“So why do they want you to go back?”
“Apparently I’m the true emperor. I was a foundling swapped at birth by a jealous godmother for my long lost evil twin, Fimmit.”
“What? Really?”
“No, of course not really. He’s here to deliver a summons for a minor traffic violation.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Drat, you guessed. No, the thing is I have this secretion that comes from my anterior glands; every Chelgrian clan has one or two males in each generation who produce this substance. Without it the males of my clan can’t pass solids. If they don’t lick the appropriate spot at least once per tidal month they start to experience terrible wind. Unfortunately my cousin Kehenahanaha Junior the Third recently suffered a bizarre grooming accident which left him unable to produce the vital secretion, so they need me back before all the males in my family explode from compressed shit. There is a surgical alternative, of course, but sadly the medical patent rights are held by a clan we haven’t acknowledged for three centuries. Dispute over a mistimed bid caused by an involuntary eructation during a bride-bidding auction, apparently. We don’t like to discuss it.”
“You… you’re not serious?”
“I really can’t get a thing past you, can I? No, it’s really about an unreturned library book.”
“You really are just kidding me now, aren’t you?”
“Yet again you’ve seen right through me. It’s almost as though I needn’t be here”
—Composer Mahrai Ziller being an asshole to someone asking a stupid question in Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks.
