The Parodies Collection

by Adam Roberts

  ‘Ah,’ said Yodella. ‘Observant are you.’

  ‘Yes. But if I could prevail upon you, master, for a moment – I know time is pressing, and, what with dying and everything, you may be disinclined to chat for long. But if you could, briefly, you know, briefly, just sketch in the true story behind Dark Father being my father, Leper my sister and so on, then I’d be very . . . very grateful if you . . . you could . . .’

  But Yodella had passed away.

  ‘Oh bother,’ said Luke.

  He buried the tiny corpse, and cleared out Yodella’s hut, taking the two pairs of miniature lederhosen that were his birthright. These he folded and tucked in his pocket. Then he sat down on a log outside to think things through. ‘What do I do now?’ he wondered, aloud.

  ‘Hello?’ said a familiar voice. ‘Hello? Is this on? Hello, can you hear me?’

  ‘Bony?’

  Luke turned to see a gleaming spectre dressed in the familiar Jobbi cream and brown. The apparition, or hallucination, or whatever it was, looked very realistic: it was Old Bony K’nobbli to the last detail, except that this being was shining with a bright inner light.

  ‘Hello Luke,’ said Bony’s ghost. ‘Yodella died, has he? Well, he was very old.’

  ‘Bony!’ reproached Luke.

  ‘Hello!’ said the spectre, brightly. In several senses.

  ‘Bony,’ said Luke, his brow darkening. ‘How could you? You told me that Dark Father killed my father.’

  ‘Did I?’ said K’nobbli. ‘Really? Um—’ He looked over his shoulder, as if he had some urgent business behind him to which he really needed to attend.

  ‘But now I discover,’ Luke pressed on, ‘that, far from having killed my father, Dark Father is my father. I mean, how was I supposed to guess that?’

  ‘That is indeed something of a turn-up for the books,’ agreed K’nobbli.

  ‘How could you mislead me that way? Why did you tell me my father was dead?’

  The ghost of K’nobbli sat down heavily on a tree stump. ‘Jane Seespotrun,’ he said, slowly, as if feeling his way, ‘was a fine, upstanding Jobbi knight, gifted with the Farce. But, you see, when . . . um, when he turned to the Dark side, he became Dark Father. On that day, well . . . ah, yes that’s it, on that day he “died”. In a manner of speaking. That’s it, yes – yes, I’ve got it. Jane Seespotrun died, and Dark Father was born. So metaphorically speaking, as it were, Dark Father killed Jane Seespotrun. That’s right – that’s it.’ He looked up at Luke. ‘Do you see?’

  ‘So when you told me that Dark Father had killed my father, what you actually meant was that he hadn’t killed him.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So, in fact, you meant “killed” in the rather unusual sense of “not in fact killed but instead altered his own interior moral compass”.’

  ‘I did.’

  Luke stared hard at the apparition. ‘That’s not the usual meaning of the word “killed”, though, is it? I mean, not strictly speaking.’

  ‘It’s a common enough idiom,’ said K’nobbli, evasively.

  ‘I happen to have a dictionary here,’ said Luke, pulling a small volume out of his sleeve. ‘If I just read you the definition of the word “to kill” . . .’

  ‘Is this really necessary?’ asked K’nobbli, shifting his weight from spectral buttock to spectral buttock.

  ‘To deprive of life or vitality,’ Luke read out. ‘To cause to die, to put to death or otherwise to end a life.’

  ‘Well, when a Jobbi uses a word . . .’ said K’nobbli, as if he were about to launch into a long disquisition by way of justifying his usage. But in fact he said nothing further.

  Luke tucked his little dictionary away inside his sleeve. ‘So it turns out that Dark Father is my father,’ said Luke. ‘And Yodella tells me that Leper is my sister, despite the rather creepy fact that I’ve had the hots for her ever since I’ve met her. And that you are a sort of uncle figure. What’s Hand Someman? My long-lost brother?’

  ‘Well, clearly,’ said Old Bony, ‘that would just be silly.’

  Luke meditated for a long time. ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘You must trust your feelings, and so on,’ said Bony. ‘If I were you I’d go to the Forest Moon of Endors-Gaim. I have it on very good spectral authority that Dark Father is supervising the construction of another Death Spa there, one built without the fatal weakness of the last one.’

  ‘That’s good advice,’ said Luke, leaping to his feet. ‘Thanks!’

  ‘Oh don’t mention it. Just beware the Dalek Side of the Farce.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The Dark Side of the Farce. The Dark Side.’

  ‘Sorry, I thought you said something else.’

  Luke was packing up his spaceship, prepping it for take off and so on, whilst the spectre of Bony K’nobbli sat on a tree trunk and watched with an air of detachment – something to which, I suppose, he was entitled, really. He was dead, after all. Which is about as detached as it’s possible to get.

  ‘So how does it work, exactly?’ Luke asked. ‘This ghostly apparition stuff? Do all Jobbi come back as ghosts once they’ve been killed?’

  ‘Well that’s an interesting question,’ said K’nobbli, his face creasing into puzzlement. ‘Now that you mention it, I can’t actually think of a prior example. Ever. In the whole history of the Jobbi order. Lots of Jobbis have died, of course. Indeed, to be strictly accurate, every one of the millions of Jobbi who have ever lived are now dead, with the exceptions of Dark Father and yourself.’

  ‘And Princess Leper,’ put in Luke. ‘Who turns out to be my sister.’

  ‘She doesn’t count. She’s a girl. But I’m racking my brains – racking them, I am – to work out if there’s ever been a recorded case of a Jobbi hanging about spectrally after death. Perhaps it’s for the best it doesn’t happen. That would make things pretty crowded! So, no, as far as I’m aware no Jobbi is so powerful in the Farce as to get turned into a spectre of himself after death.’

  ‘Not even Yodella?’

  ‘Ah, of course, he could be the exception that proves the rule. I daresay he’ll be back. Probably come back a damn sight quicker than I did.’

  ‘So,’ said Luke. ‘How is it that you are allowed to make this spectral visitation, where no other Jobbi in the history of Jobbi has ever done it before?’

  Old K’nobbli’s shrug was an elegant, fluid gesture. ‘Search me. Maybe things are finally looking up for the Jobbi. I sometimes think – and don’t take this the wrong way, Luke, since you are the last hope for Good in the cosmos and so on – but I sometimes think that the Jobbi must have handled things very poorly in the past. Look at it this way: once there were millions of us. Now there are two. If you presented the same figures for any other group or species . . . lemmings, say, or cod . . . well there’s only one conclusion you’d arrive at.’

  ‘I’m finding this rather hard to follow,’ conceded Luke. ‘And since I’m in something of a hurry, I think I’ll just go. Farewell!’

  ‘We shall meet again,’ said K’nobbli. ‘Bye bye, now.’

  Chapter Four

  On the Forest Moon of Endors-Gaim

  It didn’t take Luke long to convince the Rebelend to concentrate all their forces on the Death Spa being constructed in orbit around the Forest Moon of Endors-Gaim. The Rebelend top commander, General Fishedd Onaslab, fresh from his successes on Brathmonki, had concocted a strategy. The entire fleet, including every single Rebelend spaceship and soldier, would attack the Death Spa, blowing it up before it could be finished. Meanwhile, a special detachment of troops would land on the moon itself to disable the Protective Cordon Sanitaire Machine that was generating a defensive forcefield around the Death Spa during its construction.

  ‘Seems watertight to me,’ said General Fishedd Onaslab.

  ‘How many troops will we actually be sending down to the Moon?’ asked Leper.

  ‘Forty thousand,’ said the General immediately.

  ‘Sir!’ squeake
d Tutter, his second-in-command. ‘We can’t possibly spare so many soldiers—’

  ‘I see. How many can we spare, Captain Tutter?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Two it is, then. You, Princess and Captain Someman. That should do it.’

  ‘Let me see if I understand you,’ said Leper. ‘You want me to attack a concentration of Imp-Emp-Imp forces and droids, amounting to at least twenty thousand crack troops . . . with two people.’

  ‘Well,’ said the General, spreading his gill flaps expansively, ‘if the troops are already cracked, that should make your job easier, don’t you think?’

  ‘Crack,’ said Leper, with brittle precision. ‘I said crack.’

  ‘I do apologise,’ said the General. ‘My hearing is poor in this airy medium. I see: so you don’t think two people is enough? Alright; take young Seespotrun with you as well. Other than that – I don’t know. Can’t you rally the indigenous population to our cause? What are the moon’s indigenous population?’

  ‘A race called,’ replied Tutter, consulting an info-flimsy, ‘the Tedibehrs.’

  ‘Excellent!’ beamed General Fishedd. ‘That’s sorted, then. You’ll pop down there and inspire the hordes of ferocious, probably highly-armed, maybe seven-foot-tall-with-giant-claws-for-all-we-know Tedibehrs to attack the forcefield generator. Once it’s down, we’ll destroy the Death Spa. Then we’ll all meet for a debrief at, what do you reckon, Tutter? Twenty-hundred hours?’

  ‘Better make it twenty-thirty, sir. Be on the safe side.’

  ‘Quite right.’

  ‘We want to leave a margin for error, don’t we, sir?’

  ‘We certainly do. Well, there you are: meet at coordinates delta zero four at twenty-thirty, alright? Will there be . . . ? Hm, I wonder if . . . ah Tutter, before you go, just one more question . . .’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Will there be sandwiches at the debrief?’

  ‘Sandwiches? I hadn’t ordered any, sir. Do you want me to order some sandwiches?’

  ‘If it wouldn’t be too much bother. Some meat, some cheese, so everybody’s taste is catered for. And a few cartons of juice. Then we can all have a jolly good debrief, and work out what we want to do with the cosmos after the utter defeat of the Imp-Emp-Imp. Alright! Bye bye, everyone! Let’s go!’

  It was a somewhat gloomy party of three that left on a cloaked Rebelend shuttle for the Forest Moon circling the planet of Gaim. Princess Leper piloted in silence; Hand and Luke sat looking glum.

  Glumness increased when they made contact with the natives of the moon; and were taken to the chief Tedibehr village, a clearing in the woods in which a number of cupboard-shaped halls and boxy houses huddled together.

  It turned out that the average Tedibehrs, far from being seven feet tall, stood a little over twelve inches in their bare bear feet. They lacked claws and teeth, although their eyes were flat-edged and hard and could, theoretically, have injured an unwary Sterntrooper had he been so foolish as to inhale one of them.

  They seemed bellicose, however. The chief Tedibehr called a village meeting (known as a peec-neec), where discussion amongst the various Tedibehrs demonstrated that they were more than happy to attack the Sterntrooper encampment under the leadership of these offworlders. ‘Bad men!’ announced the Tedibehr chieftain, Danni, gesturing towards the Imp-Emp-Imp encampment. ‘They very noisy! They stay up past bedtime! They must pay with their lives!’

  A great crowd of Tedibehrs cheered this speech; a sound like a choir of sopranos practising vibrato.

  ‘I don’t wish to dampen your battle ardour,’ said Princess Leper. ‘But you do realise, don’t you, that these Sterntroopers are armed to the teeth with devastating state-of-the-art weaponry?’

  ‘They no got teeth!’ squealed Danni. ‘They faces all white plastic!’

  ‘You misunderstand me,’ said Leper. ‘I was not referring literally to their teeth. I only intended to draw your attention to the fact that they have laser cannons, laser rifles and pistols, and all manner of automatic death-dealing equipment.’

  ‘We not scared!’ cried Danni. ‘We have carefully worked out log-based military strategy.’

  ‘Did you say log-based?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t misheard. Log- based, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not guns? Or bows and arrows?’

  ‘No – no – logs. Logs, fearful logs! Ya-haaah!’

  The high levels of Tedibehr excitement rose higher with this last cry, and soon the mass of them were dancing and celebrating around Leper’s and Hand’s knees.

  Soon, though, it was time for bed – a religious observance for the Tedibehr peoples, and thus not one lightly flouted. In minutes the whole village cleared and peace fell.

  By the light of the still-glowing evening fires, Luke sought out Leper. ‘I’ve got news,’ he said. ‘We’ve overheard Imp-Emp-Imp transmissions to the effect that Dark Father himself has landed aboard the Death Spa. He has the droid with him.’

  ‘I see,’ said Leper, her eyes lighting up. ‘That means everything is not lost – we can recover the droid!’

  ‘I guess so,’ said Luke. ‘I was thinking – whilst you’re leading the Tedibehrs to military glory, why don’t I go up to the Death Spa and confront Dark Father, even though it is almost certain to mean my painful and premature death.’

  ‘What an excellent idea,’ said Leper excitedly, presumably referring to the first rather than the last part of Luke’s speech.

  Luke nodded. ‘I’ll do it then. Even though it is almost certain to mean my painful and premature death?’

  ‘Tush,’ said Princess Leper. ‘Pish. We absolutely must retrieve that droid – the RC unit. Once we’ve got it we can take it back to Landrove, and he’ll be able to download the Great Secret from its databases. Then we will truly be victorious! Dark Father has the droid; so you have to confront him.’

  ‘There’s a space elevator at the Imp-Emp-Imp base.’

  ‘Then that’s how you must go.’

  ‘Leper – before I go. There’s something I need to tell you.’

  ‘What?’

  Luke looked into her liquid eyes, but then shook his head. ‘No – it would be too much of a shock for you. It would distract you from your mission to rally the Tedibehrs. I’ll tell you when I get back. If,’ he added, with melodramatic emphasis, ‘I get back.’

  ‘Righto,’ replied Leper. ‘Well, shouldn’t you be on your way? It’s a long ride from the Imp-Emp-Imp base up to the Death Spa. And we’ve got to get to bed. These natives are pretty strict about their night-time curfew. We don’t want to antagonise them before tomorrow’s war.’

  Chapter Five

  Yet another showdown lightsword duel. You’re probably getting a little tired of all these showdown lightsword duels, I know, but this is the last one. For now. Although I probably should warn you that there are several more to come in the later (by which I mean actually earlier) chapters

  Using the Farce, Luke was able to evade the perimeter guards, to fall through a window, trip up some stairs (that took some doing, but he managed it) and finally to stumble into the Transit Centre unnoticed.

  From there he rode the Great Glass Space Elevator car up from the ground base to the half-built Death Spa. His Jobbi powers enabled his ascent: by closing his eyes, he was able to bang the control panel with his elbow, cry out ‘yow!’ and accidentally hit the right combination of keys.

  The wooded moon of Endors fell away beneath him into a complex stubbling of greens and blues. Beyond it the planet of Gaim loomed over the foreshortened horizon, red and brown in the white light of its sun. Looking down, Luke could see the stumbling and staggering Mono- and Duo-pod craft of the Imp-Emp-Imp patrolling the woods around the ground base. White-armoured Sterntroopers, looking from this height like lice, inched between the trees. He turned his gaze around at the half-built Death Spa above him. It dominated the sky; like a meccano-kit model of a literal-minded visio
n of a crescent moon, its huge circle bitten into by a great jagged blocky semicircle.

  He made his way through empty corridors and dimlylit rooms. Everywhere he went he saw unpainted plaster, wires poking through square holes in the walls like plastic spaghetti, hundreds of paint pots with dribbles down the side like icing, lightbulbs dangling, bereft of lampshades, like hanged men, planks and dustsheets in every space.

  Luke heard voices. He moved towards the sound, inadvertently tripping over a portable radio, a half-empty mug of cold coffee and a folded-up copy of a popular Imp-Emp-Imp tabloid news-flimsy The Four Hundred Million Suns (its headline read: GALACTIC COR! GAS GIANTESS TOPLESS, PAGES 2–14 INSIDE!). He regained his balance, and moved more stealthily.

  Round a corner and creeping along the wall of a corridor, Luke was soon able to make out two voices engaged in discussion. One of them was clearly Dark Father’s; the other voice Luke did not recognise, although its identity was soon revealed.

  ‘All I’m saying,’ said the second voice, ‘is that it weren’t forcefield airlock beam modifiers, what was written down on the order. That’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘AND WHAT WAS WRITTEN DOWN ON THE ORDER, MR BOBA?’

  ‘Forty field airlock beam modifiers,’ replied Boba. ‘Which, I need hardly tell you, is not the same thing at all. Nothing to do with me. Seems my supplier can’t read the handwriting of your chief architect.’

  ‘I SHALL CRUSH HIS THROAT REMOTELY IN THE MORNING, DO NOT WORRY.’

  ‘Oh I’m not worried,’ said Boba. ‘It’s just that, what with the ordering cock-up, I can’t have the forcefield airlock beam modifiers fitted by Tuesday like I said I would.’

  ‘THEN WHEN? WEDNESDAY?’

  ‘Ooooo,’ said Boba, as if Dark Father had said something palpably absurd. ‘Dearie me no. Even assuming the proper parts are delivered by, let’s say, Friday – which is being optimistic – even assuming that, well I gotta tell you, Mr Father, that my lad Wayne has gotta take the first half of next week off.’