHAT A TURN-UP FOR THE BOOKS” ALREADY.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, but this is all quite a lot to take in. My father? Hum-de-dum-de-dah. Phew. Just – golly. That’s what: golly. Goll. Ee. Who’d have thought it? Sheesh. Never in a million years, would I have guessed this. This is coming to me completely out of left field. I’m as startled as a starling in a star-ship. Well, split my liver with a brass harpoon. Well, gee.’
‘COME,’ boomed Father. ‘LEAVE THIS NONSENSICAL BABBLING. JOIN ME AND WE WILL RULE THE GALAXY! WE CAN TREAT IT AS A FATHER AND SON ENTERPRISE, FOR TAX PURPOSES, ALTHOUGH OBVIOUSLY I’LL DO MOST OF THE ACTUAL RULING. BUT IT WILL NEVERTHELESS BE A VERY ADVANTAGEOUS POSITION FOR YOU.’
‘Oh,’ said Luke. ‘You think I’d betray my friends, do you? Well, let me tell you something . . .’
But it was at that precise point that the tensile strength of the plastic packaging on the pillar of books to which Luke was clinging gave way. He tumbled backwards into the void.
You might think this would have spelled the end of Luke Seespotrun. But no – instead of tumbling several miles to a splattery end, a freak gust blew him sideways, and banged him into a piece of scaffold-like ironmongery with which the underside of the Floating City was littered. Don’t ask me why: I suppose they could have built the underside of their city to be a perfectly smooth surface, but instead they built it to have numerous poles, ladders, downward-antennae and other protrusions.
Luke, holding on for dear life, gripped one of these.
Dark Father, peering over the edge of the book-pile, could see his son dangling there. Activating the communicator embedded in his helmet he broadcast an order to the city above him. ‘THIS IS DARK FATHER. SEND AN IMP-EMP-IMP SHUTTLE UNDERNEATH THE CITY AT ONCE – COLLECT THE INDIVIDUAL DANGLING THERE AND TAKE HIM PRISONER.’
‘What’s that?’ came the tinny-voiced reply. ‘What?’
‘SEND AN IMP-EMP-IMP SHUTTLE UNDERNEATH THE CITY AT ONCE AND . . .’
‘I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong number. This is the reception of Titherley Gribble, Accountants, here.’
‘I’M TERRIBLY SORRY, MY MISTAKE.’
‘That’s quite alright.’
Cursing, Dark Father adjusted the band of his comm-unit and repeated his order. With the instant obedience for which Imp-Emp-Imp Sterntroopers are so famous, a shuttle was immediately manned and flown out and underneath the city.
The shuttle was a bulky craft, and its pilots not especially skilled. They located the desperate figure of Luke, hanging to his strut, and tried to manoeuvre their craft close enough to be able to grab him. But as they moved underneath the city their tail fin scraped against the City-bottom and snagged hard against one of the many spars and juts. This stopped them: Luke was s
till several hundred metres away, but no matter how much the shuttle’s engines screeched, the craft was stuck fast. Panicking a little, they tried to reverse, but this only snarled their tail fin more comprehensively in amongst the metal paraphernalia of the under-City.
‘FOOLS!’ cried Dark Father, who could see all this happening through the waste disposal hole. ‘IDIOTS!’
Hearing Dark Father’s wrath over their own intercoms, the pilots of the shuttle panicked further. They put the craft in its lowest gear and revved the hyper-drive engines. The Imp-Emp-Imp shuttle, a craft capable of hurtling into orbit in seconds and travelling faster than light, strained against its captivity. Metal buckled and screeched, but the tail fin only became more firmly embedded in the under-City.
And then the inevitable happened. The mighty pole upon which the entire City rested shuddered – it shuddered and then, with a mighty noise of rending, it buckled. The huge bolts (ten metres in diameter) that held the plate at the pole’s top to the underside of the City sheared. With a sound like the world ending, the whole City toppled, angling sharply through forty-five degrees.
Dark Father was thrown off his feet. In the City above him buildings collapsed and people were tossed about like dandelion seeds in the wind.
And for a moment that was where the city stayed: broken from its pole, in the process of toppling, now the only thing that stopped it falling off the pole entirely was the Imp-Emp-Imp shuttle, its engines on full blast. But the scream of those engines indicated that they could not maintain this effort for very long.
Princess Leper had been debating between slapping Landrove on the face or kicking him on the shins, and had finally decided to do both, when the City lurched suddenly through forty-five degrees and her ears were filled with the noise of catastrophe. ‘What in the name of Thog,’ she cried, as she, Landrove and See-thru were smacked hard against the far wall of the cell.
Almost at once the ceiling fell in. The Rebel Yell He Said More More More IV, knocked from its moorings by the cityquake, had tumbled through the air and landed on the pavement directly above the cell, bashing it in. The rear-end of the craft pushed easily through the roadway material. When the dust settled, a startled Princess Leper found herself staring straight at the main airlock of the spaceship.