This page last updated 19 February 2003 This page last updated 19 February 2003
by Richard Schwartz (rex@kf6.so-net.ne.jp)
1980-ish
Chapter Four
Ellipsis - (pl. ellipses) derived from the Greek* ... the use of a printed row of periods (...) to indicate an omission from an existing text ... More often, used by writers who can't think of anything else to write (cf. Leaving it up to Reader's Imagination) ... It gives the impression that the author wrote it out, but didn't have room to print it ....The term is believed** to be related to 'eclipse' (as in 'block out' or 'have something missing') ...
* Unfortunately, we don't know exactly which Greek it is derived from.
** Actually, not many people believe this at all.
"Ah, that's better,” said the chief prosecutor. He now addressed the intrepid Uber Alles, master novelties vendor.
"Uber Alles, you have been charged with abandoning a comic missionary to the mob on planet Kalkan. Please tell the jury the pertinent facts of the event, keeping in mind that the entire incident is recorded on videotape."
"Iss gut," Uber began, "vouldn't you know, zere ve vass ..."
The prosecution interjected, "And don't forget, we've all decided already that you're guilty."
"So vat's new. Like I vass telling you ..."
"And please stop using that stupid German accent!"
Uber stopped and started over. This was a tough house all right. "My crew and I were sent to the second planet of the Dog Star, also known as 'Serious B'. This completely somber planet has resisted the Confoundation's every attempt to introduce our joke technology, and it was my job to change that. I found the capital with the help of a clever old man named Marzz Barr ..."
"Objection! Is this relevant?"
"Not really. It's just exposition for the next chapter. Anyway, no sooner had we landed on Kalkan than this Sean Parma character shows up. It would probably be best to run the tape now, to show the jury what really happened." With a pair of tweezers he picked up a video tape the size of a postage stamp, and placed it gingerly inside a player the size of a poptart. "Damn miniaturization," he muttered. "When're they going to build things big enough to handle?"
The lights in the courtroom dimmed, and there, in the best 5-D TV tax money could buy, the interior of Uber's spaceship was faithfully recreated, floating a few feet above the witness box. The jury watched, rapt, until the judge cautioned them to stop rapping and pay attention. The reproduction of Uber dashed about, giving orders when a junior officer reported that a stand-up comic priest had appeared outside the ship.
"Yikes," whistled Uber sympathetically. "I don't care much for his chances. He hasn't got a prayer against that crowd out there."
"Sir, the priest has requested admittance."
Uber snapped out of his sympathy. "Under no circumstances is he to be allowed in. If he's on this planet trying to tell jokes to those gloomy gusses out there ..."
The lieutenant hemmed. Then he hawed. "Ah-h-h-h, actually sir, what I'm trying to say is, we've already let him on board."
Uber staggered back. "You fool! If the indigenous population finds out that we've given a comedian sanctuary ..." From outside, the dull thud of eggs and tomatoes against the hull of the ship put an end to that thought. "All right, bring this missionary to me. I'll find out his position."
The ensign admitted a man with the teeth of a shark and the fashion sense of a packrat. His shirt, open to the waist revealing some hair and a lot of golden chain, was a luminous blue, fortunately mostly covered up by his jacket. Unfortunately, however, his jacket was of the same material, flaired at the elbows, padded at the shoulders, and so took up most of any room that its wearer stood in. He held out a ringed hand.
"Hey, howya doon? Great to be here, an' I really mean that. Confoundation Missionary 49621 Parma, Sean – but you can call me the Big Cheese.”
Uber refused the hand. "All right joker, what're you doing on this planet? You must know there's an immediate death sentence here for anyone who cracks so much as a smile."
"Gimme some credit, baby. I gotta break in somewhere. Granted, this Kalkan audience is tougher than most. Good thing your boys let me in or I'd be dogmeat. How about givin' 'em a big hand?"
"Instead, I think I'll just hand you back to the crowd outside."
Parma's eyes widened. "You can't mean it! They'd love nothing more than to rake me over the coals."
"Then we mustn't disappoint them. It'll be the first time you've ever made the crowd happy."
"No wait. Gimme one more chance, you'll love this. There's these three guys at the Vegan Space Port, see, and the first one says to the other one ..."
"Quite frankly, you'd be making me happy too."
"No wait! Oh, the first one is from Romulus, and he says ..." Gesticulating wildly, Parma suddenly noticed that the floor had disappeared beneath him. He fell protestingly downward, still trying to continue his joke. At that point, Uber stopped the tape, and the lights came back on. The chief prosecutor stood.
"You have signed your own death warrant, Uber Alles. This evidence clearly shows that you sent Sean Parma to his death!"
"No!" came a determined voice from the back of the court. Everyone turned to see a brisk, middle-aged man in rumpled hair and a slicker force his way up to the bar, with an owlish, librarian-type woman in tow.
"Sorry we're late," he said. "My name is Inspector Barnim Baley and this is my associate, Dr. Susan Hobbes Calvin, rabbit psychologist. The suspect could not have committed the murder, being bound by the three laws of rabbitics, which I will briefly quote for you:
"One – A rabbit must mate.
"Two – A rabbit must eat, unless it is mating.
"Three – A rabbit must sleep, unless it is mating or ..."
The prosecutor looked at Baley and Susan. Susan looked at the judge, then Uber. The judge looked at Susan's left breast, then her right breast, and judged them to be equally fine. Baley looked from Uber to the prosecutor to Susan's breasts to the judge.
"Sorry," he said, "wrong parody."
Once they'd left Uber continued his defense. "Now I'll admit that on the surface it looks like I abandoned a stand-up comic to a certain hostile review, but if you'll notice, as I did, that he left out a vital piece of exposition, you'll see that he was actually an imposter. He never was a stand-up comic – or else why did he never even mention, in the two and a half minutes we were together, how Veri Seldom devised a thousand-year program to save the galaxy's humor and stem the Pratfall of the Universe?" The startled crowd murmured their agreement. Uber continued. "That's what made me suspicious. So I viewed the videotape of my interview with Parma in slow motion – which completely confirmed my suspicions. Watch the last ten seconds of Parma's monologue in super slo-mo."
Again the lights dimmed, and Parma's figure, greatly enlarged, was projected above the witness box. As he gestured wildly in his joke-telling, a pair of handcuffs slid out of his gaudy jacket. Then a billy club. Then a badge reading 'Kalkan Secret Police – Agent K-9'. Then a roll of tickets to the Policeman's Ball. "Watch carefully," said Uber, "it's almost there." By now the trapdoor beneath Parma's feet was giving way. He instinctively bent his knees and leaned back, preparing to roll with the fall. Here Uber stopped the tape.
"That's it!" he yelled triumphantly. "That is precisely the way that new recruits are taught to fall at the Kalkan Police Academy School of Dogfighting. Which proves that he wasn't a comic missionary at all, but an agent of Kalkan. As a result of not being fooled, I was called before their emperor, and set up a trade agreement with them. We'll be sending them re-runs of "Seinfeld," which not even they can claim is funny, but which will set them back on the path to a comic future!"
As the crowd surged up and carried Uber away on its shoulders, the prosecutor tried to raise an objection ("Just how did he know what goes on in the Kalkan Police Academy?") but the crowd would have none of it. The day belonged to Uber Alles – and Veri Seldom, too.