The Parodies Collection

by Adam Roberts

  ‘I didn’t realise that he could fly!’ exclaimed Leper.

  ‘No, it was a surprise to everybody. He’d never done it before. Even when he’d been in very perilous situations, situations where it really would have been advantageous to him to demonstrate his flying abilities, he had not done so. Every person who had ever encountered him would have sworn blind that he was incapable of flight. Even his designer. But it turns out he can. So he flew off and escaped.’

  ‘What’s the bad news?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You mentioned some bad news, to go with the good news. What is that bad news?’

  ‘Well, it seems that Dark Father also escaped the destruction of the Floating City. Rode away from the disaster sitting on RC-DU2 in fact. So he’s still at large and, rumours have it, building a second Death Spa, more solidly constructed than the first.’

  ‘Curses!’ cried Leper. ‘Still – it is good news that the droid has not been dashed to smithereens. We must recover the little machine; for within its databases we will find the Great Secret. And I am confident that, if we could only get our hands on the Great Secret, then the defeat of the Imp-Emp-Imp would be within our grasp.’

  ‘I’ve heard this speech before,’ Luke reminded her. ‘And Dark Father has the robot now. Presumably he’s downloaded the Secret.’

  ‘He’s had RC-DU2 in his clutches before,’ Leper pointed out. ‘So either he has already downloaded the Great Secret, or he hasn’t been able to access it. I believe the latter explanation—’

  ‘Latter?’ queried Luke.

  ‘The second one. I believe the second explanation is the more likely. The Rebelend had the droid for years, and we weren’t able to hack into it. I don’t believe that Dark Father will have had any better luck.’

  ‘I could hack it,’ said Landrove, speaking from the far side of the cell. ‘I can hack anything. I’m a skilled hacker.’

  ‘Besides,’ said Leper. ‘Let’s say Dark Father has gleaned the Great Secret stored in the robot’s databases: that only makes it more imperative that we also discover the nature of the Great Secret.’

  ‘You’re sure this Secret will give us the necessary edge?’

  ‘I’m confident.’

  ‘Well,’ said See-thru, ‘I was with the little dustbin for years and he never said anything to me about a secret. Besides which, aren’t you all forgetting something?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We’re presently incarcerated in a dungeon,’ said See-thru, lugubriously. ‘Pizza the Hutt is plotting to annihilate us in the most painful manner he can manage. We’ll probably all be dead or dismantled by this time tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Luke, smiling secretively. ‘I have a plan.’

  It was impossible to distinguish between day and night inside the dungeon. For a while the group slept uneasily. Finally, after many hours, the dungeon door was heaved, gratingly, open; and various of the Hutt’s henchmen, amongst them the sinister Krisss, hauled Luke, Leper, Landrove and See-thru out of their confinement.

  The four of them were brought before Pizza the Hutt in his Grand Hall. ‘[Now hear this,]’ the disgusting slimy cheese-covered beast announced through the U.T. ‘[I have thought long and hard and have finally decided upon your fate. It is to be death! Huh! huh! huh!]’

  The room erupted with laughter and cheering from Pizza’s disgusting hangers-on.

  ‘[Huh! huh! huh! We shall fly out in my roll-onpush-off hovercraft to the depths of the desert where the Great Sand Maw is located. This beast devours sand, as perhaps you know. It will make short work of your revoltingly limb-sprawly bodies. You will learn a new definition of pain as he digests you over a thousand years! Of course, you’ll be dead after a day or two of thirst and possibly dead of suffocation after a few minutes, but it’ll still take the Sand Maw a thousand years to digest you, which fact I’d like you to contemplate over the course of your probably quite rapid deaths. Huh! huh! huh!]’

  ‘I think not,’ said Luke in a clear voice, stepping forward and holding forth a small metal device in his right hand.

  The whole room went ‘ooo!’

  If Pizza was incommoded he didn’t show it. ‘[Huh! huh! huh!]’ he laughed. ‘[What’s that? A bomb? Do you not realise, puny Jobbi, that a forcefield exists around the dais on which I am currently sitting? No bomb can harm me.]’

  ‘It could harm the rest of us, though,’ put in See-thru. ‘Just thought I’d remind you of that, Luke. If you set off the bomb you’ll not kill Pizza the Hutt, but you likely will destroy everybody else, carbon-based life forms such as yourself, Landrove and Princess Leper, and zinc-based life forms like me.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Luke, crossly.

  ‘It’s just something to bear in mind – how futile a gesture that would be,’ See-thru added.

  ‘This isn’t a bomb,’ said Luke, holding the device out for everybody to see. ‘It’s a mobile phone.’ He pronounced these last two words the American way, as if the phone were manufactured by the petrochemical giant Mobil rather than being, as it actually was, a phone mobile in the sense of being moved around. But everybody understood what he meant.

  ‘[A mobile phone!]’ scoffed Pizza. ‘[Do you hope to injure me with the weak microwave radiation? Pah! This is nonsense.]’

  ‘Perhaps it is nonsense,’ said Luke. ‘Or – perhaps – it’s sense of a new, dangerous kind.’

  ‘[No, it’s nonsense.]’

  ‘I agree with the Hutt,’ said Leper. ‘Luke – what are you playing at?’

  ‘If I press this button,’ Luke announced, ‘the phone will make a call to a preprogrammed number.’ He displayed the button, with his thumb over it.

  ‘[Go ahead!]’ laughed Pizza the Hutt. ‘[Press the button! I am not afeared.]’

  ‘But you don’t understand,’ said Luke. ‘I’m not threatening to press the button. I’m threatening not to press the button.’

  It took a moment for everybody in the room to work out the distinction that Luke was making.

  ‘You see,’ said Luke, coming a little closer to Pizza the Hut’s forcefield-protected throne, ‘before coming here I paid a little visit to a certain office building in Moz Isleybrothers. Yes I did – and in that building I pretended to be a henchman of you yourself, Pizza the Hutt. I did indeed. Which building, you ask? Why, the Credit Card Corporation local headquarters, that’s which building. The home of Masterfromdoctorwho Card and Jambarclaycard and many other cards of a creditable nature. And I told the officials in that building that the great Pizza’s credit cards had all been stolen. Do you know what they did? They cancelled all the cards, prior to sending you out replacement cards in two weeks’ time.’

  Pizza the Hutt had fallen silent ‘[Scum!]’ he muttered. ‘[You shall pay with your life for the mild inconvenience you have caused me!]’

  ‘Oh it’s worse than that, Pizza,’ said Luke. ‘The number preprogrammed into this phone? It’s the customer hotline to the Moz Isleybrothers Electrical Power Corporation. I informed them that the old credit card numbers were no longer valid, and gave them a new credit card account. But they have been waiting for me to ring them with the confirmation security code, and we are approaching their deadline. Unless I ring this number in the next five minutes and give them it, they will cut off all power to your remote fastness, Pizza. And you know what that means?’

  Pizza the Hutt had gone doughy with fear. ‘[No!]’ he cried. ‘[You wouldn’t!]’

  ‘That’s right, Pizza – your children! You see,’ said Luke, turning to face the room, ‘I happen to know that Pizzarians, in common with other wheat-based forms of life, are not warm-blooded as we are. They require an external source of heat to survive. Now, a fully grown Pizzarian like the Hutt here might be able to survive by crawling to the surface and lying in the hot Tatuonweiner sun. But his children are a different matter – isn’t that so, Pizza?’

  ‘[My secret is out,]’ said the giant alien, mournfully. ‘[I came to this backwater world be
cause it was time for me to breed. We Pizzarians do not carry our young inside our bodies as is the frankly disgusting habit with you carbon-based life forms . . .]’

  ‘I hope you’re not including me in that sweeping statement,’ said See-thru.

  ‘[We form our young in special uterine ovens. Over many years they are baked at temperatures far higher even than is found in the hottest portion of this planet, growing slowly, yeasting and expanding, until their cheese bubbles with maturity and they emerge to slime and oil their way about the world. My own ovens are in the heart of my fastness here, and four hundred of my youngsters are currently cooking there. To have my power supply cut off would be disastrous! They would all die! All my pretty ones!]’

  ‘Let us go, Pizza, and I shall press the button and pass on the code. But if you do not, you will have to wait for another fortnight until your new credit cards arrive. Which is it to be, Pizza? Can your offspring survive two weeks in those ovens without power?’

  ‘[You already know the answer to that question,]’ said Pizza, in a broken voice. ‘[Guards! Release them all. Put Hand Someman’s paperweight in the back of a speeder and give young Seespotrun here the keys. I know when I am beaten . . .]’

  Half an hour later, as they sped over the dunes towards Moz Isleybrothers, Leper kept repeating ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe we escaped from there.’

  ‘It was a close call,’ agreed Landrove. ‘What I don’t understand is why Pizza’s henchmen didn’t just shoot Luke and make the phone call themselves?’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Luke slowly, ‘that it didn’t occur to them.’

  ‘That’s especially lucky.’

  ‘I have learnt to trust the Farce in these matters,’ said Luke.

  ‘Strikes me as something of an anticlimax, actually,’ said See-thru. ‘I was expecting you to come in and rescue us with your lightsword flashing, and sweeping and chopping the evil Pizza into a dozen wedge-shaped pieces.’

  ‘Another thing I have learned,’ said Luke, ‘is that sometimes the Farce takes the form of anticlimax. Bathos and pathos and something else ending in–athos.’

  Chapter Two

  On the Death Spa Mark Two

  Aboard the still-under-construction Death Spa Mark Two there was an air of nervous anticipation. Ranks of Sterntroopers stood in serried ranks in the main entrance hangar, their white armour polished and gleaming like porcelain. A row of senior military officers stood before them. All were awaiting a very high-profile visitor indeed. All were anxious; particularly the senior staff.

  A shuttle approached, breached the forcefield and settled on the landing pad. The ranks of Sterntroopers came smartly to attention.

  The shuttle bay doors opened and the long black-clad legs of Dark Father strode down the gangplank. The Dark Lord of the Psmyth marched through the massive hallway, followed by his red-robed functionaries, individuals whose precise function was never very clear, although Dark Father rarely went anywhere without them. General (formerly Commander) Regla Onzedcars took a deep breath, adjusted his collar, and stepped forward to meet his superior officer.

  ‘Lord Father,’ he said, falling into step beside the towering black figure. ‘This is indeed an unexpected pleasure.’

  ‘GENERAL,’ boomed Father. ‘YOU MAY DISPENSE WITH THE PLEASANTRIES. I HAVE COME TO ENSURE THAT THIS DEATH SPA IS READY ON SCHEDULE.’

  ‘My men are working at double shifts,’ said General Onzedcars, ‘but they shall work triple. Everything will be in place and operational by the deadline.’

  ‘I HOPE SO FOR YOUR SAKE, GENERAL. WHEN THE IMPERIAL EMPEROR ARRIVES NEXT WEEK, HE WILL EXPECT THE DEATH SPA TO BE FULLY OPERATIONAL.’

  ‘The Imperial Emperor is coming here?’ Onzedcars said, alarmed.

  ‘DIDN’T I JUST SAY THAT?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  ‘DO TRY TO KEEP UP.’

  ‘Yes, my Lord. We shall work quadruple shifts!’

  ‘EXCELLENT, AND GENERAL—’

  ‘Yes, my Lord?’

  ‘THERE IS ONE MORE THING.’ Dark Father stopped and turned to face the General.

  ‘My Lord?’

  ‘I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON SOME STAND-UP MATERIAL.’

  Onzedcars blinked. ‘You – you’ve been – um. My Lord?’

  ‘JUST A SHORT ROUTINE. I WAS THINKING OF MAYBE TEN MINUTES OF OBSERVATIONAL. PERHAPS A COMIC SONG. THIS WOULD BE A SMALL-SCALE PARTY FOR THE IMPERIAL EMPEROR, BY INVITATION ONLY, IN ONE OF THE SMALLER MUSTER HALLS HERE ON THE DEATH SPA.’

  ‘Ah – of course, my Lord.’

  ‘THE THING IS . . .’ doomed Father, trailing off.

  Onzedcars glanced nervously over his shoulder at the serried ranks of Imp-Emp-Imp Sterntroopers. God how he wished he were somewhere else. Anywhere else. ‘Yes, my Lord?’

  ‘I COULD REALLY USE SOME FEEDBACK. ON MY MATERIAL, YOU SEE.’ He leaned in closer and jabbed at Onzedcars’ chest with his black-gloved forefinger. ‘FOR INSTANCE – THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITES – OK – AHEM, DON’T YOU FIND THAT WHEN YOU’VE FINISHED TORTURING A SUSPECT WITH THE CARELLIAN MIND-PROBE YOU ALWAYS MISPLACE ONE OF THE TWO INSERT-ELECTRODES? LIKE, ALWAYS? I MEAN, WHAT’S THAT ALL ABOUT? LIKE – IS THERE SOME KIND OF MIND-PROBE INSERT-ELECTRODE FAIRY WHISKING THEM AWAY TO THE MAGIC LAND OF TORTURE-EQUIPMENT PARAPHERNALIA? YEAH? YOU DIG WHAT I’M SAYING? THAT EVER HAPPEN TO YOU? HEY YOU’VE BEEN A FANTASTIC AUDIENCE, GOOD NIGHT.’

  Dark Father straightened up, his face wholly unreadable behind his black faceplate. Onzedcars had to exercise conscious muscular control to prevent his eyes from popping open in naked terror. ‘That’s very good – ah, er ha-ha. Ha. Ha ha ha. Excellent, my Lord. Very funny.’

  It was impossible to tell the Dark Father’s reaction. Silently he turned, and swept from the hangar.

  Onzedcars’ body slumped visibly with relief.

  Chapter Three

  Swampy Swampy World – paint my palate green and green. Add some green and then some green – you’re the swampiest place I’ve ever ever seen . . .

  Luke flew back to Swamp World, just as he had promised his master he would do. Sadly, he wasn’t able to return Yodella’s spaceship, since that had been smashed up in the destruction of Floating City. But, ever trusting, the Rebelend had given Luke yet another spaceship, and it was in this craft he touched down on Swamp World, not far from the tiny Jobbi’s hut.

  ‘Yodella?’ he cried, bending down and squeezing through the miniature door. ‘Yodella, are you here?’

  ‘Here through,’ came a weak voice. ‘The bedroom, in.’

  On all fours Luke made his way to the bedroom to find the miniature Jobbi Master sitting up in his bed; a very large bed, unusually deep, big enough for a full-sized man to be stored beneath its mattress, in fact, although obviously there was no full-sized man inside it. That was just the way the bed was made.

  ‘Returned you have,’ said Yodella, coughing pathetically.

  ‘Yodella! Master! Are you ill?’

  ‘Dying, I am.’

  ‘No! This is terrible news! You can’t die?’

  ‘Oh can’t I?’ Yodella replied, briefly feisty, as if Luke had laid down a challenge. ‘Just watch me, you shall.’

  ‘But – there are so many questions I want answered. Dark Father – is he truly my father?’

  ‘Your father he is. Not only that, but Leper your sister is. And Bony K’nobbli was a distant cousin, or uncle, forget the precise details I do.’

  Luke’s mind reeled. It jigged. ‘This is incredible!’ he cried. ‘Leper is my sister?’

  ‘Luke,’ Yodella said. ‘Dying, I am. Alone have I lived for many years, with nobody to talk to. My life history unrecorded is. To you I wish to tell the whole story. Also, my sole beneficiary you will be; inherit both of my suits of tiny lederhosen you will.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Luke, dubiously.

  ‘The last of my race, am I . . .’ murmured Yodella. ‘When I die, that race will pass out of all knowledge. A sad thought this is.’

  ‘
Yes, I’ve been meaning to ask you – what race are you, master?’

  ‘According to the mythology of my people, the first of us were created when a divine Mop fell in love with a certain god-like living Puppet; their strange cloth-skinned offspring of that union we were. Once we were populous, and successful. When a young person I was – not as you see me now, but young and handsome and smooth-skinned – when young I was, a theatre I ran – very successful it was. But one by one my fellows died, they did. I had the chance to continue our species; opportunities there were to mate with others such as myself, small, it’s-not-easy-being-greenskinned beings. But love a dangerous drug is! I fell in love with a being from a wholly different species. Porcine. No chance of genetic combination from that union, there was.’ He shook his head. ‘And so here I am, having devoted my life to the Farce instead.’ His voice was barely a whisper.

  ‘What a sad story!’ said Luke. ‘And, obviously, very interesting. Really very interesting indeed. I’m very much interested to hear more along those lines, really I am . . . but I wonder, since you may only have a few moments of life left to you, whether you might first just say a little bit more about the Dark Father being my father, Leper my sister and K’nobbli also related to me in some obscure way stuff?’

  ‘Tell you why my words in my sentences all disarranged are. Why I tend my verbs at the end of sentences to be putting. Tell you, I will.’

  ‘. . . which is very interesting, of course,’ said Luke. ‘Only I was hoping that you might give me more by way of family information. Of my own family, I mean. You see, Dark Father said that . . .’

  ‘The truth to you I shall be imparting. Important it is that you listening are. The fact is, German I am.’

  ‘German – right, lovely. Only I was wondering . . .’

  ‘Not all Germans are beautiful, tall and fair, though the Galaxy in this manner is of them thinking. Some Germans small and froggish are. Difficult to believe it is, I know, but nevertheless, true it is.’

  ‘Well I’d sort of assumed,’ said Luke. ‘What with the lederhosen and the yodelling. The odd syntax was also a clue, of course.’