Story The First - In Which Kirby Defeats Vaguely Evil JudgeFollow

The judge's gavel slammed down once, twice, three times.

"Shelob, Sgt. A* and Kirby, you have been brought before this court to answer for crimes of gluttony; before we commence the summary execution, do you have anything to say for yourselves?"

They looked first to the great spider. She flexed her mandibles with a loathsome hiss, all eight legs straining against her bonds. If she could just get free she'd tear the little man before her apart, and the rest of the courtroom soon after. The cuffs, though, had been made well, and all her struggles served to do was squeeze sticky webbing from her spinneret. At last she was still again.

Sgt. A* gave no response at all, a picture of cosmic serenity within the miniaturisation field.

Only Kirby, the round pink blob from the land of dreams, spoke up. "Well... Um... Mr. Judge, with all due respect, I'm not sure you're taking all the pertinent facts into account."

The judge paused, his finger hovering over the button that'd annihilate the lot of them. This was the first polysyllabic word he'd heard from the little... well, whatever it was he was. "Go on, bloblett, but I remind you that my patience is limited."

"Well, you see," said Kirby, his spherical hands rubbing together contritely, "there is the matter of thematic concerns. I mean, take Shelob here, she comes from a relatively bleak universe that, nonetheless, always contrives a happy ending when a narrative is imposed upon it. She wants to, and I speak no hyperbole here, eat the world. That's not the kind of thing you can put on a child's balloon."

"While you practically are one," heckled a member of the audience.

"Er... quite," said Kirby nervously, round hands fidgeting, before he found his flow once more. "And take Sgt. A* here. When you think about it, his setting is just as bleak; without him, there would be no galaxy, and without the galaxy could there be life? I'm no astronometrix, but I say probably not. So he's like an anti-hero - ends justify the means. OK."

"Is this going anywhere, you blubbery oaf?" asked the judge, yawning.

"Of course, your supreme grand honourablness, of course. Now, I come from a world so sunny you'd think we'd all burn to death - if it wasn't such a utopia, that is! Everything's in bright primary colours, and so any unfortunate implications of anyone's actions are excused - if you notice them, you're overthinking! You have to suspend disbelief, yo see, because your Universe is so bleak by comparison. Why," Kirby continued, now addressing the gallery as much as the judge, "you could die at any time for no real reason. Any of you."

"Hmm..." said the judge, stroking the shaved skin where his beard had once been.

"And," Kirby said quickly, before things got away from him, "I'm not greedy. This is just how my species gathers power. Not for its own sake, of course," Kirby steamed on, seeing the judge frown, "but for the greater good of all dreamland. I mean, look at me - if I'm so greedy, why aren't I fat?"

"The court reminds you, Mister Kirby, that you are a perfect sphere."

"Ah, but that's the natural shape for my species! If I were fat, I'd bulge at the equator - and, as you said, I'm a perfect sphere."

"Well, Kirby, you've made an excellent defence for yourself today," said the judge, looking pensive. "Yes," he continued, "so you have. God knows how you managed it, but you did. Very well, you will be spared. For the others the sentence stands - let the executions begin!"

Later, outside the courthouse, Kirby looked down at the ink on his pudgy palms, already starting to smudge, and smiled.

8/10

So, who is Sgt. A*?

It's the super-massive black hole (more correctly the relatively small region of space it occupies, as no one seems to have named it) at the centre of the milky way galaxy.